Wilderness Management Dilemmas: Fertile Ground for Wilderness Management Research

Increasingly, wilderness managers must choose between the objective of wildness (“untrammeled” wilderness) and the objectives of naturalness and solitude. This dilemma has surfaced with awareness of the pervasiveness of human influence in wilderness and that regulation is often the only way to maintain outstanding opportunities for solitude. Should we trammel wilderness to compensate for unnatural effects of human activity or, to avoid trammeling wilderness, should we allow conditions to become increasingly unnatural? Should we restrict access and behavior to preserve opportunities for solitude, knowing this will exacerbate supply/demand problems and deny visitors a sense of freedom and spontaneity? This paper discusses this dilemma and opportunities for research in support of different objectives. The goals of wilderness management are to keep wilderness wild and “untrammeled” while preserving natural ecosystems and opportunities for high quality experiences, characterized by solitude, primitiveness and lack of confinement. When working toward these goals, managers have frequently turned to science for help. Science can often help management by identifying potential problems and useful approaches, by evaluating the effectiveness of alternative approaches and by describing the pros and cons of alternative courses of action. However, science is less helpful in deciding between alternative management objectives when fundamental goals are in conflict. Ideally, applied science— like management—should be conducted within the context of objectives that have already been clearly defined by