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

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NPCA to rally support for converting Mount St. Helens Volcanic NMon to NP

Submitted by gwsadmin on Thu, 05/17/2012 - 10:27

SEATTLE - Friday is the 32nd anniversary of the Mount St. Helens eruption. The area is now a national monument, but people are gathering there that day to make a case for turning it into a national park. Read more

Canada: Enviros split on effect so far of Quebec's Plan Nord

Submitted by gwsadmin on Thu, 05/17/2012 - 10:24

MONTREAL - A landmark forest conservation agreement, which involves tracts of Quebec boreal forest, is getting failing grades from key environment groups.

The 2010 pact, which saw a truce between forestry companies, hasn’t delivered, according to a status report by Canopy, Greenpeace and ForestEthics. Read more

With 8% coverage, NOAA analysis claims "good progress" toward MPA establishment

Submitted by gwsadmin on Thu, 05/17/2012 - 10:22

New analysis of updated data shows that although 8 percent of U.S waters are designated as marine protected areas, the majority of these areas are open to fishing and other activities.

That’s according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has cataloged marine protected areas on its website.

"These data show that the U.S. has a representative network of MPAs, both geographically and for different purposes, and 8 percent is good progress,” National Marine Protected Areas Center acting director Lauren Wenzel said in a statement. Read more

Argentina: Indigenous communities, local government, NGO team up to create "Emerald Green Corridor" in Atlantic coastal forest

Submitted by gwsadmin on Thu, 05/17/2012 - 10:19

Last month, three Guarani communities, the local Argentine government of Misiones, and the UK-based NGO World Land Trust forged an agreement to create a nature reserve connecting three protected areas in the fractured, and almost extinct, Atlantic Forest. Read more

Brazil: Impending decision on whether to veto controversial Forest Code seen as defining moment for president

Submitted by gwsadmin on Thu, 05/17/2012 - 10:08

RIO DE JANEIRO — President Dilma Rousseff is facing one of the defining moments of her presidency as pressure builds on her to veto a bill that would open vast protected areas of forests to ranching and farming, potentially reversing Brazil’s major gains in slowing Amazon deforestation. Read more

USFS wants to close caves in Rocky Mountain NFs to stem spread of whitenose syndrome

Submitted by gwsadmin on Thu, 05/17/2012 - 10:01

(Reuters) - The U.S. government is seeking to close caves in national forests in the Northern Rockies to stem the spread of white-nose bat syndrome, a disease that has killed an estimated 5.5 million bats in 19 states and is spreading westward, officials said on Wednesday.

The fungus, which affects bats that hibernate in caves and mines, is mostly transmitted from bat to bat. But government scientists say it also can be transferred by caving enthusiasts who come in contact with infected bats or with the spores that linger after the syndrome has killed off a colony. Read more

Recently published — The GWS2011 Conference Proceedings

Table of contents

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

Volume 29, no. 1 • May 2012

The National Park Service Centennial Essay Series: What's justice got to do with it?

Justice
We are living at a moment in time, George B. Hartzog III writes, that is especially ripe for an "expanded park idea" that places parks within a larger context of pressing societal issues. "The park idea must be linked with the great ideas which form our common life," Hartzog argues, one of which is justice—which in turn can be linked to issues of liberty, of civic engagement, of equity. The national parks must address these issues directly and consistently, he says, or they will sink into irrelevance. Read the essay

Check out these recent publications by GWS members:

Working Together: Our Stories • Parks Canada Aboriginal Affairs Secretariat, Nathalie Gagnon, ed.
A bilingual account of Parks Canada's innovative engagement with Native peoples

Vital Signs Monitoring: Overviews • Jerry Freilich et al., eds.
An inside look at I&M in Washington state

Warfare Ecology: A New Synthesis for Peace and Security • Gary Machlis et al., eds.
Explains and explores the new field of warfare ecology

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!

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

GWS2011 proceedings published; 71 papers from New Orleans conference included

Submitted by admin on Thu, 03/01/2012 - 15:00

(March 1) — The GWS has just published "Rethinking Protected Areas in a Changing World: Proceedings of the 2011 George Wright Society Conference on Parks, Protected Areas, and Cultural Sites." It's a 423-page volume containing 71 papers from the conference last year in New Orleans.

We are publishing it as an e-book in PDF format. In keeping with the GWS's open-access publication philosophy, the PDFs can be downloaded at no charge. The entire volume is available to download as a single file, or you can download individual papers, from Read more

UN Foundation supports World Heritage Convention on 40th anniversary; GWS continues advocacy for program

Submitted by admin on Mon, 02/06/2012 - 12:11

The year 2012 marks the 40th anniversary of the World Heritage Convention, and the United Nations Foundation has issued a statement reaffirming its strong support for the treaty's program recognizing natural, cultural, and mixed sites of global significance. The foundation noted that UNESCO's efforts on behalf of World Heritage "have left an indelible mark on humanity's collective imagination." Read more