GWS2007: Overview

Rethinking Protected Areas in a Changing World

There is a well-known saying — supposedly an old Chinese curse — that goes: “May you live in interesting times.” It turns out that the expression probably isn’t from ancient China, but as an ironic statement of life’s challenges in times of upheaval, it is a sentiment perfectly expressed. Today, we are certainly living in “interesting times” — times of momentous, often wrenching, change.

The theme of the 2007 George Wright Society Conference on Parks, Protected Areas, and Cultural Sites, “Rethinking Protected Areas in a Changing World,” is a challenge to the community of park and resource professionals to assess the large-scale changes that are transforming the world.

But wait a minute, you say. Everyone knows the world is changing; it changes all the time. Always has, always will. So is there really anything new here? And if something fresh is happening, whatever it may be, why should it cause us to “rethink” the role of parks, protected areas, and cultural sites in today’s society?

The answer is, yes, something new is indeed happening. What’s new is how widely and quickly social, political, and economic systems are changing; how much and how fast these interconnected changes in the human world are transforming natural systems; and how all these changes in nature and culture are so much more globally interconnected than ever before. The scale and pace of change are what makes our present-day “Changing World” fundamentally different from what has gone before.

What are some of these far-reaching changes?

Global climate change is the backdrop against which everything else takes place. Climate change has the potential to affect every aspect of human society, including the basic premises that nature conservation is built around. For example, what does a manager do when the species the park is supposed to protect begin dying out or migrating because of global warming?
Globalization is an extremely complex phenomenon that holds both perils and promise for parks and cultural sites. Controls on information exchange, energy flows, and corporate behavior once were strongly associated with national boundaries. Now those controls are disappearing, challenging old concepts about how protected area systems should be organized and how individual parks and cultural sites should be managed.
Shifting demographics are bringing new sets of visitors with different expectations. At the same time some traditional park clienteles are aging, and this is changing recreational patterns.
The increasing democratization of heritage means that many different groups are now laying claim to the interpretation of heritage sites. Meanings and modes of interpretation are being vigorously contested, and site managers are caught in the crossfire.
The continuing erosion of biodiversity through habitat loss and the spread of invasive species threatens to undo the fabric of nature. Protected natural areas are assumed to be a primary means of protecting biodiversity, but we don’t have a long enough track record to determine whether this is true.
The growing emphasis on national security in the United States in the wake of 9/11 has shifted budget priorities and stressed park staffs as protection personnel are detailed to security assignments. Can we make the case that systems of protected natural areas and cultural sites are crucial to national security?
The alienation of people from the past — the disconnect between average citizens and a grounded sense of history — continues to concern cultural heritage professionals. The decline in historical literacy is especially worrisome among youth.
Ongoing debates over privatization of parks and heritage sites have brought diametrically opposed political ideologies to the doorstep of park and site managers.
The emergence of civic engagement as an organizing principle in park outreach programs promises to deepen the intellectual engagement of parks and heritage sites with their visitors. By making parks and heritage sites a space where contentious social issues can be constructively debated, civic engagement reinforces the role of these places as an important part of an open society.

Why rethink protected areas? As the caretakers of one of modern civilization’s greatest achievements — organized systems of parks and cultural sites that protect and maintain important facets of cultural and natural heritage — we as park professionals must respond to this litany of far-reaching changes. GWS2007 provides a platform where we can begin.

A week of reflection, camaraderie, and renewal

Every two years, the George Wright Society organizes and is the primary sponsor of the USA’s premier interdisciplinary conference on parks, protected areas, and cultural sites. By these three overlapping terms we mean a broad array of places—both “cultural” and “natural”—managed by different entities under a variety of designations: parks at all levels; historic, archaeological, and other cultural sites; cultural landscapes; research areas and designated wilderness within national and state forests, grasslands, wildlife refuges, and other public lands; tribal reserves; marine, estuarine, freshwater, and other aquatic sanctuaries; private land-trust reserves; and similarly designated areas. The GWS Conference also encompasses disciplines and activities that support the work of parks, protected areas, and cultural sites, such as ethnography, GIS, and museum work.

The GWS is unique among professional organizations because it encourages dialogue and information exchange among all the people needed for protected area conservation, from historians to biologists, managers to researchers, public agencies to private organizations, academics to field personnel. The conference reflects this cross-cutting approach. We host professionals from many fields of cultural and natural resource conservation for a stimulating week of discussion. The GWS conference brings people together to share problems and information, hear new perspectives, and contemplate critical questions about the future of protected areas.



Scenes from the GWS2005 Conference in Philadelphia (Photos by Chuck Rafkind USNPS)

In recent years, 750–850 people have attended. Typically, about 60% are from the U.S. National Park Service and the conference program reflects this; in fact, the conference serves as the top-level meeting of NPS cultural and natural resource professionals. However, as noted above, the scope of the conference goes well beyond the U.S. National Park System to include other federal agencies, state agencies, NGOs, academic concerns, and organizations outside the USA.

GWS2007 will be the 14th in this series of conferences, which date back to 1976. Since 1982, the conferences have been organized by the George Wright Society. Past conferences have been recognized as official training opportunities by various U.S. federal agencies.