naturalness and beyond: protected area stewardship in an ... · the human-dominated world. in this...

In recent decades, however, peoplehave begun to question the feasibility ofmaintaining natural conditions in protectedareas. Growing awareness of Native Ameri-can influence and recognition of the dynam-ics of natural systems raise questions aboutwhat naturalness even is. And with increas-ing recognition of the potential effects of cli-mate change, there is a dawning awarenessthat it may not even be desirable to maintainnaturalness. Is the concept of naturalnessstill sufficient to guide protected area stew-ardship? Should it be reinterpreted or moreprecisely defined? Are there other concepts

that should complement it or take its place(Box 1)?

In April 2007 we convened a smallworkshop to explore this question. In thispaper, we share some of what was discussedin that workshop. We examine the variousmeanings of naturalness and why it isincreasingly problematic (as commonlydefined) as a central goal for protected areamanagement. We detail the case for andagainst human intervention in ecosystemprocesses. We explore how naturalnessmight be redefined or reinterpreted, andhow concepts such as ecological integrity

The George Wright Forum36

Naturalness and Beyond: Protected Area Stewardship in an Era of Global Environmental Change

David N. Cole, Laurie Yung, Erika S. Zavaleta, Gregory H. Aplet, F. Stuart Chapin III, David M. Graber, Eric S. Higgs, Richard J. Hobbs,Peter B. Landres, Constance I. Millar, David J. Parsons, John M. Randall,Nathan L. Stephenson, Kathy A. Tonnessen, Peter S. White, and Stephen Woodley

IntroductionFOR MOST LARGE U.S. PARKS AND WILDERNESS AREAS, enabling legislation and managementpolicy call for preservation of these protected areas unimpaired in perpetuity. Central to thenotions of protection, preservation, and unimpairment has been the concept of maintaining“naturalness,” a condition imagined by many to persist over time in the absence of humanintervention. As will be discussed below in more detail, the goal of naturalness has been cod-ified in legislation and protected area policy and built into agency culture. For much of the20th century, the adequacy of naturalness as the guiding concept for stewardship of protect-ed areas remained largely unchallenged. Scientists, managers, and conservationists assumedthat natural conditions could be preserved and that doing so would assure long-term conser-vation of biodiversity and ecosystems within protected area boundaries.

Volume 25 • Number 1 (2008) 37

and resilience might supplement or replaceit. We suggest the need for a pluralistic,adaptive, and flexible approach to protectedarea management. We conclude by describ-ing some of the ways protected area man-

agers might move forward given currentconditions and uncertainties about thefuture.

In a world changing as rapidly as ours,clear articulation of goals and objectives is

Box 1. Would a Joshua Tree National Park without Joshua trees be natural?

In a recent attempt to predict vegetation response to future climate change, Cole etal. (2005) reported that Joshua trees may no longer be able to persist within Joshua TreeNational Park. While such a prediction is based on numerous untestable assumptions,there is a real chance that Joshua Tree National Park will lose its icon and signaturebotanical element. This provides a dramatic example of the issues we are raising in thispaper. How should the National Park Service respond to this? How does this influencetheir ecosystem stewardship goals and objectives within park boundaries? And does theNational Park Service have an obligation to help secure the future persistence of Joshuatrees on lands outside park boundaries?

The primary premise of our article is that the concept of naturalness—which tradi-tionally has guided ecosystem stewardship in parks—is not very helpful in answeringsuch questions. Which of the available stewardship options is more natural: (1) maintain-ing Joshua trees in the park through artificial means, (2) allowing Joshua trees to disap-pear from the park, despite the likelihood that this loss reflects modern technologicalhuman influence, or (3) actively assisting the migration of Joshua trees to more norther-ly locations where they are more likely to persist? Decisions will reflect descriptors ofpark purpose other than naturalness—biodiversity preservation or nostalgia (maintainingpark icons) perhaps—descriptors that currently are not clearly articulated in park policy.

Joshua Tree National Park landscapes would look very different without any Joshua trees. Photocourtesy of Richard Frear; Joshua trees “removed” by Suzanne Schwartz.

vital to preservation of park values. Thetypical response to rapid change is to takeaction, but action without a clear notion ofdesired outcomes can be more harmful thaninaction. We hope that this paper will cat-alyze healthy debate about the purposes ofparks and wilderness areas now that we rec-ognize how rapidly everything is chang-ing—debate that will lead to clarity suffi-cient to guide action.

Managing for naturalnessThe centrality of naturalness as the

guiding principle behind management isclear in the management policies developedto implement the National Park Service Act(1916). The Organic Act declared that thefundamental purpose of the parks is “toconserve the scenery and the natural andhistoric objects and the wild life therein . . .unimpaired for the enjoyment of future gen-erations.” The policies developed to meetthis purpose, from Secretary of InteriorFranklin Lane’s letter to Director StephenT. Mather (Sellars 1997), stated that “everyactivity of the Service is subordinate toduties imposed upon it to faithfully pre-serve the parks for posterity in essentiallytheir natural state.” More recent policiesstate that national parks will preserve “com-ponents and processes in their natural con-dition,” defining “natural condition” as “thecondition of resources that would occur inthe absence of human dominance over thelandscape” (National Park Service 2006).The Wilderness Act (1964) similarly de-fines wilderness (among other things) as anarea “protected and managed so as to pre-serve its natural conditions.” But what doesit mean to preserve natural conditions andmanage for naturalness?

One sense of the word “natural” refersto everything other than the supernatural

(Rolston 2001), so we need a more restrict-ed definition when thinking about park andwilderness stewardship. Most commonlythe natural world has been contrasted withthe human-dominated world. In this sense,two related characteristics of naturalnessare a lack of human effect on ecosystemsand a lack of human control of ecosystems(Table 1). Interwoven with this has been thenotion that natural ecosystems are stable,self-regulating, and equilibrial. Anothercommonly perceived characteristic of natu-ralness, then, has been a high degree of his-torical fidelity (Higgs 2003): natural eco-systems should appear and function muchas they did in the past. This has led protect-ed area managers to use past conditions asbenchmarks for the future.

These meanings reflect scientific andsocietal assumptions about ecosystems thatpersisted for much of the twentieth century.The idea that North American ecosystemshad been stable for long periods of timeprior to European settlement dominatedconservation discourse. Native Americanswere believed to have had little, if any, rolein shaping these ecosystems. Protectedareas were assumed to be large enough tosustain themselves over time, so it seemedpossible to preserve the ecosystems andspecies currently occupying protected areassimply by avoiding commercial exploitationand development. Little intervention in thebiological and physical processes of pro-tected area ecosystems should be necessary.Maintaining naturalness would simultane-


Table 1. Common traditional meanings of nat-uralness.


ously meet such diverse goals as conservingbiodiversity, maintaining vignettes of primi-tive America (Leopold et al. 1963) by keep-ing ecosystems relatively unchanged overtime, and respecting nature’s autonomy(Ridder 2007) by avoiding intervention.

Naturalness challengedThe adequacy of naturalness as the

guiding concept for park and wildernessstewardship has been challenged as protect-ed area goals have evolved, scientific knowl-edge has improved, and the sphere ofhuman influence has gone global. Initially,national parks were largely about sceneryand spectacle (Graber 1983). Managementemphasis revolved around nostalgia—keep-ing things the way they were—and aesthet-ics. Managers were not reluctant to activelymanage for this purpose—from feedingbears to shooting coyotes and wolves.Scenery, spectacle, and aesthetics remainworthwhile park pursuits. But over the pastcentury the list of park values and purposeshas grown.

The Leopold Report (Leopold et al.1963) called for active management (restor-ing or maintaining disturbance and succes-sional processes) so that “the maintenanceof naturalness shall prevail.” Managementpolicies also emphasize intervening as littleas possible in biological and physical pro-cesses (National Park Service 2006), reflect-ing new appreciation for a value that Ridder(2007) calls respecting nature’s autonomy.More profoundly, the conservation of bio-logical diversity has become a core goal forparks and wilderness, with the definition ofbiological diversity expanding to includepreservation of genetic diversity, species,plant and animal communities, the funda-mental physical and biological processeswhich organisms depend on and which

structure communities, as well as rates ofnatural change (National Park Service2006).

With increased complexity in park val-ues and purposes comes increased conflictbetween those values and purposes.Managing for some of the meanings of natu-ralness negate other meanings. In contrastto mid-20th-century beliefs, we know thatnatural ecosystems are highly dynamic (Wuand Loucks 1995). Therefore, if we are toallow for the free play of natural processes,including evolutionary change, we cannotexpect future park landscapes to look likethey did in the past (White and Bratton1980). To some degree we must choosebetween aesthetic, nostalgic park values andcertain ecological values. We have learnedthat many so-called natural park andwilderness ecosystems in North Americahave been profoundly affected by indige-nous peoples, particularly through burningand hunting (Kay 1995; Mann 2005; Pyne1997). Past human influence has not beenprofound everywhere (Vale 2002). How-ever, in many parks and wildernesses, if weare to conserve native biodiversity, it will beimportant to maintain some past humaninfluences. We must give up the notion ofnatural park ecosystems as being unaffectedby humans.

We have also learned that even themost remote park and wilderness ecosys-tems already have been and will continue tobe affected substantially by modern humanactivities (Cole and Landres 1996). Again,the magnitude of influence—past andfuture—has been variable. But in manyplaces, conservation of native biodiversitywill compel us to actively manage ecosys-tems, compromising our interest in respect-ing nature’s autonomy by avoiding inter-vention.

In short, it is increasingly clear that nat-uralness is no longer the umbrella underwhich all protected area values comfortablysit. We must choose among protected areavalues and among the traditional meaningsof naturalness. In particular, we must con-front the dilemma of intervention. Then wemust articulate desired future conditions forpark ecosystems in terms that carry greaterclarity and specificity than traditionalnotions of naturalness (Figure 1).

The dilemma of interventionGiven that human activities are altering

park and wilderness ecosystems, the firstdecision protected area managers face iswhether or not (or under what circum-stances) to intervene through active man-

agement. Much of what we call interventionand active management involves ecologicalrestoration—“the process of assisting therecovery of ecosystems that have been dam-aged, degraded or destroyed” (SERI 2006).We use the more generic term “interven-tion” to include any prescribed course ofaction that intentionally alters ecosystemtrajectories and to avoid the connotation ofa return to past conditions. In many cases,redirection might be a better term thanrestoration. Interventions range from light-ing fires to culling ungulate populations,from thinning forests to assisted migrationof individuals or species better-adapted tochanging conditions. Some are one-timeactions, such as introducing a species andstepping back to see if it can thrive in a new


Figure 1. Landscapes dominated by open-grown, old-growth pines, like these in Kings CanyonNational Park, have been characterized as aesthetic, nostalgic, anthropogenically structured, andhigh in ecological integrity. Are such landscapes natural? Do we increase or decrease naturalnessby actively restoring forest structure using management ignitions and/or mechanical thinning? Is aforest thinned by wildfire more natural than one that is thinned mechanically? Photo courtesy ofDavid Parsons.


site. Others are ongoing, such as limingwater bodies to mitigate the effects of aciddeposition (Figure 2). Some interventionsare small in scale (e.g., actively maintaininga ten-acre sequoia or Joshua tree forest at alocation no longer ideal for the species)while others might be large in scale (e.g.,burning tens of thousands of acres eachyear).

In making decisions about whether ornot to intervene, the concept of naturalnessoffers little guidance. Since naturalnessimplies both a lack of human effect and alack of human control, one of the meaningsof naturalness will be violated whatever isdone—or not done (Sydoriak et al. 2001).

Decisions must be made using some otherguidance, most often a choice between thevalues of preserving biodiversity andrespecting nature’s autonomy—to useRidder’s (2007) terminology. Protectedarea managers can deliberately intervene inecosystems to restore them, to maintain cur-rent systems (resist change), to conservespecific aspects of biodiversity, or assist intheir transformation to perhaps better-adapted systems (for example, in responseto climate change). Box 2 provides an exam-ple of intervention for the primary purposeof conserving regional biodiversity (andrecreational opportunities) at the expenseof pre-European conditions.

Figure 2. In the Saint Mary’s Wilderness, Virginia, atmospheric pollution has lowered pH so much thatnative invertebrate and fish populations are substantially reduced. In response, a helicopter has beenused to dump limestone sand adjacent to creeks. This treatment, projected to be repeated every 5–8years, raised pH levels as well as taxa richness and the population of native invertebrates and fishes.Photo courtesy of Steven Brown.

Or managers can choose not to inter-vene and allow ecosystems to adapt andchange as they will, absent human inten-tion. This, of course, is also a deliberate andintentional management decision, with verydifferent outcomes than active manage-ment. Some of the language in the Wilder-ness Act—where wilderness is defined as aplace “where the earth and its communityof life are untrammeled by man”—argues

against intervention. To be untrammeled, aplace should not be intentionally controlledor manipulated for any purpose, even theconservation of biodiversity (Cole 2000).National Park Service policy is moreamenable to intervention, stating that inter-vention in natural biological or physicalprocesses will be the exception not the rule,but that it is appropriate “to restore ecosys-tem functioning that has been disrupted by


Box 2. Assisted migration into designated wilderness: Biodiversity conservation trumps naturalness

Recently, in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Montana, stewardship decisions havebeen made that some might consider inconsistent with wilderness. These decisions con-

done assisted migration—helping species relo-cate to places where they are more likely to per-sist—and they place more importance on speciesconservation than on naturalness. The decisionspertain to management of fish populations inabout 20 lakes in the Bob Marshall Wildernessthat historically were fishless but that have beenstocked with non-native trout for many decades.The plan—approved but not yet implemented—is to remove all non-native trout from these lakes.Then, rather than leave the lakes fishless as theyoriginally were, they will be stocked with geneti-cally pure westslope cutthroat trout. These lakes,which fish are unable to migrate to themselves,offer a refuge from other fish that hybridize withwestslope cutthroat and pollute them genetically.Wilderness provides the most inviolate refuge

and, therefore, is considered necessary to the preservation of this species, even thoughthe requisite action compromises naturalness.

This situation is complicated by states’ rights issues. This intervention, pushed bythe Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department, would almost certainly not have beenproposed if the species at risk were not a game species. Nevertheless, it illustrates thepotential to give precedence to a conservation goal other than preserving natural condi-tions, even in wilderness. It also illustrates the potential to use techniques like assistedmigration, despite the degree to which they seem like “playing God.”

Historically fishless lakes in the BobMarshall Wilderness, Montana, will beused as refuges to preserve geneticallypure westslope cutthroat trout. Photocourtesy of David Cole.


past or ongoing human activities” (NationalPark Service 2006).

Workshop participants agreed thatprotected area managers will need to oper-ate across this entire spectrum from non-intervention to active transformation. Therewas general agreement that it was best tointervene only when necessary and that thethreshold for intervention should be partic-ularly high in wilderness. Wilderness landsshould be managed with a light touch—with restraint and humility. They have par-ticular importance as “controls” within alandscape of more actively managed land-scapes. But there were divergent opinionsabout how widespread non-interventionstrategies should be and the criteria fordeciding whether or not to intervene. Theconcept of naturalness does not provideclarity regarding criteria and thresholds forintervention, so better guidance must bedeveloped. We agreed that the need forintervention increases:

• As protected area size decreases (smallprotected areas are less buffered fromhuman influence);

• Where pre-settlement influence wassubstantial and as current human influ-ence increases (adverse effects are pro-nounced);

• As the social value of attributes increas-es (more valued entities are at risk);and

• As the scale of stressors increases(impacts are widespread, as in fire sup-pression or climate change).

However, we also noted that although inter-ventions may be particularly beneficialwhere stressors are operating at large scalesand affecting highly valued attributes, inter-ventions in such situations are also particu-larly risky. The costs of failure (like the ben-

efits of success) are high because the valuesat risk are so large and the effects are sowidespread.

Desired outcomes of interventionsDecisions to intervene in park and wil-

derness ecosystems should be based ongoals (White and Bratton 1980) and thedesired outcomes of interventions shouldbe made specific in the form of operationalobjectives and targets that identify “whatshould be preserved” (which elements andprocesses) and “in what state” (Christensen1988). NPS Management Policies (2006)state that decisions to intervene must “bebased on clearly articulated, well-supportedmanagement objectives.” This is where theambiguities and divergent definitions ofnaturalness are most problematic—wherethe guidance it provides is particularlyinsufficient. Objectives and outcomes needto be knowable, attainable, and desirable.By most definitions, naturalness has few tonone of these attributes.

What is natural is not knowable be-cause ecosystems are dynamic (White andBratton 1980). To set intervention targets,change must be parsed into natural changeand unnatural change. The concept of his-torical or natural variability has become apopular means of accounting for temporalvariability when developing target condi-tions for managed lands (Landres et al.1999). For parks and wilderness, the impli-cation is that restoration is likely to berequired if current conditions lie far outsidethe range of natural variability (Franklin andAplet 2002). But how far is too far?

Paleoecologists have simultaneouslyadvocated that historical data inform man-agement but cautioned that such datashould not be used as targets for the future.Ecosystems are unique in time and space,

so it is seldom possible or desirable to re-turn them very precisely to a former state(Gillson and Willis 2004). Millar and Bru-baker (2006:331) argue that:

Predisturbance or pre-Euro-Americanimpact conditions are used routinelyas reference models or desired targetsfor ecological restoration. Thisassumes, however, that climate hasn’tchanged between the historic targettime and the present and that humaninfluence hasn’t confounded historicconditions. These assumptions aretenuous, and the likelihood of theirvalidity decreases with time betweenthe historic target and present. . . .Long-term confounding of humanwith nonhuman influences challengesuse of historic conditions as models forpristine or natural conditions inrestoration.

Long-term historical data may be more use-ful in determining where thresholds havebeen exceeded than in defining the desiredoutcome of a management intervention(Willis and Birks 2006).

Natural conditions are not attainablegiven the ubiquity of human impact. Cli-mate change provides the best example, butthe prevalence of invasive species providesanother. Future climates that have no ana-logue will be reflected in no-analogueecosystems (Fox 2007). We can reinterpretor redefine naturalness to accept substantialongoing human impact, but what guidanceis there for decisions about which types toaccept and how much is too much? NPSManagement Policies (2006) direct man-agers to “maintain the closest approxima-tion of the natural condition when a trulynatural system is no longer attainable.” Butthis traditional approach is problematic

because past and even current systems maybe unstable under future climatic condi-tions (Harris et al. 2006). Near-natural con-ditions may be undesirable and attemptingto restore them may be counterproductive.In light of the pervasive global changes thatare occurring, Stephenson (2005) suggeststhat “the NPS and similar wilderness man-agement agencies need to reexamine theirmissions”—perhaps focusing on “maintain-ing native biodiversity, even if communitystructure and composition are no longernatural.”

Beyond naturalnessWorkshop participants generally

agreed about these concerns with the mean-ings of naturalness and that varied interpre-tations of the concept can lead to inconsis-tent and, possibly, inappropriate manage-ment. However, opinions about how torespond varied. Some participants advocat-ed reinterpretation of the term “natural-ness” to reflect new ecological understand-ing and the realities of global change. Whilethey recognized a need for more precise andconsistent definition (Landres et al. 1998),they felt that naturalness continues to pro-vide a useful goal for park and wildernessmanagement—an ideal to strive for—a con-straint to the range of interventions thatmight be attempted in the absence of afoundation in historical fidelity. They val-ued the emphasis that naturalness places onconservation of native, indigenous elementsand processes and on systems that are dom-inated by nature as opposed to humans.Other participants felt the concept wasfatally flawed and should be replaced.Whether a supplement to or a replacementfor naturalness, there was widespreadagreement about a need for conceptualguidance beyond the notions of historical



fidelity and a nature-dominated world thatare inherent to the concept of naturalness.Two concepts explored during the work-shop were ecological integrity and resilience.

Ecological integrity The concept of ecological integrity has

been advocated as a goal for ecosystemstewardship for decades (e.g., Frey 1975).Ecological integrity implies wholeness,completeness—the presence of all appro-priate elements and processes operating atappropriate rates (Angermeier and Karr1994). Ecological integrity appears to be adesirable attribute for park and wildernessecosystems and seems largely consistentwith the implications of natural ecosystems.Indeed, some have defined integrity as theability to support a community of organ-isms “comparable to that of natural habitatof the region” (Karr and Dudley 1981).Others reject such a simple definition, sug-gesting that integrity is context-dependent,varying with scale, with hierarchy, and par-ticularly with societal values (Kay 1993).

In 1988, the Canada National ParksAct replaced the notion of “natural” as amanagement endpoint with the concept ofecological integrity, legally defined as “acondition that is determined to be charac-teristic of its natural region and likely to per-sist, including abiotic components and thecomposition and abundance of nativespecies and biological communities, rates ofchange and supporting processes.” Withecological integrity as the goal, ParksCanada emphasizes retention of native eco-system components. Biodiversity, ecosys-tem function, and stressors are carefullymonitored. One of the key implications isthat active management will often berequired to maintain or restore ecologicalintegrity and to keep park ecosystems with-

in threshold conditions. Thresholds are setthrough consideration of reference ecosys-tems, standards and guidelines, historicalreconstructions, biological patterns, trends,and expert opinion (Woodley 1993; ParksCanada 2005).

Under the guidance of ecologicalintegrity, Canadian park managers do notattempt to eliminate every form of humandisturbance. Rather, park managers work tomimic some of the effects of aboriginal pop-ulations where ecosystems coevolved withaboriginal management. Moreover, sincespecific landscapes can support many alter-native ecosystem states while retaining eco-logical integrity, Parks Canada must deter-mine preferred states to provide clear guid-ance and direction for interventions. Everyfive years, Parks Canada requires the prepa-ration of state of park reports for eachnational park, complete with detailed indi-cators, measures, thresholds, and targets formanagement. These feed into park manage-ment plans, which set an ecological visionand the required management actions forthe park (Parks Canada 2005).

Conserving biodiversity is a key featureof ecological integrity. Protected areas thatadopt ecological integrity as a goal mightmaintain native biodiversity, even if commu-nity structure and composition is no longernatural. Species distributions and abun-dances might fall outside the range of his-toric variability. Management interventionsmight be ongoing and large in scale to pre-serve particular ecosystem components.

Resilience Resilience has also emerged as a con-

cept that is useful when dealing with dra-matic but uncertain and unpredictablechange. Holling (1973) defines “resilience”as the capacity of a system to absorb change

and still persist without undergoing a stateshift or fundamental loss of character. Hol-ling and others distinguish ecological (orsocioecological) resilience from engineeringresilience (the rate at which a perturbed sys-tem returns to its initial state), whichemphasizes efficiency rather than adaptivecapacity. More critically, resilience is ameaningful goal only if one specifies what isto be resilient, and to what it should beresilient. Resilience is a means to an end, soprotected area managers must still decideon specific goals and objectives.

The growing literature about resilienceconceptualizes social and ecological sys-tems as interlinked (e.g., Folke et al. 2002;Gunderson and Holling 2002; Walker andSalt 2006) arguing for management acrossscales, with an understanding that protect-ed areas must be managed in the context oflarger landscapes and regional social, cul-tural, political, and ecological systems.

According to resilience theory, attemptingto prevent or resist change is likely toincrease the risk of larger future change—the past should not be preserved if it comesat the cost of reduced resilience. Severalbroad strategies for promoting resilience,along with specific ways to promote eachstrategy, have been articulated (Table 2).

Managing protected areas for ecologi-cal resilience, rather than naturalness, mightemphasize retaining ecosystem functionover preserving specific species in situ. Itmight require letting go of the way land-scapes look today as conditions change andidentifying key processes to retain in theface of change, such that although manyother variables shift around, core functionsand processes maintain their resilience.Recommended tools for building resilienceinclude experimentation, active adaptivemanagement, and structured scenario plan-ning—“envisioning alternative futures in


Table 2. Strategies for promoting the resilience of desired systems.


ways that expose fundamental variables andbranch points that may be collectivelymanipulated to evoke change” (Folke et al.2002:52).

Adopting a pluralistic and adaptiveapproach: Complementary but diversegoals and strategies

Although there was concern aboutsome of the meanings of naturalness, therewas general support among workshop par-ticipants for the notion of historical fideli-ty—the importance of continuity betweenfuture ecosystems and those of the past.The group felt that there was substantialoverlap between the concepts of historicalfidelity, ecological integrity, and resilience,as well as with the goal of conserving biodi-versity. We might look to the nexus of thesefour concepts for guidance regarding thespecifications of desired future conditionsfor protected area ecosystems (Figure 3). Atthe nexus, park and wilderness ecosystemswould be characterized by a relatively lowlevel of human influence (compared with

the developed world), managing with aslight a “touch” as possible, substantial sim-ilarity to past landscapes (including expert-ly mimicking aboriginal influence), persist-ence of most native elements and processes,and a high capacity to adapt to an unpre-dictable future (through collaborative goal-setting, experimentation and adaptive man-agement, and managing across landscapes).Advocates of the naturalness concept mightargue that naturalness implies all four ofthese elements; so might advocates of theecological integrity concept.

Despite their overlap, however, eachconcept also has unique meanings. Thevalue of parks and wildernesses can be opti-mized by providing for a diversity of man-agement objectives, particularly givenuncertainty about the impacts of climatechange and other stressors. While a coregoal of protected areas is biodiversity con-servation, more specific goals might includepreserving historic communities and land-scapes (vignettes of primitive America, asproposed by Leopold et al. 1963), conserv-ing specific endangered or endemic species,maintaining forest structure and function,allowing ecosystems to respond to changewithout human intervention (a hands-offapproach), sustaining subsistence activities(as in some Alaska protected areas), or en-hancing the resilience of a particular grass-land. Managing to preserve historic land-scapes will likely be more the exceptionthan the rule, since in many cases suchefforts are the equivalent of swimming up-stream (i.e., maintenance of such land-scapes will often require ongoing interven-tion and investment of resources). At theopposite end of the spectrum, managersmay need to anticipate and guide change, toactively transform systems rather than letthem passively degrade—to create novel

Figure 3. Historical fidelity, biodiversity conserva-tion, ecological integrity, and resilience fit togeth-er.

ecosystems in new places, for the purposeof protecting something of value andenhancing system resilience.

A single protected area might adoptdifferent goals in different areas. Protectedareas should also employ a diversity of man-agement strategies to achieve a particulargoal, since there is substantial uncertaintyabout the effectiveness of different strate-gies. However, redundancy is also impor-tant; similar strategies should be employedin multiple locations to ensure replicatedexperiments and buffering. Currently, goalsand management strategies are diverse, butfor the wrong reasons. Diversity is often theresult of personal preference, availableresources, lack of coordination, even neg-lect. It should reflect a large-scale plannedand deliberate effort that considers theappropriateness of interventions, scale,boundary effects, and how any particulararea fits within a larger system of protectedareas and the regional landscape.

Putting pluralism in a landscape contextAlthough much has already been writ-

ten about the need to conduct conservationplanning at large scales (e.g., Margules andPressey 2000; Liu and Taylor 2002; Han-sen and DeFries 2007), there are few suc-cessful examples in park and wildernessstewardship. Even without climate change,our existing parks and wilderness are notlarge enough to sustain our natural heritageby themselves. Conservation planning mustextend beyond the boundaries of protectedareas, and climate change makes this scaleof planning even more imperative. With cli-mate change, political boundaries are fixedbut the biological landscape is not (Lovejoy2006). When combined with habitat frag-mentation, species are less able to migrate tonew sites as conditions change, making cor-

ridors and connectivity between protectedareas and between protected areas and adja-cent lands even more important than in thepast.

Since a pluralistic approach to protect-ed area conservation requires both diversityand redundancy to maximize futureoptions, protected area managers mustwork with each other and with other typesof landowners to ensure that particularecosystems are managed in both similar anddissimilar ways. Scale needs to be carefullyconsidered as managers make decisionsabout conservation strategies and interven-tions. Planning must occur at multiplescales, so that protected area managersunderstand how conditions are changingacross the landscape and recognize keyopportunities.

We must become better at understand-ing the consequences of localized, short-term change at large spatial and temporalscales (White and Jentsch 2005). Localizedchanges are likely to occur rapidly.Approaches to managing specific protectedecosystems need to be situated within anoverall strategy for protected areas withinparticular ecoregions. Creating and main-taining connectivity and conserving biodi-versity across landscapes is challenginginstitutionally, politically, and ecologically,but it is absolutely necessary in the contextof global change and diverse and novelstressors.

Toward more flexible and adaptiveplanning

Traditionally, protected area managershave translated goals into operational objec-tives and specific targets—statements ofdesired future conditions. The concept ofdesired future conditions implies an under-standing of alternative future states to



choose among, the costs and benefits of dif-ferent alternatives, the resources required toachieve each state, and the likelihood ofsuccess. But the specter of climate changesuggests a future where change is rapid anddirectional and the thing we can be mostcertain about is uncertainty (Saunders et al.2007). As change and uncertainty increase,managers are less likely to possess the requi-site knowledge to specify desired futureconditions. Attempts to achieve long-termobjectives, as conditions change, could leadto loss of biodiversity, decreased resilience,and ecosystem degradation.

Climate change and other novel stres-sors call for a very different type of planningmodel—one built around objectives that arefrequently assessed and renegotiated. Goalsmay be enduring, but objectives may needto be more flexible. The time frame forobjectives may need to be shortened. Whatappear to be realistic future options mayprove unrealistic, while new options mayappear. Managers will need to be moreadaptive, regularly revisiting objectives andmanagement decisions and changing themas knowledge advances and uncertaintyretreats (Folke et al. 2002). Managers needthe flexibility to respond to deliberateexperimentation and effectiveness monitor-ing.

What can we do now?The primary conclusion of our work-

shop was that new attention needs to begiven to the purposes and values of parksand wilderness areas. Philosophical issuesneed to be raised and resolved so that moreclarity can be provided regarding the stew-ardship of ecosystems in parks and wilder-ness. That is the first order of business.Scientists might contribute to this processby (1) raising questions about naturalness

(as we do in this paper) and continuing toexplore new definitions and concepts and(2) predicting the likely outcomes of alter-native policy goals.

At the workshop, we also spent sometime articulating management options fordealing with rapid and unexpected changein protected areas. To some degree, theappropriateness of these strategies can onlybe evaluated after basic philosophical issueshave been resolved. Therefore, theseoptions are listed in an Appendix ratherthan the main body of our paper.

SummaryThe key challenge to stewardship of

park and wilderness ecosystems is to decidewhere, when, and how to intervene in phys-ical and biological processes to conservewhat we value in these places. To make suchdecisions, planners and managers mustmore clearly articulate park purposes: whatis valued and what needs to be sustained.These values likely include biodiversityconservation, ecological integrity, historicalfidelity, aesthetics, and nostalgia, as well asensuring that some of the lands in theUnited States are managed with restraintand humility, where nature is allowed totake its own course. Where interventionsare needed, planners and managers need tomore precisely define what outcomes aredesired.

The concept of naturalness providesinsufficient guidance to make such deci-sions, as does the admonition to interveneas little as possible. Perhaps it is unfortunatethat people are so familiar with the word“natural.” This familiarity leads both laypeople and scientists to assume they knowwhat it means. But the varied notions of nat-uralness are often tangled and they haveevolved over time. Although there have

been efforts to disentangle meanings (e.g.,Landres et al. 1998), naturalness continuesto mean different things to different peo-ple—depending on their knowledge, theirexperience, and their values. Inconsistentand imprecise definitions ultimately aremanifested in poor stewardship.

Although workshop participants dis-agreed about the desirability of retainingnaturalness as the core concept in protectedarea stewardship, there was general agree-ment that the concept has both desirableand undesirable implications. Some of thevalued notions implicit within the conceptof naturalness are intervening as little aspossible, valuing past landscapes and sys-tems, and avoiding human dominance ofecosystems. Notions to reject includeattempting to make landscapes of the futurereplicates of the past and not acknowledg-ing the major effects that humans have hadon park landscapes for millennia and will

have in the future. Beyond naturalness, parkand wilderness stewardship needs to beguided by concepts such as ecologicalintegrity and resilience.

Given the unprecedented rate ofchange that we face, it is time for a re-exam-ination of the goals and purposes of parksand wilderness areas. What seems possiblenow is very different from what seemed pos-sible 50 or 100 years ago. Priorities havechanged as well. What attributes of theseplaces are we most concerned about pro-tecting—or most concerned about losing—in the face of rapid change? Beyond newguidance and policy, there is also a need forinstitutional change. For ecosystems to beresilient, institutions need to be resilient. Inparticular, planning processes will need tobe more adaptive and more learning-focused, and be capable of operating atlarge spatial scales and across diverse landownerships.


Appendix: Recommended strategies and things to consider in responding to rapidand unexpected change

This is a toolbox of options to be used on a case-by-case basis, not as a one-size-fits-allprescription.

Planning and prioritizing• Work to clearly define the goals and objectives for each protected area. In some cases,

current goals may need to be redefined (e.g., from “maintain giant sequoias at this site”to “maintain soil, forest cover, and species diversity”). Goals will need to be revisited asconditions change and knowledge evolves.

• Prioritize current and future threats and changes. Focus on actions that have the mostpotential to make a difference. Practice triage when necessary.

• Decide which changes are acceptable and to what degree they are acceptable (e.g., someinvasive species, like cheatgrass, are impossible to control in large areas).

• Define undesired future conditions. Determine what to avoid (e.g., extinctions, suddenloss of vegetation and soil).

• Be prepared for surprises, as change might not always be directional and may occur inspurts.

• Carefully consider the philosophical and practical implications of proposed interven-


tions. If possible, base decisions on established criteria and thresholds, as well as a planfor implementing different levels of intervention in different places.

• Consider the appropriate scale for management actions. In some cases, starting at asmall scale might be desirable. However, in others—where the threat is widespread, theeffectiveness of the intervention has been established, and the resources are available—consider larger-scale interventions.

• Implement different strategies in different sections of each protected area (providebuffering in case one or more strategies fail). At the same time, pursue redundancy(implement similar approaches in several areas).

• Experiment to determine the effects of different management actions. Where possible,try out management interventions at small scales and more than one site, then monitorinterventions along with control (untreated) areas to maximize learning. Experimentwith new tools at an appropriate scale (small pilot projects) before utilizing in largeareas.

• Be cautious about models that predict the responses of particular communities tochanging conditions. Biological models are much less certain than climate models,which still cannot determine the precise amount of temperature change or future precip-itation. Seek information about the responses of particular species, but view the infor-mation as general guidance rather than specific predictions. Use models to explore arange of scenarios in planning processes, not to predict specific future conditions.

• Monitor for change and early detection of changes to populations and ranges. Monitorto understand the effects of management actions. Monitor smart, not hard; simple infor-mation collected consistently and with a plan is more valuable than complex, detaileddata collection with no particular strategy for learning from it.

• Of particular importance, determine how you will know when a system is undergoing astate change to which resistance is futile. So far as possible, know beforehand whetheryou will passively accept the change or actively assist in transformation to a new system.

• Plan at multiple temporal and spatial scales. Identify short-term and long-term goals andactions. Manage both short-term processes (such as disturbance events) and long-termprocesses (such as the accumulation of soil fertility). Consider individual protectedareas within a larger landscape context.

• Inform the public of the impacts of climate change, pollution, and other stressors onprotected areas. Ensure that policy-makers understand the implications of climatechange and other environmental changes on protected areas.

• Promote policies that encourage connectivity and conservation across the larger land-scape. Develop incentives for private landowners to provide habitat for migratingspecies.

• Maintain and enhance a variety of human relationships with protected areas. Cultural,social, and material connections with protected areas will ensure that the public under-stands, supports, and participates in management actions.

• Consider socially important and symbolic species and landscapes in planning. Valuessuch as wildness, nostalgia, and humility will influence the public debate about protect-ed area conservation.

• Engage the public in the planning process in a meaningful and ongoing manner. Collab-orative approaches that emphasize dialogue can build public support for managementactions and policy change.

• Conduct scenario planning (with public involvement). Consider multiple possiblefutures and multiple possible outcomes for proposed management actions. Developportraits that detail desirable and undesirable futures for protected area ecosystems. Usethese portraits to determine which management actions are most likely to lead to desiredfuture options.

Mitigation and conservation• Restore disturbance regimes, such as fire and flooding, where they favor native species

and maintain important ecological processes. Consider using disturbance to resetecosystem trajectories. For example, after a wind event consider replanting species bet-ter adapted to warmer temperatures.

• Restore extirpated species (consider whether the species are likely to survive at that sitein the future or will be able to migrate to new sites).

• Prevent and mitigate threats, such as non-native invasive species, using a variety of tools.Often, prevention greatly reduces the need for later, more costly interventions, as whenexotic species are prohibited from establishing in a protected area rather than having tobe controlled or extirpated after they have been established.

• Sustain “slow variables,” such as soil characteristics and regional species pools, that mayrequire managers to consider longer time scales and larger spatial scales, to maintainecosystem capacity to recover on its own from shocks and to boost adaptive capacity.

• Conserve dominant and seemingly minor species. Species or plant communities that arenot currently abundant, such as pockets of desert vegetation in California grasslands,may become more important as conditions change.

• Create conditions resistant and resilient to climate change and other stressors. Forexample, consider overthinning some forests, seeding restoration sites with a widerrange of species or ecotypes, or seeding with native species known to resist probleminvaders. Resistance implies the ability to stay the same despite changing conditions;remain alert to the distinction between the need for resisting versus adapting to change.

• Consider and, if necessary, prepare for assisted migration of species in response to cli-mate change.

• Although controversial, consider functional substitutes for species that cannot surviveunder current conditions. Consider realigning systems to current conditions, especiallywhere the system is already well beyond the range of natural variability. And consideractive transformation to a new system if building resilience of the current system tochange seems impossible. Weigh the possibility that passive degradation will occur ifactive transformation is not pursued.

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David N. Cole, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, 790 East Beckwith, Missoula,Montana 59801; [email protected]

Laurie Yung, Wilderness Institute, College of Forestry and Conservation, University ofMontana, Missoula, Montana 59812; [email protected]

Erika S. Zavaleta, Environmental Studies Department, University of California, Santa Cruz,California 95064; [email protected]

Greg H. Aplet, The Wilderness Society, 1660 Wynkoop Street, Suite 850, Denver, Colo-rado 80202; [email protected]

F. Stuart Chapin III, Department of Biology and Wildlife, University of Alaska, Fairbanks,Alaska 99775; [email protected]

David M. Graber, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, 47050 Generals Highway,Three Rivers, California 93271-9651; [email protected]

Eric S. Higgs, School of Environmental Studies, University of Victoria, Victoria, BritishColumbia V8W 2Y2 Canada; [email protected]

Richard J. Hobbs, School of Environmental Science, Murdoch University, Murdoch, Wes-tern Australia 6150 Australia; [email protected]

Peter B. Landres, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, 790 East Beckwith, Mis-soula, Montana 59801; [email protected]

Connie I. Millar, Pacific Southwest Research Station, U.S. Department of Agriculture–Forest Service, P.O. Box 245, Berkeley, California 94701-0245; [email protected]

David J. Parsons, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, 790 East Beckwith, Mis-soula, Montana 59801; [email protected]

John M. Randall, The Nature Conservancy and Department of Vegetable Crops & WeedScience, University of California, Davis, California 95616; [email protected]

Nathan L. Stephenson, U.S. Geological Survey Western Ecological Research Center, 47050Generals Highway. Unit 4, Three Rivers, California 93271-9651; [email protected]

Kathy A. Tonnessen, Rocky Mountains Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit, College ofForestry and Conservation, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana 59812; [email protected]

Peter S. White, Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NorthCarolina 27599-3280; [email protected]

Stephen Woodley, Ecosystem Science, Parks Canada, 25 Eddy Street, Gatineau, QuebecK1A 0M5 Canada; [email protected]


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