The George Wright Society :: Parks, Protected Areas, Cultural Sites

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GWS2013: It's a wrap!

Thanks to everyone who made GWS2013 a success! People from around the world — Australia, Japan, Korea, Germany, and Saudi Arabia, as well as those of use here in North America, including representatives from a number of Indigenous nations — gathered in Denver for a week of comaraderie and collective learning. GWS President Brent Mitchell blogged the conference ... check it out! Conference website

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

Volume 30, no. 1 • May 2013

The National Park Service Centennial Essay Series: What next for NPS design?

Names The National Park Service has a long tradition of landscape and architectural design; perhaps best known is the "Mission 66" style, developed in advance of the agency's 50th anniversary. The political and economic conditions NPS finds itself in today are totally different, though. The question, Ethan Carr asks, is: how can NPS adapt its design tradition for the 21st century? Read the essay

Check out these recent publications by GWS members:

To Conserve Unimpaired • Robert B. Keiter
Analysis of the evolution of the national park idea

Wildlife Watching in America's National Parks • Gary W. Vequist & Daniel S. Licht
A field guide to the best wildlife spots

Human Dimensions of Wildlife Management • Daniel J. Decker et al.
Second edition of the flagship book on the subject

The GWS2011 Conference Proceedings

Table of contents

What's your passion?

At the GWS, our passion is protected areas: the special places—natural areas and cultural sites alike—that are being safeguarded for perpetuity by people like you all over the world. We are dedicated to building the knowledge needed to protect, manage, and understand protected areas around the globe. The GWS is the one organization whose sole focus is on the scientific and heritage values of parks and other kinds of protected areas, from the largest wilderness area to the smallest historic site. Are these your core values too? Then help us make them a reality!

Parkwire: GWS's daily digest of global protected area news (subscribe via RSS or Twitter @parkwire)

UK: Prince William to mobilize his charity to fight poaching

Submitted by admin on Tue, 05/21/2013 - 11:08

LONDON — Britain's Prince William has joined his father Prince Charles in urging global action to tackle the illegal poaching of wild animals.

William told a conservation conference at London's St. James's Palace that he is calling on his charity, the Royal Foundation, to engage young people in the cause.

Colorado senator looking for public input on NMon proposal for Browns Canyon along Arkansas River

Submitted by admin on Mon, 05/20/2013 - 11:08

GOLDEN, Colo. — U.S. Sen. Mark Udall is asking for the public’s help in crafting legislation to create a national monument that would include 22,000 acres on both sides of the Arkansas River between Salida and Buena Vista in south-central Colorado — an area renowned for its whitewater rafting.

Tucson-area developer gets behind push to expand Saguaro NP; support seen as key

Submitted by admin on Mon, 05/20/2013 - 11:04

The latest of several bills to expand Saguaro National Park has a new ally who supporters say should increase its chances of passage - the Tucson area's most prominent and politically potent developer.

Hawaii Volcanoes NP plans to shoot non-native ungulates

Submitted by admin on Mon, 05/20/2013 - 10:56

Hawaii Volcanoes National Park officials have adopted an approach to rid the park of non-native ungulates that are exacting a toll on the park's vegetation and landscape.

Vietnam: As economy booms with little regulation, rapid deforestation threatens trove of biodiversity; "the peace is more dangerous than war"

Submitted by admin on Mon, 05/20/2013 - 10:37

In 1968, during the six-month siege of Khe Sanh — one of the most bitterly fought battles of the Vietnam War — a special U.S. Air Force outfit flew defoliation missions. Called the Ranch Handers, their motto was: “Only you can prevent a forest.”

Bill reintroduced to make Nevada's Tule Springs fossil area a NMon

Submitted by admin on Fri, 05/17/2013 - 09:45

For the second time in less than a year, Nevada lawmakers in Congress are pushing for a new national monument to protect thousands of ice age fossils hidden in the hills at the northern edge of Las Vegas.

A bill introduced Thursday would create Tule Springs Fossil Beds National Monument on roughly 22,650 acres.

Report: Local groups support redesignation of Colorado NMon as NP, but only if they can overrule USNPS

Submitted by admin on Fri, 05/17/2013 - 09:40

There's a story in western Colorado involving Colorado National Monument that bears watching. The gist of the story is that some local community organizations are in support of redesignating the monument as a national park, but only if they can veto Park Service decisions on what uses the monument is appropriate for.

DR Congo: French oil company vows to stay out of Virunga NP

Submitted by admin on Fri, 05/17/2013 - 09:38

French company Total SA (TOT) reassured stakeholders Friday that it won't explore for oil in Congo's Virunga National Park, home to mountain gorillas and a Unesco World Heritage site.

NPCA urges USNPS to head off possible attempt by state of Wyoming to allow wolf hunting in John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Parkway

Submitted by admin on Fri, 05/17/2013 - 09:37

National Park Service officials have been petitioned by the National Parks Conservation Association to start the process to ban hunting of wolves in the John D. Rockefeller, Jr. Parkway in Wyoming.

Kansas Senate approves bill to repeal development restrictions near historic sites

Submitted by admin on Thu, 05/16/2013 - 12:39

TOPEKA – After a lengthy debate over the balance between historical preservation and private-property rights, the Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would rescind state restrictions on land use near historic sites.

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

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GWS News

Copies of rare early editions of Forum sought for GWS archives

Submitted by admin on Thu, 04/25/2013 - 16:43

Do you go back to the very beginnings of the GWS? If you are a charter member of the Society, and have faithfully kept copies of The George Wright Forum all the way back, perhaps you’ll be willing to help us. We are looking to put together a second complete archival set of issues in addition to the one we maintain here at the GWS office.

US federal employees ruled eligible to serve on boards of professional societies

Submitted by admin on Thu, 04/25/2013 - 16:42

In early March, the US Office of Government Ethics (OGE) announced a major change in the implementation of a federal criminal statute that had been interpreted by some agencies as prohibiting federal employees from serving on the boards of outside organizations.