The Northwest Forest Plan has sometimes been criticized for using a reserve-based approach. At other times, it has been criticized for not placing all of the remaining old growth into “true protection”, such in a park or wilderness area. These criticisms imply that “reserve” means one thing—a no-touch-no-management zone and that a reserve approach is either not valid for dynamic forests or is t...

Wilderness medicine courses tend to teach similar topics, but they can differ with respect to philosophy, teaching methods, and financing. Our not-for-profit course is academically based and is similar to other programs with regard to presentations of didactic material and outdoor training, but there are also important differences in teaching methodology that are not used by other programs to d...

The paper identifies and discusses two major themes in wilderness social science. First, that wilderness studies (and its advocates) have been limited by an ontological tension between those who mainly approach the relationship between humans and nature on the basis of material factors and constraints and those who approach it through an examination of shifting concepts and ideas. Rather than p...

al. 2001, Loomis et al. 2001, Hesseln et al. 2003). Postfire recreation use can differ by activity and location and depends on initial forest conditions, fire characteristics, and timing of fires (e.g., Kline 2004). In wilderness areas postfire recreation likely fluctuates over time in response to changing forest conditions. Immediately after fire, recreation use may decline substantially in re...

A panel convened to develop an evidence-based set of guidelines for the recognition and treatment of eye injuries and illnesses that may occur in the wilderness. These guidelines are meant to serve as a tool to help wilderness providers accurately identify and subsequently treat or evacuate for a variety of ophthalmologic complaints. Recommendations are graded based on the quality of their supp...

doi:10.1017/S1049023X11006479 In the wake of highly publicized recent disasters in Haiti, Pakistan, and elsewhere, discourse among those concerned with the management of public health emergencies has focused on defining a standard of professionalism for humanitarian and disaster responders.1 Few “prerequisites” exist for the diversity of casual responders, experienced providers, and humanitaria...

Vultures constitute an important functional group in many ecosystems, providing crucial ecosystem services both in natural and humanized environments. These scavengers are facing massive declines worldwide, but in several African countries virtually nothing is known on populations' status and threats, hampering the development of adequate conservation strategies. In Guinea-Bissau, globally impo...

There are two words that I never appreciated before coming to Alaska — ‘‘remote” and “wilderness.” The main population centre, Anchorage, is rather deceptive. It appears to be just another American city, with its Walmarts, McDonalds, strip malls and grid of straight roads. Yet, it is a little island of the familiar, surrounded by an unimaginably vast wilderness where, as Alaskans like to remind...

Outdoor behavioral healthcare (OBH) is an emerging treatment that utilizes wilderness therapy to help adolescents struggling with behavioral and emotional problems. The approach involves immersion in wilderness or comparable lands, group living with wilderness leaders and peers, and individual and group therapy sessions facilitated by licensed therapists in the field. OBH also offers educationa...

The Wilderness Debate Rages On: Continuing the Great New Wilderness Debate (Georgia University Press, 2008) is a 2 -pound, 723-page anthology of views, opinions, polemics, and exhortations with some philosophical arguments to round out the collection. The title is, perhaps, more hopeful than descriptive. While it is clear that various authors are talking about wilderness, it’s less evident that...