First Nation in the Nahanni in Canada, and the Amazon Basin. These presentations will be included in the 8th WWC’s proceedings. 2. Managing Protected Wilderness. Recognizing that wilderness designation is not sufficient in and of itself to secure effective wilderness protection, WILD has supported, facilitated, or contributed to new training programs, development of information, training exchanges, and courses for wilderness managers for many years. Examples include the sponsorship of several editions of the Wilderness Management textbook (Hendee and Dawson, 2002), facilitating attendance of managers from South Africa at U.S. government agency wilderness training, and facilitating the visits of U.S. wilderness managers to South Africa. At the 7th WWC, WILD and the Sierra Club sponsored a wilderness management training session attended by managers from seven African countries. WILD and WPP have focused on management training through contributing to three projects: (a) Global Wilderness Seminar for Government Agencies—A training session hosted by the U.S. government’s interagency Wilderness Policy Council at the 8th WWC and designed for government land managers from around the world. This seminar was requested by participants in the IUCN Wilderness Task Force meetings held in Durban, South Africa, at the World Parks Congress in 2003, and U.S. government officials volunteered to coordinate this effort at the 8th WWC. This session established an international network of government wildland stewards who will exchange information on wilderness
management. The event was attended by 200 wilderness managers from 17 countries. (b) 8th WWC—Training for Professionals and Volunteers—A university-accredited wilderness management training implemented by the Wilderness Action Group (WAG) South Africa and the University of Montana was held in Anchorage, Alaska, from September 24 to 29, 2005, involving 50 NGO representatives and other professionals. WILD is working with WAG to develop wilderness teaching materials, which, if supplemented with local expertise, could support wilderness management training sessions elsewhere in the world. (c) Kamchatka and Russian Far East—WILD is working with the United Nations Development Program, the USDA Forest Service, the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center, the Wild Salmon Center, the Kamchatka League of Independent Experts, the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, and others to create partnerships between U.S. and Russian wilderness experts for more effective management of Kamchatka’s protected areas. In addition to strengthening partnerships between U.S. and Kamchatkan conservationists and land managers, WILD’s objective is to facilitate a pilot wilderness management training in Kamchatka using WAG- and WILD-developed training materials. 3. WPP helped organize a panel discussion at the 8th WWC on Special Conditions in U.S. Wilderness Designation and Management: Pros and Cons of Emerging Trends. This standing-
room only panel discussion focused opposing views in dialogue on an important and ongoing issue in wilderness conservation, raising questions such as: What degree of compromise in naturalness should be allowed in order to secure legal protection for proposed wilderness? What are the implications for future management of the special conditions proposed?
The Wild Planet Project— Beyond the 8th WWC To date, WPP has sought to facilitate new research, presentations, and dialogue on topics as varied as the economics of wilderness tourism, freshwater wilderness assessments, and the first international handbook on wilderness law and policy. WPP is also stimulating new applications of existing research, such as Conservation International’s
The mission of WPP is to generate new wilderness designations around the world … and to enhance the management of wilderness protected areas. analysis of wilderness and biodiversityconservation priority-setting exercises. This special publication attempts to summarize some of the state-of-the-art information that was presented at the 8th WWC. It is WPP’s first progress report and is an effort to keep the momentum of wilderness work alive between Congresses. We are grateful to the large number of partners that help make this work possible. Please enjoy the following summary materials from the 8th WWC that WPP hopes to see expanded before the 9th WWC. May 2007 | The Wild Planet Project | 17