The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute: a national wilderness research program in support of wilderness management

The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute strives to provide scientific leadership in developing and applying the knowledge necessary to sustain wilderness ecosystems and values. Since its 1993 dedication, researchers at this federal, interagency Institute have collaborated with researchers and managers from other federal, academic and private institutions to support and conduct research on high priority topics related to recreation, natural disturbances and nonnative species. This paper gives an overview of the research conducted through the Leopold Institute and suggests future wilderness research directions for these issues. Leopold Institute staff strive to make research applicable to management through all phases of the research process. Expanding recreation use and development pressures outside wilderness make i t increasingly diff icult for managers to preserve natural condit ions and quali ty wilderness experiences. To protect and restore wilderness ecosystems and experiences, wilderness managers must understand wilderness resources, and the threats to those resources. Rigorous scientific research can help managers understand these, including: 1) wilderness ecosystems, 2) biological and social impacts of human activities to wilderness, 3) the role of wilderness in larger ecological and social systems and 4) potential consequences of alternative policy and management decisions. The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute was established in 1993 as an interagency program to provide scientific leadership in developing the knowledge needed to protect and preserve wilderness, parks and other natural areas and to communicate and apply this knowledge to wilderness management. Located on the University of Montana campus in Missoula, the Leopold Institute is an outgrowth of the U.S. Forest Service’s Wilderness Management Research Work Unit of the Intermountain Research Station (now the Rocky Mountain Research Station), which was created in 1967. The Leopold Institute operates under an interagency agreement among the four U.S. wilderness management agencies—Forest Service (USDA), National Park Service (USDI), Bureau of Land Management (USDI), Fish and Wildlife Service (USDI)— and the U.S. Geological Survey (USDI). The Leopold Institute’s scientific staff include five fulltime research scientists (social scientist, recreation ecologist, landscape ecologist, plant ecologist and zoologist), a biologist, data analyst and research application specialist. Research activities include in-house studies, as well as cooperative projects with researchers and managers from other agencies and universities across the United States. In addition to collaborative research, cooperative activities include exchange programs, support of visiting researchers, leadership in professional activities and societies and sponsorship of lectures, workshops and symposia. This paper gives an overview of the types of research conducted through the Leopold Institute. It describes issues identified by Leopold Institute scientists and their collaborators as some of today’s wilderness research priorities, illustrates these issues with examples of Leopold Institutesponsored research and research application activities and suggests future wilderness research direction within the context of the established research priorities. Priority Research Issues _________ Leopold Institute scientists conduct and support a variety of research projects to improve the understanding and preservation of wilderness ecosystems, and the associated human experiences and values. These include both ecological studies on how to define and maintain natural ecosystems and social studies on various aspects of wilderness experiences. The Leopold Institute conducted a comprehensive issue identification and prioritization process during 1995-96 to identify core issues that would form the focus of the Institute’s research efforts, and provide a wilderness research agenda within which scientists interested in these topics could work. Potential research topics were placed into three priority classes, or tiers. The resulting tier-one priority issues were: 1) understanding natural disturbance regimes and the effects of their alteration by human actions, and developing strategies to manage and restore natural disturbances in wilderness ecosystems, 2) understanding the effects of recreation use and recreation management strategies on wilderness attributes and visitor experiences, and 3) understanding the effects of nonnative species and their management on wilderness. The majority of the Leopold Institute’s past and current efforts and resources have addressed the first two