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The Society strives to be the premier organization connecting people, places, knowledge, and ideas to foster excellence in natural and cultural resource management, research, protection, and interpretation in parks and equivalent reserves.

What is the George Wright Society?

The society is dedicated to the protection, preservation, and management of cultural and natural parks and reserves through research and education.

The GWS is a nonprofit association of researchers, managers, administrators, educators, and other professionals who work on behalf of the scientific and heritage values of protected areas. When many people think of parks, they think of them exclusively in terms of being vacation destinations and recreation areas. But the heart of parks, protected areas, and cultural sites is the resources they protect.  The GWS is dedicated to protecting and understanding these resources by promoting scientific research and cultural heritage scholarship within and on behalf of protected areas.

By “protected areas,” we mean a broad array of places—both “cultural” and “natural”—managed by different entities: parks at all levels; historic and cultural sites; research areas and designated wilderness within national and state forests, grasslands, wildlife refuges, and other public lands; tribal reserves, traditional indigenous cultural places, and community-conserved areas; marine, estuarine, freshwater, and other aquatic sanctuaries; private land-trust reserves; and similarly designated areas.   Find out more

GWS News

Learning center at Acadia NP to name building after Wright

Submitted by admin on Thu, 03/11/2010 - 16:36

The Schoodic Education and Research Center at Acadia National Park, one in a network of learning centers throughout the national park system, will be honoring the GWS' namesake by naming its first brick-and-mortar building after him.  George M. Wright Hall will be an anchor of the SERC's planned campus.

According to Bill Zoellick of SERC: Read more

Park Break Perspectives: Prioritizing cultural and natural resources in complex sites

Submitted by admin on Fri, 03/05/2010 - 10:24

 

(March 5, 2010) — The third paper in the GWS's Park Break Perspectives Series considers the challenges park managers face when they must plan for a site whose significance is a mixture of natural and historic attributes. Read more
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Parkwire: Protected area news from around the world

Comment period open on proposal to ban import of pythons that are bedevilling Everglades NP

Submitted by admin on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 14:40

The public comment period is now open on a proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ban the importation and interstate transportation of the Burmese python and eight other larger constrictor snakes.

Back in January Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called for the prohibitions in a bid to help officials in Everglades National Park, and other areas, combat the spread of these non-native snakes that are a threat to native wildlife. Specifically, he wants the snakes to be listed as "injurious wildlife" under the Lacey Act. Read more

Crossover incursions into PAs part of Belize-Guatamala border dispute

Submitted by admin on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 14:38

The upcoming national elections in Guatemala, scheduled for September of this year, makes it unlikely that a simultaneous referendum will be held in Belize and Guatemala for the electorate to decide the question of whether  or not to take the territorial dispute to the International Court of Justice. Read more

Indonesian enviros wary of government geothermal plans in protected forests

Submitted by admin on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 14:36

Environmental activists are wary that their support for building geothermal plants in protected forests will be an excuse for the government to allow companies to operate mines in the areas.

The concerns were raised following the passing of new regulation allowing underground mining in protected forests. Activists say geothermal plants pose different environmental impacts from mining and that the government should draw a clear distinction. Read more

ACHP names panel to evaluate Nantucket Sound wind project

Submitted by admin on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 14:34

A federal panel charged with assessing Cape Wind’s impact on dozens of historic sites includes an architect, an anthropologist and a Texan who runs one of the nation’s largest beer distributors.

Last week, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation identified a five-member Cape Wind review panel, as a final federal ruling on the controversial offshore wind farm appears on the horizon. Read more

In advance of CITES meeting, Kenya officially opposes re-start of ivory trade

Submitted by admin on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 14:33

NAIROBI, March 12 (Reuters ) - Kenya Friday underlined its strong opposition to any move to lift a ban on trading ivory ahead of a meeting on endangered species.

The Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is due to meet on March 13 in Qatar.

A nine-year ban on ivory sales was agreed in 2007 under the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species. Read more

In nod to border security critics, Salazar to tour Organ Pipe Cactus NMon

Submitted by admin on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 14:31

Washington » Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will tour the U.S.-Mexico border Saturday at a national monument that has been deemed so dangerous more than half is closed to the public.

Salazar will spend nearly two hours at the border of Arizona's Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument after chatting with employees at the Kris Eggle Visitor Center, which is named after a park ranger who was killed by drug runners in 2002. Read more

New Zealand: Greens, other NGOs furious at government plans to mine in PAs

Submitted by admin on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 14:28

Conservation groups and the Greens have expressed outrage at reports the government is planning to allow mining in 7000 hectares of high-value conservation land in the West Coast's Paparoa National Park, Great Barrier Island and the Coromandel Peninsula.

The government last year carried out a stocktake of minerals in the conservation estate, and intends taking parts of it out of the schedule in the Crown Minerals Act which protect it from mining. Read more

Abandoned oil wells to be plugged at Big South Fork NRA

Submitted by admin on Sun, 03/14/2010 - 14:26

ONEIDA, Tenn. - The road leading to the oil well was overgrown with mountain laurel and sawbriers. A short walk led to a rusty storage tank, and next to that was a quarter-acre area where the drilling equipment was located nearly 40 years ago.

The only evidence of the well hole itself was the wellhead - a piece of metal poking out of the ground that the surface machinery linked to. Read more
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Off the press

Sample the current issue of our journal, The George Wright Forum


Volume 26, no. 3 • December 2009

Check out these recent books by GWS members


Preserving Nature in the National Parks: A History (revised ed.) • Richard West Sellars
An updated edition of the seminal history of NPS natural resource management


Parks & People: Managing Outdoor Recreation at Acadia National Park • Robert E. Manning, ed.
A science-based approach to outdoor recreation at Acadia National Park


Wilderness in National Parks: Playground or Preserve • John C. Miles
A history of NPS's tumultuous relationship with the designated wilderness concept


Wildlife and Society: The Science of Human Dimensions • Michael Manfredo, Jerry Vaske, Perry Brown, Daniel Decker, Esther
Duke, eds.
A new reference on recent work on humans and wildlife