Keeping It Wild 2 

An Updated Interagency Strategy to Monitor Trends in Wilderness 

Character Across the National Wilderness Preservation System

Peter Landres • Chris Barns • Steve Boutcher • Tim Devine • Peter Dratch • Adrienne Lindholm 

Linda Merigliano • Nancy Roeper • Emily Simpson

United States Department of Agriculture

Forest Rocky Mountain General Technical

Service Research Station Report RMRS-GTR-340 October 2015
Landres, Peter; Barns, Chris; Boutcher, Steve; Devine, Tim; Dratch, Peter; Lindholm, Adrienne; 

Merigliano, Linda; Roeper, Nancy; Simpson, Emily. 2015. Keeping it wild 2: an updated interagency strategy to monitor trends in wilderness character across the National Wilderness 

Preservation System. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-340. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of 

Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 114 p.

Abstract

Keeping It Wild 2 is an interagency strategy to monitor trends in selected attributes of wilderness character based on lessons learned from 15 years of developing and implementing wilderness 

character monitoring across the National Wilderness Preservation System. This document updates 

and replaces Keeping It Wild: An Interagency Strategy for Monitoring Wilderness Character Across 

the National Wilderness Preservation System (Landres and others 2008), and provides a foundation for agencies to develop a nationally consistent approach to implement this monitoring. This 

monitoring strategy addresses two questions: How do stewardship activities affect attributes of 

wilderness character? How are attributes selected as integral to wilderness character changing 

over time within a wilderness, within an agency, and across the National Wilderness Preservation 

System? The primary audiences for the information from this monitoring are agency staff who 

manage wilderness day-to-day, and regional and national staff who develop wilderness policy and 

assess its effectiveness. The results of this monitoring will provide these staff some of the key data 

they need to improve wilderness stewardship and wilderness policy. Keeping It Wild 2 is designed 

to be nationally consistent across the four wilderness managing agencies and locally relevant, to be 

cost-effective, and to facilitate communication across the many resource programs that are responsible for preserving wilderness character. Implementing this monitoring strategy does not guarantee 

the preservation of wilderness character, but it informs and improves wilderness stewardship, and 

ensures managers are accountable to the central mandate of the 1964 Wilderness Act—to preserve wilderness character.

Keywords: Wilderness Act, wilderness, wilderness character, wilderness stewardship, monitoring, 

untrammeled, natural conditions, undeveloped, solitude, primitive and unconfined recreation, other 

features of value

Cover Photo Credits: Top row photos are courtesy of Nature’s Best Photography, the Smithsonian 

Institution, Wilderness50’s “Wilderness Forever” photo competition and exhibit, and the following photographers, from the left: Justin Reznick, Three Sisters Wilderness; Greg Tucker, Zion 

Wilderness; Joe LeFevre, Olympic Wilderness; Bill Lea, Marjory Stoneman Douglas Wilderness; 

Natalia Plekhanova, Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness. Bottom panorama courtesy of Nyssa Landres, 

Noatak Wilderness.

Cover design by Marianne Michalakis of designMind, Washington, DC.

The use of trade or firm names in this publication is for reader information and does not 

imply endorsement of any product or service by any of the organizations represented here.

Disclaimer

This publication is a technical report from a working group and solely 

represents the views of its authors. It does not represent and should 

not be construed to represent any agency determination or policy. 
Authors

Peter Landres is an Ecologist at the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Rocky Mountain 

Research Station, U.S. Forest Service, Missoula, MT. He holds a B.S. degree in natural science from Lewis and Clark College and a Ph.D. degree in ecology and biology from Utah State 

University.

Chris Barns is the former DOI Bureau of Land Management Representative to the Arthur Carhart 

National Wilderness Training Center, Missoula, MT. He holds a B.A. degree from Cornell University 

and an M.S. degree in forestry from the University of Minnesota.

Steve Boutcher is the National Information Manager for the Wilderness & Wild and Scenic Rivers 

Staff, Washington Office, U.S. Forest Service and is based in Burlington, VT. He holds a B.S. degree in forestry, with a Coordinate Degree in environmental studies from the University of Vermont.

Tim Devine is the DOI National Park Service Representative to the Arthur Carhart National 

Wilderness Training Center, Missoula, MT. He holds an A.A.S. degree in recreation and wildlife 

management from Hocking Technical College and a B.S. degree in wildlife management from The 

Ohio State University.

Peter Dratch is the DOI Fish and Wildlife Service Lead Biologist for Inventory and Monitoring on 

the National Wildlife Refuge System in Fort Collins, CO. He holds a B.A. degree in biology from 

the Evergreen State College and a Ph.D. degree in wildlife genetics from Edinburgh University, 

Scotland.

Adrienne Lindholm is the Wilderness Program Manager for the DOI National Park Service, Alaska 

Region in Anchorage, AK. She holds a B.S. degree in biology from the University of Richmond and 

an M.S. degree in environmental studies from the University of Montana.

Linda Merigliano is a Recreation, Wilderness, and Trails Manager for the U.S. Forest Service, 

Bridger-Teton National Forest, Jackson, WY. She holds a B.S. degree in natural resources from 

Cornell University and an M.S. degree in wildland recreation management from the University of 

Idaho.

Nancy Roeper is the National Wilderness Coordinator for the National Wildlife Refuge System of 

the DOI Fish and Wildlife Service. She holds a B.S. degree in biology from Ithaca College and an 

M.S. degree in zoology from the University of Maryland, College Park. 

Emily Simpson is the Wilderness Planner for the DOI Bureau of Land Management, Ely District, 

Nevada. She holds a B.S. degree in agriculture and resource economics from the University of 

Arizona and an M.S. degree in outdoor recreation management from Humboldt State University.
Acknowledgments

We have stood on the shoulders of hundreds of people to develop this revised and updated 

interagency strategy to monitor trends in wilderness character throughout the National Wilderness 

Preservation System. First and foremost, we thank the home units of all the authors for supporting 

their involvement in this endeavor, especially the field offices who generously allowed their staff 

to work on this national and interagency effort. This updated and revised interagency strategy 

would not have been possible without this support. 

This document has been years in the making, and was supported in many ways, both large 

and small, over this time by the four federal agencies with administrative responsibility for 

wilderness. The Keeping It Wild 2 team has drawn inspiration and substance for this interagency 

strategy from the original Forest Service (FS) Wilderness Monitoring Committee, who, along 

with participants from the other agencies, had the foresight, gumption, and persistence to begin 

developing the first national framework for monitoring wilderness character in 2001. We also 

thank the former and current members of the Interagency Wilderness Policy Council, Interagency 

Wilderness Steering Committee, and Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center for their 

constant support and confidence over the last 14 years.

A long-term effort such as this requires funding to get the work done, and Patrick 

Gregerson, Chief of Planning and Special Projects for the National Park Service (NPS), and Mark 

Chase, Chief of the Natural Resource Program Center for the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), 

were two key people who, at exactly the right moment, generously provided the funding needed 

to accomplish critical phases of this effort. Susan Fox, Director of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness 

Research Institute, former Institute Director Dave Parsons, and Connie Myers, Director of the 

Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center, were instrumental in supporting their staff to 

develop this monitoring and in countless other ways. We thank all of these people for their vision 

and leadership to help establish a way to preserve wilderness character.

Each agency played a crucial role in keeping the flame of wilderness character monitoring 

alive and each of these individual efforts ultimately coalesced into this updated interagency monitoring strategy.

•	 For the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), special thanks go to the late Jeff Jarvis, former 

Division Chief of the BLM’s National Landscape Conservation System, who had the foresight 

back in 2002 to encourage BLM participation in what had been to that point solely a Forest 

Service effort to determine how we might monitor changes in wilderness character; and to 

former Director Bob Abbey and Deputy Director Mike Pool, who immediately grasped the 

importance of BLM’s implementation of the original Keeping It Wild monitoring strategy, and 

ordered full compliance in 2010. Credit goes to the following former and current employees 

who, along with the two BLM contributors to Keeping It Wild 2, helped develop BLM’s 

Implementation Guides: Paul Fuselier, Dave Jacobson, Jerry Magee, Chris Roholt, James 

Sippel, Jennifer Taylor, Jim Weigand, and Bob Wick. Melissa Buzzard of the Great Basin 

Institute provided additional assistance.

•	 For the Fish and Wildlife Service, Jim Kurth played a crucial role in supporting and promoting wilderness character monitoring as an interagency effort over many years as Chief of the 

National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) and as a member and Chair of the Interagency 

Wilderness Policy Council. Thanks to his dedication, the FWS completed wilderness character 

baseline assessments for all NWRS designated wildernesses by the end of 2014 in honor of 

ii
the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. Credit also goes to the following employees who, 

in addition to the two FWS contributors to Keeping It Wild 2, were on the NWRS Wilderness 

Character Monitoring team that was crucial to getting buy-in from the Refuge System Regional 

Chiefs and the Refuge Managers: Mitch Ellis, Steve Henry, Brian Anderson, Karen Lindsey, 

Nancy Hoffman, Curt McCasland, Sara Aicher, Jill Webster, Steve Hicks, and Elaine Johnston. 

Special thanks to Peter Dratch for ensuring that the NWRS Inventory and Monitoring policy 

retained a commitment to include wilderness character in the inventory and monitoring plans of 

wilderness refuges.

•	 For the Forest Service, dozens of employees have been involved to develop an approach for 

monitoring wilderness character through helping to craft the initial agency monitoring protocol, 

participating in pilot testing, or commenting on draft documents. Special thanks to Jerry Stokes, 

then the National Wilderness Program Lead, who in 1999 supported the initial proposal and 

funded the creation of the FS Wilderness Monitoring Committee. This committee, including 

FS members Steve Boutcher, Beth Boyst, MaryBeth Hennessy, Brad Hunter, Patrice Janiga, 

Mark Laker, Peter Landres, Al McPherson, Linda Merigliano, Doug Powell, Mike Rowan, and 

Susan Sater, and interagency partners Chris Barns (BLM), Denis Davis (NPS), and Steve Henry 

(FWS), had the vision and creativity to develop the initial framework for wilderness character 

monitoring. Special recognition goes to the significant contribution made by the FS “brain 

trust” who led this effort, through fits and starts, for the better part of a decade, including Liese 

Dean, Bjorn Fredrickson, and Troy Hall of Oregon State University. Special thanks to Linda 

Merigliano for unwavering passion, intelligence, and integrity every step of the way. 

•	 For the National Park Service, special thanks go to Garry Oye, former Division Chief for 

Wilderness Stewardship, and Cam Sholly, former Associate Director for Visitor and Resource 

Protection, whose support and drive made wilderness character monitoring an integral part 

of NPS policy and guidance. We thank Erin Drake and Ryan Scavo, consummate professionals, for helping in every possible way to ensure the practical development and application 

of wilderness character monitoring in the NPS. Recognition goes to the NPS Wilderness 

Character Integration Team (Michael Bilecki, Carol Cook, Sarah Craighead, Jeremy Curtis, 

Tim Devine, Sandee Dingman, Michael Haynie, Chris Holbeck, Chip Jenkins, Peter Landres, 

Adrienne Lindholm, Melissa Memory, Christina Mills, Ray O’Neil, Ruth Scott, Miki Stuebe, 

Suzy Stutzman, Karen Trevino, Frank Turina, and Wade Vagias), who used their vision, passion, and 234 years of combined on-the-ground experience to develop Keeping it Wild in the 

National Park Service: A User Guide to Integrating Wilderness Character into Park Planning, 

Management, and Monitoring. We thank the NPS Regional Wilderness Coordinators and the 

current and former members and liaisons of the NPS Wilderness Leadership Council for their 

helpful comments, encouragement, and support along the way. We thank the wilderness units 

and field staff who provided much-needed field testing and critical as well as constructive 

comments. We appreciate all the help from the Alaska national parks, who were early adopters of wilderness character monitoring, and special thanks to Guy Adema, Team Leader for 

NPS Alaska Regional Natural Resources, for consistently supporting the NPS Wilderness 

Stewardship Program. 

iii
We thank all 43 Wilderness Fellows, who, from 2010 to 2015, implemented wilderness 

character monitoring in the NPS, FWS, and FS. Their pluck, enthusiasm, and passion allowed 

them to (quickly) push against the boundaries of implementing this new interagency monitoring—

their constant questions and constructive input helped shape many of the details in Keeping It Wild 

2. We are grateful for the vision of Wade Vagias for conceiving the Wilderness Fellows Program 

within the NPS Wilderness Stewardship Division, to Mark Chase for making the Interagency 

Wilderness Fellows Program a reality, and to Suzy Stutzman, former NPS Intermountain Regional 

Wilderness Program Coordinator, and Patrick Malone, NPS Intermountain Region Assistant 

Regional Director of Natural Resources, for keeping the NPS Wilderness Fellows Program alive. 

We thank Shane Barrow and Hannah Wendel, of American Conservation Experience, for being 

such willing partners to make the Wilderness Fellows Program work.

We thank Simon Kingston of the NPS Inventory and Monitoring Program for developing 

the first Wilderness Character Monitoring Database, and Richard Easterbrook of FWS’ Fish & 

Wildlife Inventory and Monitoring Initiative, who helped develop it further. We also thank Lisa 

Ronald for significant and timely help to get the database hosted on the Wilderness.net server.

We are indebted to the approximately 250 agency employees who helped develop, review, 

criticize, and pilot test wilderness character monitoring protocols over the past 15 years; their lack 

of cynicism and love for wilderness made the work fun, exciting, and useful. We are also indebted 

to Nyssa Landres and Elizabeth Mejicano, both former Wilderness Fellows who are now working for the NPS and Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, respectively, for their constant 

diligence and thoughtfulness in constructively criticizing every single aspect of Keeping It Wild 2. 

Their hands-on experience and willingness to develop new and better ways of thinking about 

wilderness character monitoring have been a huge asset to this updated interagency monitoring 

strategy and the preservation of wilderness character across the National Wilderness Preservation 

System. 

We thank Catherine Filardi and Cynthia Moser for all of their editing that helped make 

Keeping It Wild 2 readable and therefore understandable. Luke Boehnke made the figure in appendix 1 and the hypothetical reports shown in appendix 5 look great. Photos of fire and fire 

management in appendix 5 are courtesy of Kari Greer and the National Interagency Fire Center. 

Last, we thank the many people who generously gave their time to review and discuss various drafts of this updated interagency strategy. Their criticisms, questions, ideas, and suggestions 

helped refine the overall picture and myriad details of this interagency strategy. These people, in 

alphabetical order, are: Sara Aicher, Adam Barnett, Mike Belicki, David Cole, Aaron Collins, Carl 

Davis, Steve Delahanty, John Dennis, Mark Fincher, Bjorn Fredrickson, Jimmy Gaudry, Brian 

Glaspell, Carol Griffin, Roger Kaye, Steve Kimball, Laura Kirn, Jerry Magee, Merry Maxwell, 

George Nickas, Ray O’Neil, Doug Scott, Roger Semler, James Sippel, Jake Weltzin Molly Westby, 

and Ed Zahniser. We thank all these people for sharing a passion for wilderness and its enduring 

benefits, and for helping preserve the character of these special places.

iv
Dedication

We dedicate this publication to all the current and former agency employees working for wilderness, who, on the ground and in their cubicles, and despite limited agency 

resources, strive to make the right decision and do the right thing to preserve the enduring 

benefits of wilderness for present and future generations.

We also dedicate this publication to Avery Lindholm—may her spirit run free and wild 

forever.

v
Executive Summary

Keeping It Wild 2 provides a tested and refined interagency strategy to monitor trends 

in wilderness character based on lessons learned from 15 years of experience developing and 

implementing wilderness character monitoring across the National Wilderness Preservation 

System. This document updates and replaces Keeping It Wild: An Interagency Strategy for 

Monitoring Wilderness Character Across the National Wilderness Preservation System

(Landres and others 2008), and provides a foundation for the four federal wilderness managing 

agencies (the Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, 

and Forest Service) to develop a nationally consistent approach to wilderness character 

monitoring.

This interagency monitoring strategy incorporates a wide variety of information and 

data from different resource programs into a coherent understanding of what makes wilderness 

unique among all federal lands—its wilderness character. Wilderness character monitoring provides the agencies:

•	 Information to improve on-the-ground wilderness stewardship and wilderness policy 

reviews that is based on credible data that are consistently collected and endure over time as 

personnel change.

•	 Accountability for the legal and policy mandate “to preserve wilderness character” that 

links key stewardship activities directly to the Wilderness Act of 1964.

•	 A communication framework to comprehensively discuss wilderness stewardship needs and 

priorities within and among the four wilderness managing agencies and with the public.

This interagency strategy is designed to be nationally consistent and locally relevant. 

The statutory language of the Wilderness Act is used to identify five qualities of wilderness 

character that form the foundation of this monitoring strategy: “Untrammeled,” “Natural,” 

“Undeveloped,” “Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation,” and “Other Features of 

Value.” Each quality is described with consistent monitoring questions and indicators but assessed with specific measures identified by the agency or local wilderness managers.

This interagency strategy provides a standardized approach for monitoring how wilderness character is changing over time in every wilderness. This approach describes:

•	 A framework to monitor tangible attributes of wilderness character.

•	 How wilderness character monitoring helps fulfill legal and policy mandates, and improve 

wilderness stewardship.

•	 Key principles of this monitoring strategy.

•	 Guidelines for selecting locally relevant measures.

•	 Rules used to assess trend in the measures, indicators, monitoring questions, and qualities, 

and in wilderness character.

•	 Misuses, misconceptions, and known concerns about wilderness character monitoring and 

how this interagency strategy addresses these concerns.

Implementing this monitoring strategy does not guarantee the preservation of wilderness 

character, but it informs and improves wilderness stewardship, and ensures managers are accountable to the central mandate of the Wilderness Act—to preserve wilderness character.

vi
Contents

Introduction............................................................................................................................1

Purpose and Scope of This Interagency Monitoring Strategy ............................................1

Overview of This Interagency Monitoring Strategy.............................................................3

Overview of Wilderness Character......................................................................................7

Defining Wilderness Character...........................................................................................7

The Need to Focus on Wilderness Character.....................................................................7

The Five Qualities of Wilderness Character.....................................................................10

Premises for Using These Five Qualities..........................................................................12

Wilderness Character Terminology...................................................................................14

Interagency Approach to Wilderness Character Monitoring...........................................17

Organizational Framework................................................................................................17

Key Principles...................................................................................................................18

Selecting Measures ..........................................................................................................20

The Online Wilderness Character Monitoring Database ..................................................23

Assessing Trend In Wilderness Character........................................................................24

Reporting on Trend in Wilderness Character....................................................................29

Improving This Monitoring in the Future ...........................................................................30

Untrammeled Quality ..........................................................................................................33

Monitoring Question and Indicators..................................................................................34

Natural Quality.....................................................................................................................39

Monitoring Question and Indicators..................................................................................40

Undeveloped Quality...........................................................................................................45

Monitoring Questions and Indicators ................................................................................46

Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation Quality...............................................51

Monitoring Questions and Indicators ................................................................................53

Other Features of Value Quality.........................................................................................57

Which Features are Integral to Wilderness Character?....................................................58

Monitoring Question and Indicators..................................................................................60

References ..........................................................................................................................63

Appendix 1. A Brief History Of Interagency Wilderness Character Monitoring ............71

Appendix 2. Summary of Major Changes Made to the 2008 Version 

of Keeping It Wild ...........................................................................................................77

Appendix 3. Wilderness Character Narrative....................................................................83

Appendix 4. Concerns About This Interagency Monitoring Strategy.............................85

Appendix 5. Example Local, Regional, and National Reports.........................................91

Appendix 6. What is a Trammeling Action?....................................................................101

Appendix 7. Selecting Measures for the Natural Quality...............................................109

vii

USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 1

Introduction

The 1964 Wilderness Act’s Statement of Policy, Section 2(a) states that wilderness areas “shall be administered ... so as to provide for the protection of these areas, 

the preservation of their wilderness character” (Public Law 88-577; Wilderness Act 

1964). This affirmative legal mandate and pursuant policies of the four federal wilderness managing agencies (the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service, and the Department of 

Agriculture’s Forest Service; hereafter BLM, FWS, NPS, and FS, respectively) apply 

to all wildernesses across the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS). 

These legal and policy mandates raise a simple question: How do we know if we are 

preserving wilderness character?

A brief history of agency efforts to answer this question is given in appendix 

1. The 2008 publication of Keeping It Wild: An Interagency Strategy for Monitoring 

Wilderness Character Across the National Wilderness Preservation System (Landres 

and others 2008) provided the first nationally consistent interagency strategy to assess

whether wilderness character is being preserved. As each agency independently implemented this 2008 monitoring strategy and applied the concept of wilderness character 

to planning and management, agency-specific adjustments were made to improve the

relevance and applicability of these concepts. These agency-specific modifications

substantially improved several aspects of the interagency monitoring strategy, but also 

jeopardized the strategy’s goal of national consistency across the NWPS.

In March 2014, the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute organized 

an Interagency Wilderness Character Monitoring Lessons Learned Workshop. The 

purpose of this workshop was to build on what had been learned since Keeping It Wild

was published in 2008 and make necessary corrections to ensure future interagency 

consistency in wilderness character monitoring. Workshop participants (see appendix 

1) reviewed each agency’s modifications to the wilderness character conceptual framework and monitoring strategy to develop a consensus view for improving wilderness 

character monitoring. Interaction among the four wilderness agencies at this workshop 

was necessary to help ensure successful implementation of wilderness character monitoring across the NWPS (see Roux and others 2006). The findings from this workshop

and several recent publications (BLM 2012; NPS 2014a, 2014b) are the basis for 

Keeping It Wild 2, which updates and replaces the original 2008 publication. Appendix 

2 summarizes the major changes made to the 2008 Keeping It Wild.

Purpose and Scope of This Interagency Monitoring Strategy

The primary purpose of this monitoring strategy is to improve wilderness stewardship by providing wilderness managers across the four agencies—from field offices

to national headquarters—a tool to assess how attributes of wilderness character are 

changing over time. This monitoring strategy provides information to help answer two 

key questions about the outcomes of wilderness stewardship:

Facing page: Yosemite Wilderness, Nick Carver photo (nick@nickcarverphoto.com), courtesy of 

Nature’s Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wilderness50’s “Wilderness Forever” 

photo competition.
2 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

• How do stewardship activities affect attributes of wilderness character?

• How are attributes selected as integral to wilderness character changing over time 

within a wilderness, within an agency, and across the NWPS?

To answer these questions and fulfill this larger purpose, this monitoring provides information for two primary agency audiences: local staff charged with managing wilderness consistent with agency policy, and regional and national staff charged 

with developing agency wilderness policy and assessing its effectiveness. By ensuring 

this information is based on credible data that are consistently collected and will endure over time even as personnel change, this monitoring will provide both audiences 

some of the key data they need to improve wilderness stewardship and wilderness 

policy. As succinctly stated by Schindler and Hilborn (2015), “Without monitoring and 

assessment, we have no way to determine when changes to management are needed.”

Attributes that are integral to the area’s wilderness character but that are not directly under the jurisdiction of managers are also included in this monitoring. Examples of these resources are night skies and air quality. By monitoring these resources, a 

more comprehensive understanding is gained of how wilderness character is changing over time and whether or not these changes are due to factors within or beyond 

managers’ jurisdiction. Such a holistic view of wilderness character informs our understanding of broad-scale, regional, and cumulative impacts to wilderness character. 

This monitoring applies to every wilderness within the NWPS. Together, the 

four agencies administer slightly over 108.9 million acres of designated wilderness, 

or about 17 percent of all the land managed by these agencies. This is a substantial 

amount of land nationwide, and a substantial proportion of the land portfolio of the 

four agencies with responsibility for wilderness stewardship (table 1). 

The scope of this monitoring strategy is intentionally limited in several ways 

because wilderness character is a complex concept with tangible, intangible, ethical, 

societal, legal, personal, local, and national dimensions. From the outset this monitoring strategy has endeavored to create a pragmatic and effective way to assess trend in 

wilderness character. To limit its scope practically, this interagency strategy:

Agency

Number of 

Wilderness 

Units Within 

Each Agencyb,c

Number of 

Wilderness Acres 

Within Each 

Agencyb

Percent of 

Total Agency 

Acreage That 

is Designated 

Wildernessd

Percent of 

NWPS Acres 

Within Each 

Agencyb

DOI Bureau of Land 

Management 222 8,736,113 3.5 8

DOI Fish and Wildlife Service 71 19,862,488 23.3 18

DOI National Park Service 61 43,932,843 55.1 40

USDA Forest Service 442 36,385,240 18.7 33

a NWPS = National Wilderness Preservation System. DOI = Department of the Interior. USDA = U.S. Department of Agriculture.

b Source: Wilderness.net [accessed August 24, 2015].

c There are 762 wildernesses within the NWPS, but the total number of wilderness units in this table is 796 because 34 units 

are managed by more than one of the four wilderness management agencies.

d Source: Calculated from the total number of wilderness acres (Wilderness.net [accessed August 24, 2015]) and the total 

acreage for each agency derived from Gorte and others (2012). 

Table 1—Summary of designated wilderness within each of the wilderness managing agencies.a
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 3

• Applies to all areas that are designated by Congress as wilderness, and also to areas 

that are not designated as wilderness but are managed under law or agency policy 

to either preserve wilderness character or maintain the potential for future designation as wilderness. The strategy does not apply to other types of protected areas 

outside the mandate of the Wilderness Act.

• Monitors tangible attributes of the five qualities (explained below) of wilderness

character derived from the Definition of Wilderness, Section 2(c) in the Wilderness

Act, and does not monitor the intangible, symbolic, societal, or personal values, 

meanings, and benefits of wilderness character.

• Assesses trend in wilderness character over time for an entire wilderness, and does 

not assess how wilderness character is changing in specific locations within a wilderness, or how wilderness character compares across different wildernesses.

• Supports minimum requirements and National Environmental Policy Act analyses 

by helping staff organize information on the effects of proposed projects, but does 

not determine the significance of effects or replace agency decision processes.

• Does not fulfill all of the monitoring requirements that are needed to manage an

individual wilderness. For example, monitoring for specific projects or compliance

monitoring for special use permits are not part of wilderness character monitoring.

Overview of This Interagency Monitoring Strategy

This interagency strategy is designed to synthesize a wide variety of data from 

different resource programs into a coherent understanding of what makes wilderness 

unique among all other federal lands—its wilderness character. This strategy is structured around the following process:

• To ensure national consistency, all agencies use the strategy’s organizational 

framework of qualities, monitoring questions, and indicators (table 2) for each wilderness. One or more measures are selected for each indicator that are either chosen 

by the local office managing the wilderness or required by the managing agency.

• Data are collected, gathered, or compiled for each measure, using existing resources 

wherever possible.

• Once there are at least two data points per measure, a trend (upward, stable, or 

downward) is determined based on agency-required or locally established rules. 

Trends in each measure are reported at 5-year intervals (even though data for some 

measures may need to be gathered annually).

• Trends in each measure within an indicator are compiled by using consistent rules 

(described in the Assessing Trend in Wilderness Character section, below) to determine the trend in the indicator. Only the trends in the measures, not the data, are 

compiled. These same rules are then used to determine the trend in each monitoring 

question, each quality, and ultimately the overall trend in wilderness character. 

• Once the trend in wilderness character for each wilderness is determined, the 

percentage of wildernesses with an upward or stable trend in wilderness character 

within a region, an agency, and across the NWPS can be derived.
4 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Table 2—Summary of the nationally consistent qualities, monitoring questions, and indicators used to 

organize and structure this interagency strategy to monitor trend in wilderness character.

Quality Monitoring Question Indicator

WILDERNESS CHARACTER

Untrammeled What are the trends in actions 

that intentionally control or 

manipulate the “earth and 

its community of life” inside 

wilderness?

Actions authorized by the federal land 

manager that intentionally manipulate the 

biophysical environment

Actions not authorized by the federal land 

manager that intentionally manipulate the 

biophysical environment

Natural What are the trends in the 

natural environment from 

human-caused change?

Plants

Animals

Air and water

Ecological processes

Undeveloped What are the trends in 

non-recreational physical 

development?

Presence of non-recreational structures, 

installations, and developments

Presence of inholdings

What are the trends in 

mechanization?

Use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment, 

or mechanical transport

Solitude or 

Primitive and 

Unconfined 

Recreation

What are the trends in 

outstanding opportunities for 

solitude?

Remoteness from sights and sounds of 

human activity inside wilderness

Remoteness from sights and sounds of 

human activity outside the wilderness

What are the trends in 

outstanding opportunities 

for primitive and unconfined 

recreation?

Facilities that decrease self-reliant recreation

Management restrictions on visitor behavior

Other Features 

of Value (to be 

determined if 

relevant by the 

local unit)

What are the trends in the 

unique features that are 

tangible and integral to 

wilderness character?

Deterioration or loss of integral cultural 

features

Deterioration or loss of other integral sitespecific features of value
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 5
6 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 7

Overview of Wilderness Character

This section provides an overview of what wilderness character is, why the 

agencies need to focus on it, and the benefits to stewardship from this focus. Five

“qualities” are derived from the legal definition of wilderness to provide a practical

connection to the concept of wilderness character. These qualities form the basis of 

this interagency monitoring strategy, and key premises for using them in this strategy 

are discussed. Finally, terminology is reviewed to ensure consistency across the four 

wilderness managing agencies in discussing wilderness character and implementing 

this monitoring strategy. 

Defining Wilderness Character

Although wilderness character is not explicitly defined in the Wilderness Act,

Keeping It Wild 2 builds on the lessons learned from 15 years of experience developing and implementing wilderness character monitoring to frame this monitoring 

strategy around the following definition of wilderness character. Wilderness character

is a holistic concept based on the interaction of (1) biophysical environments primarily 

free from modern human manipulation and impact, (2) personal experiences in natural 

environments relatively free from the encumbrances and signs of modern society, and 

(3) symbolic meanings of humility, restraint, and interdependence that inspire human 

connection with nature. Taken together, these tangible and intangible values define

wilderness character and distinguish wilderness from all other lands.

These tangible and intangible values of wilderness character form a complex set 

of relationships with the land, its stewardship, its users, and society. Howard Zahniser 

(1956, p. 40) described these relationships as “... the distinctive ministration of wilderness to modern man, the characteristic effect of an area which we most deeply need 

to provide for in our preservation programs” (emphasis in original), and stated that 

“to know the wilderness is to know a profound humility, to recognize one’s littleness, 

to sense dependence and interdependence, indebtedness, and responsibility.” Other 

writing by and about Zahniser (Harvey 2005, Zahniser 1992), as well as the classic 

writing about wilderness from other authors (for example, Leopold 1949, Marshall 

1930, Olson 1957), strongly reinforces the idea that, fundamentally, wilderness character is the capacity of an area to elicit humility, to awaken a sense of relationship and 

interconnectedness with the community of life, and to evoke a feeling of restraint and 

obligation towards nature. 

The Need to Focus on Wilderness Character

Focusing on wilderness character and monitoring how it changes over time will 

provide concrete information to help managers comply with law, fulfill agency policy,

and improve wilderness stewardship.

“The purpose of the 

Wilderness Act is to 

preserve the wilderness 

character of the areas 

to be included in the 

wilderness system, not to 

establish any particular 

use.”

Howard Zahniser (1962, 

p. 1301)

Facing page: Jedediah Smith Wilderness, John Richter photo (john@richterfineartphotography.

com), courtesy of Nature’s Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wilderness50’s 

“Wilderness Forever” photo competition.
8 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Comply with law

The Statement of Policy, Section 2(a), in the Wilderness Act states that wilderness areas “shall be administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in 

such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness, and so as to provide for the protection of these areas, the preservation of their 

wilderness character” (emphasis added). Legal scholars (for example, McCloskey 

1999, Rohlf and Honnold 1988) assert that the statement “... each agency administering any area designated as wilderness shall be responsible for preserving the wilderness character of the area” from Section 4(b) of the Wilderness Act gives the primary 

and affirmative management direction for wilderness. Section 4(b) also states that even

when the agency administers the area for other purposes, the agency must also “preserve its wilderness character.” The Congressional Record (United States Congress 

1983) supports this assertion, stating “The overriding principle guiding management 

of all wilderness areas, regardless of which agency administers them, is the Wilderness 

Act (Section 4(b)) mandate to preserve their wilderness character.”

Fulfill agency policy

Wilderness policies from each of the four wilderness managing agencies directly 

address the need for preserving wilderness character (table 3). The intent of these policies is to prevent the degradation of wilderness character from its condition or state at 

the time the area was designated as wilderness.

Improve wilderness stewardship

Before passage of the Wilderness Act, Zahniser stated that “in all concern with wilderness, the first safety must be for the wilderness character itself” (Zahniser 1961, p. 2).

Today, many wilderness field and program managers perceive steady erosion in wilderness

character caused by widespread threats (Cole 2002, Cole and Landres 1996, Hendee and 

Dawson 2001, Landres and others 1998). There have been repeated calls for monitoring to 

provide the information needed to improve wilderness stewardship (for example, Government Accounting Office 1989). In 1999, the four agencies requested that the Pinchot

Institute for Conservation create a blue-ribbon panel to offer recommendations for improving wilderness stewardship. This panel offered four key recommendations, including that 

the agencies “devise monitoring and evaluation systems to ensure that we know how well 

wildernesses are being stewarded, especially in the context of a system of wilderness” 

(Pinchot Institute for Conservation 2001). 

Focusing on wilderness character links on-the-ground wilderness conditions 

and management actions to the mandates of the Wilderness Act and agency policy to 

“preserve wilderness character.” This focus on the connections between conditions 

and actions, and policy helps to:

•  Improve wilderness stewardship. Wilderness stewardship has traditionally been 

fraught with uncertainty and subjective opinions about what should or should 

not be done. The systematic and comprehensive wilderness character framework 

described in this document directly links the results of stewardship activities to the 

legislative direction of the Wilderness Act. This in turn helps professionalize wilderness 

stewardship and contributes to agency accountability, transparency, and defensibility.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 9

Table 3—Agency policy statements about the need to preserve wilderness character, with emphasis added.

Agency Policy reference Policy statement

Bureau of Land 

Management 

(Department of 

the Interior)

43 CFR Part 6300 

(Federal Register, 

Vol. 65, No. 241, 

page 78358, 

December 14, 2000)

I. Background. “Unless Congress specifies otherwise, BLM must ensure the 

preservation of wilderness character in managing all activities conducted within 

wilderness areas.”

Manual 6340—

Management 

of Designated 

Wilderness Areas, 

Release 6-135, July 

13, 2012

1.2 (A). Objectives. “Manage and protect BLM wilderness areas in such a manner 

as to preserve wilderness character.”

1.2 (B). “Manage wilderness for the public purposes of recreational, scenic, 

scientific, education, conservation, and historic use while preserving wilderness 

character.”

1.2 (C). “Effectively manage uses permitted under Section 4(c) and 4(d) of the 

Wilderness Act of 1964 while preserving wilderness character.”

1.6 (A). Monitoring Wilderness Character. “Monitoring wilderness character, as 

outlined in Appendix C of this manual, is an ongoing responsibility of the agency.” 

Fish and 

Wildlife Service 

(Department of 

the Interior)

50 CFR 35.2 (a) “[E]ach wilderness shall be administered for such other purposes for which the 

national wildlife refuge was established and shall be also administered to preserve 

its wilderness character.”

U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service 

Manual, Part 

610 Wilderness 

Stewardship, 

Chapters 1–5, 

November 7, 2008

1.12. “As we carry out individual refuge establishing purpose(s) ... in areas 

designated as wilderness, we do so in a way that preserves wilderness character.”

1.17 A. “Refuge System laws, regulations, and policies apply to refuge wilderness, 

but we carry them out in ways that preserve wilderness character and comply with 

the Wilderness Act’s prohibitions.”

1.17 B. “We adhere to a much stricter standard than usual for approving actions 

in wilderness so that we maintain the natural and untrammeled condition of the 

wilderness.” 

2.4 A. “We administer refuge wilderness to conform with the Wilderness Act’s 

purposes of securing ‘an enduring resource of wilderness,’ preserving wilderness 

character, and providing opportunities for public use and enjoyment ... in ways that 

will leave the wilderness unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness.” 

5.3 B. “We administer wilderness areas in Alaska in accordance with the policy in 

610 FW 1-5.”

National 

Park Service 

(Department of 

the Interior)

2006 Management 

Policies, Chapter 

6: Wilderness 

Preservation and 

Management

6.1 General Statement. “The purpose of wilderness in the national parks 

includes the preservation of wilderness character and wilderness resources in an 

unimpaired condition ...”

6.3 Wilderness Resource Management, 6.3.1 General Policy. “In addition to 

managing these areas for the preservation of the physical wilderness resources, 

planning for these areas must ensure that the wilderness character is likewise 

preserved.”

2013 Director’s 

Order 41

6.2 Wilderness Character. “[E]ach wilderness park will integrate the concept of 

wilderness character into park planning, management, and monitoring in order to 

preserve the enduring benefits and values of wilderness for future generations.” 

“Whenever a park planning process that has the potential to affect wilderness 

character occurs, the park should determine how wilderness character can be 

both integrated into the planning effort and presented in the planning document.” 

“Wilderness character should be considered in the management and operations 

conducted by all divisions/work units.”

Forest Service

(U.S. 

Department of 

Agriculture)

Chapter 2320—

Wilderness 

Management, June 

21, 1990

2320.2 – Objectives, 4. “Protect and perpetuate wilderness characterand public 

values including, but not limited to, opportunities for scientific study, education, 

solitude, physical and mental challenge and stimulation, inspiration, and primitive 

recreation experiences...”

2323.14 – Visitor Management. “Plan and manage public use of wilderness in such 

a manner that preserves the wilderness characterof the area.”
10 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Perhaps most importantly, this framework expands the paradigm for wilderness 

stewardship to comprehensively understand and preserve wilderness character.

•  Clarify how management decisions and actions influence trends in wilderness

character. There are tradeoffs in almost all aspects of wilderness stewardship, and 

evaluating what is gained and what is lost in terms of wilderness character helps 

staff determine priorities for what should and should not be done. Openly discussing these tradeoffs will help agency staff understand how their actions directly or 

indirectly contribute to preserving wilderness character, which in turn will help 

inform management decisions.

•  Improve communication among staff and with the public about wilderness 

stewardship. Wilderness often invokes strong personal feelings that can fuel 

miscommunication and litigation. The standard language of wilderness character 

developed in this interagency monitoring strategy allows staff across different 

resource programs and disciplines to use common terms in discussing wildernessrelated projects, needs, and impacts. This language also allows staff to discuss 

wilderness stewardship in a more open and transparent manner with the public, 

which may in turn improve agency defensibility in legal questions about the preservation of wilderness character.

•  Create a legacy of experience and knowledge about wilderness locally and broadly 

within the agency. Experience and knowledge of a wilderness are often lost with 

staff turnover, and the baseline understanding of resource conditions shifts over 

time. Monitoring wilderness character provides a way to keep track of the changes 

that are occurring locally, which in turn builds a legacy about the wilderness and its 

stewardship and how these are changing over time.

The Five Qualities of Wilderness Character

This monitoring strategy links the conceptual definition of wilderness character

described above to a practical meaning of wilderness character by using a framework of “qualities.” These qualities are derived from the entire statutory definition of

wilderness, Section 2(c) of the Wilderness Act, which expresses congressional intent, 

both ideal and practical, for the meaning of wilderness and wilderness character (McCloskey 1966, 1999; Ochs 1999; Rohlf and Honnold 1988; Scott 2002). These qualities were first identified by the FS (Landres and others 2005) and subsequently refined

by the agency and interagency teams that have developed and implemented wilderness 

character monitoring over the past 15 years (BLM 2012; Landres and others 2008, 

2009; NPS 2014a). Taken together, these qualities represent the primary tangible 

aspects of wilderness character that link on-the-ground conditions in wilderness and 

the outcomes of wilderness stewardship to the statutory definition of wilderness. These

qualities are briefly summarized here and each is described in detail in its own section.

Untrammeled 

The Wilderness Act states that wilderness is “an area where the earth and its 

community of life are untrammeled by man,” that “generally appears to have been 

affected primarily by the forces of nature” and “retain[s] its primeval character and 

influence.” This means that wilderness is essentially unhindered and free from the
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 11

intentional actions of modern human control or manipulation. This quality directly 

relates to “biophysical environments primarily free from modern human manipulation 

and impact” and “symbolic meanings of humility, restraint, and interdependence that 

inspire human connection with nature” described in the above definition of wilderness character. The Untrammeled Quality is preserved or sustained when actions to 

intentionally control or manipulate the components or processes of ecological systems 

inside wilderness (for example, suppressing fire, stocking lakes with fish, installing

water catchments, or removing predators) are not taken. This quality is improved when 

suppression of wildfire or manipulation of habitat is stopped or significantly reduced.

Natural

The Wilderness Act states that wilderness is “protected and managed so as to 

preserve its natural conditions.” This means that wilderness ecological systems are 

substantially free from the effects of modern civilization. Within a wilderness, for 

example, indigenous plant and animal species predominate, or the fire regime is within

what is considered its natural return interval, distribution over the landscape, and 

patterns of burn severity. This quality directly relates to “biophysical environments 

primarily free from modern human manipulation and impact” described in the above 

definition of wilderness character. The Natural Quality is preserved when there are

only indigenous species and natural ecological conditions and processes, and may be 

improved by controlling or removing non-indigenous species or by restoring ecological conditions.

Undeveloped

The Wilderness Act states that wilderness is “an area of undeveloped Federal 

land ... without permanent improvements or human habitation,” “where man himself 

is a visitor who does not remain” and “with the imprint of man’s work substantially 

unnoticeable.” This means that wilderness is essentially without permanent improvements or the sights and sounds of modern human occupation. This quality is affected 

by “prohibited” or “nonconforming” uses (Section 4(c) of the Wilderness Act,), which 

include the presence of modern structures, installations, and habitations, and the administrative and emergency use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment, or mechanical transport. Some of these uses are allowed by special provisions required by legislation. This quality directly relates to “personal experiences in natural environments 

relatively free from the encumbrances and signs of modern society” and “symbolic 

meanings of humility, restraint, and interdependence that inspire human connection 

with nature” described in the above definition of wilderness character. The Undeveloped Quality is preserved or sustained when these nonconforming uses are not used by 

the agency for administrative purposes or by others authorized or not authorized by the 

agency. It is improved when the prohibited use is removed or reduced.

Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation

The Wilderness Act states that wilderness has “outstanding opportunities for 

solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation.” This means that wilderness

provides outstanding opportunities for recreation in an environment that is relatively 

free from the encumbrances of modern society, and for the experience of the benefits
12 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

and inspiration derived from self-reliance, self-discovery, physical and mental challenge, and freedom from societal obligations. This quality focuses on the tangible aspects of the setting that affect the opportunity for people to directly experience wilderness. It directly relates to “personal experiences in natural environments relatively free 

from the encumbrances and signs of modern society” described in the above definition

of wilderness character. The Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation Quality is preserved or improved by management actions that reduce visitor encounters, 

reduce signs of modern civilization inside wilderness, remove agency-provided recreation facilities, or reduce management restrictions on visitor behavior.

Other Features of Value

The Wilderness Act states that wilderness “may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.” This quality captures important elements or “features” of a particular wilderness that are not 

covered by the other four qualities. Typically these occur in a specific location, such as

archaeological, historical, or paleontological features; some, however, may occur over 

a broad area such as an extensive geological or paleontological area, or a cultural landscape. The Other Features of Value Quality directly relates to “personal experiences 

in natural environments relatively free from the encumbrances and signs of modern 

society” and “symbolic meanings of humility, restraint, and interdependence that 

inspire human connection with nature” described in the above definition of wilderness

character. This quality may or may not occur within a specific wilderness, and is therefore different from the other four qualities that, by law, occur in every wilderness. This 

quality is preserved when these “other features of value” are preserved.

Premises for Using These Five Qualities

Metaphorically, wilderness character is like a violin or another musical instrument composed of separate pieces that interact to form something greater than the 

sum of its parts: music and ultimately the feelings this music evokes. Similarly, these 

five qualities together form the physical, social, and managerial setting of a wilderness, in turn providing scientific, cultural, educational, and economic values to society

(Cordell and others 2005). In addition, spiritual (Moore 2007, Nagle 2005), ethical 

(Cafaro 2001), psychological (Schroeder 2007), democratic (Turner 2012), and other 

intangible societal and individual values and benefits are derived from this wilderness setting (Havlick 2006). In total, these five qualities create a unique setting, which

provides what the Wilderness Act describes as the “benefits of an enduring resource of

wilderness.” 

This interagency monitoring strategy uses these five qualities together to monitor trends in wilderness character. Several important premises frame the use of these 

qualities:

•  All five qualities are equally important. The land managing agencies must implement laws in their entirety, and because the Wilderness Act does not state that 

one sentence or one portion of the text in Section 2(c) is more important than 

another, all five qualities are of equal importance for the purpose of this monitoring

strategy. However, all five qualities do not carry equal weight in determining the
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 13

overall trend in wilderness character, as explained below in the Assessing Trend in 

Wilderness Character section. 

•  These qualities apply to every wilderness. These qualities apply to all designated 

wilderness areas—regardless of size, location, administering agency, or other 

unique place-specific attributes—because they are based on the legal definition of

wilderness and every wilderness law is tied to this definition (Dawson and Hendee

2009). Individual wilderness laws may include specific exceptions or special provisions that apply to the uses and values of particular areas, but no federal legislation 

changes the 1964 Act’s Section 2(c) Definition of Wilderness, and no legislation

changes the affirmative management responsibility of Section 4(b) for “preserving

the wilderness character of the area.” The only exception is the Other Features of 

Value Quality, which may or may not exist within a given wilderness because of 

the Wilderness Act statement that a wilderness “may also contain ... other features” 

(emphasis added). 

•  These qualities are uniquely expressed within each wilderness. Every wilderness 

is unique: some are swamps, and others are rock and ice; some are immense, and 

others are small; some are very remote, and others are surrounded by suburban and 

urban development; some are iconic and revered by people who never set foot in 

them, and others are unknown. This uniqueness has two important implications for 

this monitoring strategy: trend in wilderness character can be based only on how 

wilderness character is changing within an individual wilderness, and wilderness 

character cannot be compared between wildernesses because such comparisons are 

meaningless.

•  Wilderness character is more than these qualities. In addition to the tangible 

qualities used for monitoring wilderness character described above, there are also 

important intangible aspects of wilderness character that are difficult or impossible

to quantify; these are not included in this monitoring strategy. These intangible 

aspects are diverse and may include the immensity of an area and the connection people may feel to nature, the ethical value to society from having areas that 

are managed with restraint and humility, and the inspirational and psychological benefits that individuals experience in wilderness (Putney and Harmon 2003,

Roggenbuck and Driver 2002, Schroeder 2007). These and other intangible aspects 

of an area’s wilderness character can be described holistically and qualitatively in 

a wilderness character narrative (see appendix 3 on developing and using such a 

narrative).

•  Management decisions and actions may preserve or degrade these qualities. 

Wilderness character may be improved, preserved, or degraded by the actions 

managers choose to take or not take. For example, the choice to not use a chain 

saw, to not build a footbridge across a stream, or to not suppress a naturally ignited 

fire may preserve certain qualities of wilderness character. In contrast, other management actions that are considered the minimum necessary for the administration 

of the area—such as requiring visitors to use designated campsites, or authorizing 

administrative use of motorized equipment and mechanical transportation, or taking 

actions to restore ecological conditions—may diminish certain qualities of wilderness character. Protecting one quality of wilderness character may diminish another 
14 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

(Landres and others 2012). For example, a bridge built to protect a stream bank 

from erosion caused by people or horses crossing the stream is also an installation 

that diminishes the opportunity for people to experience the primitive challenge 

of crossing the stream. Similarly, requiring use of designated campsites to prevent 

the proliferation of sites and associated impacts on soil and vegetation also diminishes the opportunity for unconfined recreation and the sense of freedom from the

constraints of regulation. Spraying herbicide to eradicate non-indigenous species is 

also an intentional trammeling action. Over time, tradeoffs affecting different qualities of wilderness character and the cumulative results of seemingly small decisions 

and actions may cause a significant gain or loss of wilderness character. With an

established framework to discuss these tradeoffs within the context of wilderness 

character and its five qualities, managers have a tool to approach wilderness stewardship with humility, respect, and restraint, ultimately helping them to preserve 

wilderness character as a whole.

Wilderness Character Terminology

Since the initial description of wilderness character (Landres and others 2005), 

different uses and interpretations of terms and phrases have resulted in confusion 

among agency staff, non-governmental organizations, and the public. To establish consistent use and common understanding, this updated interagency monitoring strategy 

provides standard nomenclature in applying the concept of wilderness character, and 

recommends the following terminology based on law, policy, and experience.

Terms used in this interagency monitoring strategy

•  Wilderness character. Derived from the Wilderness Act and defined in this interagency strategy in the Defining Wilderness Character section, above.

•  Wilderness qualities. One or more of the five qualities of wilderness character as

described in this interagency strategy.

•  Qualities. The qualities of wilderness character as described in this interagency 

strategy.

•  Wilderness resources. Any of the particular resources (natural or cultural) inside a 

wilderness.

•  Wilderness values. Any of the meanings, benefits, or values people or society derives from wilderness.

•  Wilderness character monitoring. The process of assessing the overall trend in 

wilderness character using this interagency strategy. 

Terms not used in this interagency monitoring strategy

•  Wilderness characters. Sometimes used for “wilderness qualities,” this phrase 

causes confusion because it’s not clear if it is being used to describe “wilderness 

character” or “wilderness qualities.” 

•  Wilderness characteristics. Often and easily mistaken for one or more of the qualities of wilderness character, this phrase comes from BLM law and policy direction 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 15

for identifying areas of potential wilderness and subsequently managing wilderness 

study areas under the non-impairment standard. This phrase also is used in FS 

manual direction for identifying areas of potential wilderness. In both cases, the 

Untrammeled Quality is excluded because it applies only to how the area is managed once it is designated as wilderness (the BLM policy direction also includes 

other differences). This phrase should be used only when referring to BLM and FS 

wilderness inventory, or management of BLM wilderness study areas.

•  Wild character. Sometimes used as shorthand for “wilderness character,” but “wild” 

has many different interpretations so the meaning of this phrase is unclear.

•  Characters. A shorthand reference to “wilderness characters,” but it typically is 

unclear what this phrase refers to.
16 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 17

Interagency Approach to 

Wilderness Character Monitoring

Once an area is designated as wilderness, the managing agency is responsible 

for ensuring that the area’s wilderness character does not diminish over time. The 

only way to track how wilderness character is changing over time is to monitor it. The 

Keeping It Wild 2 interagency strategy recommends the following approach to monitor 

trend in wilderness character for every wilderness:

1. Use the nationally consistent set of qualities, monitoring questions, and indicators 

presented in this strategy (see the Organizational Framework section, below).

2. Select at least one locally relevant measure per indicator following agency-specific

guidelines (whether agency-required, locally selected, or a combination).

3. Collect data for each measure and determine trend in the measure (upward, stable, 

downward) once there are at least two data points that are 5 years apart (some 

measures are highly variable from year to year; these would be measured yearly 

and trend determined from 5 years of annual data).

4. Compile the trends (not the data) from each measure within an indicator (using the 

rules in the Assessing Trend in Wilderness Character section, below) to determine 

the trend in the indicator. These same rules are used to compile trends in the 

indicators to determine the trend in the quality, and likewise compile quality trends 

to determine the overall trend in wilderness character for each wilderness.

Once the trend in wilderness character is determined for every wilderness, each 

agency can compile these trends to assess broad-scale agency performance. Similarly, 

data from each agency can be compiled to assess performance in preserving wilderness character across the NWPS.

Organizational Framework

This interagency monitoring strategy is organized around a hierarchical framework that divides wilderness character into successively finer components. These

components, starting from wilderness character, are:

•  Qualities. Qualities are the primary elements of wilderness character that link 

directly to the statutory language of the Wilderness Act. The same set of qualities 

applies nationwide to all wildernesses managed by all agencies. In this framework, 

the Untrammeled, Natural, Undeveloped, and Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined

Recreation Qualities are all necessary to assess trend in wilderness character, and 

each wilderness would report the trend in each of these qualities. Where other features of value exist in a wilderness and are integral to it, the Other Features of Value 

Quality would also be reported.

•  Monitoring questions. Monitoring questions capture essential components of each 

quality that are significantly different from one another and address particular

management questions and goals. The same set of monitoring questions applies 

nationwide to all wildernesses.

Facing page: Glacier Bay Wilderness, David Bahr photo (david@bahrimages.com), courtesy of 

Nature’s Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wilderness50’s “Wilderness Forever” 

photo competition.
18 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

•  Indicators. Indicators are distinct and important components under each monitoring 

question. There is more than one indicator for nearly all monitoring questions. Each 

wilderness and agency would be responsible for reporting the trend in all indicators. The same set of indicators applies nationwide to all wildernesses managed by 

all agencies.

•  Measures. Measures are the specific elements under each indicator for which data

are collected to assess trend in an indicator. In general, measures are human-caused 

threats to the indicator. Each agency is responsible for determining how its measures will be selected (that is, whether by a national or regional team, or by each 

wilderness). Examples of measures for each indicator are given in the sections that 

describe each quality in detail.

This hierarchical framework (see table 2) allows managers to look at the overall 

trend in wilderness character and drill down through the various levels to understand 

how this trend was derived, including how change in an individual measure contributes to the overall trend in wilderness character. 

Key Principles

This interagency strategy for wilderness character monitoring is based on the 

following key principles.

Each agency has the responsibility to develop its own procedures 

to ensure implementation of this monitoring strategy

Keeping It Wild 2 offers an interagency monitoring strategy but it does not 

define the agency-specific responsibilities for implementing this strategy, ensuring

quality control, and fostering interagency consistency. Given their different authorities, policies, and cultures, each agency needs to determine their own protocols and 

processes for training, oversight, use of the wilderness character monitoring database, 

reporting, sharing results with the other agencies, and working with the other agencies 

to provide a coherent wilderness character monitoring strategy across the NWPS. 

Wilderness character monitoring will provide credible data that 

will be directly useful for tracking the outcomes of wilderness 

stewardship

If the data are not credible and useful, taking the time and effort to do wilderness 

character monitoring is futile. This monitoring strategy has been developed with substantive input from subject-matter experts and designed by on-the-ground wilderness 

managers and regional and national wilderness staff to provide the most useful information possible for the full range of agency staff involved in wilderness stewardship. 

The baseline for evaluating trend in wilderness character is the 

time of designation or when this monitoring program is initiated

The first year that data for all measures have been collected using this interagency strategy forms the baseline, and is the reference point against which change 

over time in wilderness character is measured and evaluated. Ideally, this baseline 

would be the time of wilderness designation. For most existing wildernesses, however, 

data from the time of wilderness designation will be unavailable for most or even all 

measures, so realistically the baseline will most likely be the year that this monitoring 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 19

protocol is first implemented. Baseline conditions are the starting point for assessing change over time without value judgment as to whether these are good, bad, or 

desired. For example, if a wilderness had features such as installations at the time of 

designation, those features would be part of the baseline condition of this wilderness. 

Wilderness character monitoring would show how the Undeveloped Quality of wilderness, which includes installations, changes over time.

Existing data are used whenever appropriate and available

Every effort has been made in developing this strategy to reduce the amount of 

time and effort needed by local staff to implement wilderness character monitoring. 

Where good-quality local data do not exist, data from national or regional monitoring 

programs would be used whenever possible across all appropriate resource disciplines 

(for example, air quality). Ideally, these data would be compiled by a centralized data 

analyst or resource specialist and provided to the local office. Interpretation from resource specialists will be needed to help determine if the resolution, scale, and quality 

of the data are appropriate for use by a wilderness. Legacy or historical pre-baseline 

data from the local unit are an important reservoir of information. Legacy data may 

be used if these data were collected (1) after the area was designated as wilderness or 

managed as wilderness by agency policy, and (2) by using consistent, credible, and 

documented protocols that are directly relevant to wilderness character monitoring. If 

legacy data are used for a measure, that measure’s baseline year will be earlier than 

the overall baseline year for determining change in wilderness character as a whole. In 

some cases there may be a considerable history of legacy data, such as for fire suppression, and local staff will need to determine the most appropriate means for summarizing these data and using them as a baseline.

Trend in wilderness character is determined by change within an 

individual wilderness

Each wilderness is unique in its combination of geographic setting, biophysical properties, enabling legislation, and administrative direction, so trend in wilderness character can be determined only by tracking change within a given wilderness. 

This uniqueness means that it is inappropriate and misleading to compare wilderness 

character from one wilderness to another. This is consistent with national direction 

provided by the Wilderness Act and supported by agency policies to preserve wilderness character relative to the time an area was designated as wilderness, regardless of 

the size of the area, ecosystem, proximity to urban areas, or any other attribute of the 

wilderness.

This monitoring balances national consistency with local 

relevance

This interagency strategy is designed to balance national and local needs for 

information on trend in wilderness character. To ensure national consistency and the 

ability to understand overall trends across different wildernesses for regional and 

national reporting, every agency and every wilderness will use the same set of qualities, monitoring questions, and indicators. However, this monitoring does not satisfy 

national information needs at the expense of local utility because local relevance is 

crucial for effective and successful long-term implementation (Biber 2013). Each 
20 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

agency has adopted a somewhat different approach to ensure local relevance. The 

BLM uses agency-required measures and encourages each wilderness unit to select 

additional optional measures. The FS uses a combination of agency-required, agencyrequired if relevant, and agency-optional measures, as well as any additional measures 

identified by the local unit. The FWS and NPS allow each unit to identify its own

measures. Such agency flexibility in selecting measures is necessary because the data

that are available to all four agencies (for example, size of the wilderness) would not 

allow meaningful assessment of trend in wilderness character.

Trend in wilderness character is reported every 5 years for every 

wilderness

The Wilderness Act mandates that every wilderness be managed to preserve its 

wilderness character, so this monitoring needs to be conducted on every wilderness, 

not just a sample of wildernesses. For some measures local data collection would most 

likely occur annually, and trend in wilderness character would be reported every 5 

years once the baseline has been established. This 5-year time period balances workload with providing needed information at a pace that allows for adaptive management.

Not all monitoring done in a wilderness is wilderness character 

monitoring

All the wilderness managing agencies currently conduct some form of monitoring inside wilderness. Typically this monitoring is for specific resource purposes such

as assessing campsite condition, range condition, or abundance and distribution of 

specific plant or animal species. Such monitoring provides data that may be used in

wilderness character monitoring, but by itself it should not be called “wilderness character monitoring.” In general, to qualify as “wilderness character monitoring” all four 

of the following requirements must be met:

• The monitoring is conducted in a designated wilderness or in an area that by policy 

is managed as wilderness or to preserve its wilderness character.

• The monitoring includes at least one measure for each of the indicators of the 

Untrammeled, Natural, Undeveloped, and Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined

Recreation Qualities, as well as the Other Features of Value Quality if appropriate.

• A specific baseline year has been established for the purpose of wilderness character

monitoring.

• The monitoring is intended to be a long-term monitoring program that (1) synthesizes the trends in all the measures into an integrated assessment of trend in wilderness 

character, and (2) is conducted periodically as long as the area remains designated 

as wilderness.

Selecting Measures

Specific procedures for selecting measures and collecting data are not described

in this strategy. Instead, each agency is responsible for determining the approach it 

will use: whether to let staff at each wilderness select measures, to develop agency-required measures, or to use some combination. No one approach is better than another, 

and these differing approaches reflect needed agency flexibility, agency culture, data
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 21

availability, and the most effective way of getting work done within that agency (see 

appendix 1 for details on the approach used by each agency).

Key concepts underlying the selection and use of measures

In general, three key words guide measure selection: useful, simple, practical 

(also see BLM 2012, Landres and others 2009, NPS 2014a). Keep it useful by selecting locally relevant measures that show how resource conditions are changing over 

time and that are directly useful to stewardship decisions. Keep it simple by selecting 

the fewest measures that will credibly track change in the indicator. Keep it practical by selecting measures that have preexisting data from national, regional, or local 

monitoring programs, or are cost-effective if new data collection is needed. The following key concepts learned from implementing the 2008 Keeping It Wild will help in 

selecting measures across all four agencies:

•  Wilderness character monitoring should not replicate other monitoring programs. 

A variety of federal agencies have robust monitoring programs and when these programs can provide relevant data for wilderness character monitoring, they should 

be used. The key is to select measures that are threats to resources that are integral 

to and most representative of the area’s wilderness character. The legislative history 

of a wilderness may provide information about Congressional intent and special 

values, features, purposes, and places (Meyer 2000), which may help identify 

resources that are integral to wilderness character.

•  Frequency of data collection will depend on the measure. The type of measure will 

inform the frequency of data collection. For example, annual data would likely be 

reported for measures that fluctuate yearly, such as the number of suppressed naturally ignited fires under the Untrammeled Quality; measures with low variability,

such as the number of physical structures in the Undeveloped Quality, would probably be reported every 5 years. In addition, data collection for some measures, such 

as campsite impacts, may be conducted sporadically as need requires and resources 

allow.

•  Measures that are relevant to wilderness character should be monitored regardless 

of managerial jurisdiction. Some resources are integral to wilderness character 

but are not directly under the management jurisdiction of the agency. For example, night sky visibility and air quality are experiential and ecological aspects 

of wilderness character but are beyond direct management control. The state of 

such resources in wilderness can serve as important benchmarks for assessing the 

magnitude of future anthropogenic impacts such as climate change and regional 

development. Measures should be selected based on their relevance to wilderness 

character regardless of managerial control or jurisdiction. If such measures are 

used, the accompanying narrative would allow discussion of how such measures 

are beyond management authority.

•  Management actions and developments may influence more than one quality of

wilderness character, but they are monitored only in the quality that is most directly

affected. Specific management actions and developments are measured only in the

quality that is most relevant and not included in more than one quality. In general, 

this means not using a measure as a proxy or surrogate in one quality if it can be 
22 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

used directly in another. For example, suppressing naturally ignited fires affects

both the Untrammeled Quality (as an action that intentionally manipulates fire) and

the Natural Quality (for its effect on fire regimes and its resulting ecological effects). However, the number of suppressed fires would be not used as a measure in

the Natural Quality because it is a proxy and does not directly measure the effects 

of fire suppression. Instead, it is a direct measure of an intentional manipulation in

the Untrammeled Quality.

A common source of confusion about double-counting is the specific case of

recreational developments because they could be logically counted in both the Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation Quality and the Undeveloped Quality.

For example, an agency-built recreation facility such as a toilet degrades primitive 

recreation and is a development. In this monitoring strategy, however, toilets (and 

other recreational developments) are included only in the Solitude or Primitive and 

Unconfined Recreation Quality because this quality includes all measures associated with recreation and recreational experiences (for more discussion, see the 

Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation Quality section).

Occasionally, separate and distinct impacts from a single management action 

or development can be measured independently by using different metrics. In such 

cases these distinct measures can be included under multiple qualities. For example, a barrier built to prevent non-indigenous fish from moving up a stream has

separate and distinct measurable impacts on the Untrammeled, Undeveloped, and 

Natural Qualities. The action to build the barrier would be counted as an intentional 

manipulation in the Untrammeled Quality, the presence of the barrier would be 

counted as an installation in the Undeveloped Quality, and the number of water 

bodies with altered stream flow would be counted as a degradation of water in the

Natural Quality. To keep this monitoring strategy as consistent and simple as possible, recommendations for assigning measures are provided within the discussion 

about the indicators in the section on each quality.

•  Local interpretation is necessary because some measures have opposing effects on 

different qualities. Reducing the complex, nuanced, and holistic nature of wilderness character into discrete entities may lead to cases where a single management 

action has opposing impacts on different qualities. For example, prescribed fire

may be used as a management tool to improve the Natural Quality in areas where 

the natural fire regime has been altered. However, the same prescribed burning is an

intentional manipulation of the biophysical environment, and therefore degrades the 

Untrammeled Quality. Wilderness stewardship commonly involves such tradeoffs 

and this monitoring makes transparent the effects of these tradeoffs on wilderness 

character. To clarify interpretation of monitoring results, reporting will include narrative text by local staff that provides the context needed to understand seemingly 

conflicting trends in the data.

•  Data adequacy will differ across the different measures. The range of measures 

used will require a variety of data and data sources, with corresponding variability 

in data quality. Some measures will require point data (such as installations) or 

sampling (such as the area of invasive plants), some will require assumptions 

about integration over large areas (such as air quality), and some will be biased 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 23

by the amount of law enforcement or other effort (such as unauthorized actions). 

High-quality corporate datasets will be available for some measures, whereas for 

others only poor-quality data—or no data—will be available. In the last two cases, 

interpolated data or local professional judgment may be used to assign a data value 

provided the rationale is clearly documented (including who made the judgment, 

their expertise, details of supporting field experience, and any additional information needed for outside viewers to understand the basis for this interpolation or 

professional judgment). The key point is to use the best available scientific information for each measure and then document data adequacy and the implications for 

interpreting change in the measure.

•  Measures can change over time. Consistently using the same measures over time is 

necessary to show trend within a wilderness, but a monitoring program also needs 

to evolve. Measures may change because new issues arise, new policy direction 

requires a change, or new measures are developed that provide better information 

on some aspect of wilderness character. Because wilderness character monitoring is 

relatively new, agency staff may need to balance the benefits of consistency in using existing measures against the benefits of using new and better measures if they

become available. If measures are changed, it is important to document when the 

change occurred, the reason(s) for this action, and the potential impact on interpreting trend in wilderness character.

The Online Wilderness Character Monitoring Database

Together, all four wilderness managing agencies contributed to the development of an interagency, online wilderness character monitoring database to serve as 

the central portal for data entry, data storage, data analysis, and reporting (Adams and 

others 2012). This database will be available in 2015 through the Internet (not agency 

intranets) and hosted on the Wilderness.net Web site with permissioned access for use 

by agency personnel. The agency-standardized measures used by the BLM and the FS 

will be built into the database. Measures selected by an individual wilderness for all 

four agencies will have to be entered into the database by the wilderness unit.

The online database will have a single set of wilderness character monitoring 

measures and data for each wilderness. This will require the 34 wildernesses that are 

currently managed by more than one agency to develop a single set of measures, in 

turn requiring the co-managing agencies to communicate and coordinate with one 

another to select the measures, gather the data, and enter these into the database. Similarly, for wildernesses managed by more than one administrative unit within a single 

agency, such as two different FS districts or forests, the co-managing administrative 

units will need to either designate a lead administrative unit responsible for selecting 

measures and entering the data, or coordinate with one another to select the measures. 

Finally, in some agencies, a single wilderness may be composed of geographically 

separate administrative units, and a single set of measures for the wilderness needs to 

be selected for use in wilderness character monitoring and in the database. If individual administrative units for all of the above cases have additional measures they 

want to monitor for local uses, those measures would not be included in the wilderness 

character monitoring or database unless they apply to the entire wilderness.
24 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Assessing Trend In Wilderness Character

The overall trend in wilderness character for a wilderness is derived in this 

monitoring strategy to provide a readily interpretable assessment for local, regional, 

and national staff. At the regional and national levels, staff need to understand whether 

agency policies and programs are fulfilling the legal mandate of the Wilderness Act

to preserve wilderness character. In contrast, the more detailed information on trends 

in the individual qualities, monitoring questions, indicators, and measures will most 

likely be of direct use to local wilderness managers.

Assessing a single overall trend in wilderness character poses conceptual and 

statistical problems, and creates a potential for unintended consequences and abuse 

(see the concerns that are discussed in appendix 4). These problems occur in every 

monitoring program that derives a single integrative metric based on disparate pieces 

of information. For example, Andreasen and others (2001, p. 29) describe these problems in developing an index of ecological integrity:

The final step in producing an index [of ecological integrity] is combining the

suite of metrics into a single value that represents the overall integrity of the 

ecosystem. For many ecologists, this is the limiting step. Aware of the enormous 

complexity of environmental systems, any attempt at description with a single 

number is facetious: arbitrary at best and dangerously deceptive at worst. 

But the primary customer ... is not the ecologist but the decision maker. This 

customer needs the price of a loaf of bread, not an analysis of the impact of 

OPEC on the cost to transport wheat.

Several different methods (statistical, graphical, numerical, and diagrammatic) 

were explored to compile or consolidate trends in the measures into a single trend in 

wilderness character. These different methods were tested on dozens of hypothetical 

examples to develop the FS wilderness character monitoring protocols (Landres and 

others 2009). The approach used in this interagency monitoring strategy was selected 

as the most robust, practical, and readily interpretable.

The overall process for assessing trend in wilderness character is described here, 

with details below. The trend in wilderness character is determined by using nationally 

consistent rules to compile trends across the measures, indicators, monitoring questions, and qualities to derive an overall trend in wilderness character for each wilderness. A trend of stable, upward, or downward is derived for each measure based on the 

data values and the threshold for significant change defined by the agency or local staff

for that measure. Trends, not the data, in each measure are compiled by using rules 

to identify the trend in the indicator. These same rules are then used to determine the 

trend in the monitoring question from its component indicators, the trend in each quality from its monitoring questions, and the trend in wilderness character from the four 

(or five if the Other Features of Value Quality is used) qualities.

Determining significant change and trend in a measure

A significant, or meaningful, change in each measure is based on either nationally or locally determined thresholds. These thresholds are defined for national or

regional scale measures by national or regional staff, and for locally identified measures by local staff. Trend in each measure is classified into one of three categories and
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 25

assigned an arrow: stable (no significant change in the data, ), upward (a significant

improvement, ñ), or downward (a significant degradation, ò).

In a given year that trend is reported, trend in a measure is determined by comparing the most recent monitoring data with the earliest available baseline data for that 

measure. For some measures, however, the most recent data may not be for the year 

the trend is derived. Also, if legacy data exist for a measure, these data would be included in determining trend for the measure. Table 4 provides several examples illustrating how trend is derived by using data from different years for different measures.

For measures that have at least five data points, simple linear regression may be

used to determine trend (see appendix B in Landres and others 2009 for details on the 

use of regression). However, regression would generally not be appropriate for measures that use “any change” (for example, an increase of one dam) or categories (for 

example, a change from 10 percent to 20 percent areal coverage of non-indigenous 

plants) as thresholds for determining meaningful change. In addition, changing from 

locally defined or agency-defined rules to regression for determining significance may

change the trend in a measure.

Table 4—Five hypothetical measures showing how trend is derived based on comparing 

the most recent data with the measure’s baseline data.a

Measure

Year of data collection

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 Trend derived

Measure 1       2010–2015

Measure 2       2009–2014

Measure 3     2008–2014

Measure 4   2010–2015

Measure 5     2008–2014

a Circles show that data were collected for the given year. For each measure, trend is assessed from that 

measure’s baseline year (left black circle) to that measure’s most recent year of data collection (right black 

circle) either by comparing them directly or by regression analysis. Open circles show additional years that 

data were collected. The shaded column under 2010 shows the hypothetical wilderness character baseline 

year (the first year for which data are available for all measures), with legacy data from 2008 and 2009. The 

“Trend Derived” column shows the set of years used to determine the trend for each measure for reporting in 

2015.

Determining trend in an indicator, monitoring question, and 

quality

Once trends have been determined for all the measures, the following rules are 

used to derive the trend in an indicator:

1. All the trends in the measures of one indicator are combined, with each upwardtrending measure (ñ) offsetting each downward-trending measure (ò). 

2. The overall trend in the indicator is upward if there are more upward- than 

downward-trending measures, and the overall trend is downward if there are more 

downward- than upward-trending measures (regardless of the number of stable 

measures).
26 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

3. If there are an equal number of upward- and downward-trending measures, the 

overall trend in the indicator is referred to as “offsetting stable” (ô).

4. If all the measures are stable, the trend in the indicator is also stable (ó).

By applying the same rules, the resulting trends in the indicators are then used to 

derive the trends in the monitoring questions, and likewise through each of the qualities (illustrated in table 5).

Table 5—Hypothetical example showing how trend in the qualities is derived from trends in the 

measures, indicators, and monitoring questions.a

Qualities

Trend

Measure Indicator Question Quality

Untrammeled Quality

Authorized actions 

   Fires suppressed 

Lakes stocked with fish 

Unauthorized actions  

Natural Quality

Invasive non-indigenous plants  

 

Invasive non-indigenous animals  

Visibility 

Ozone  

Water quality 

Landscape fragmentation  

Undeveloped Quality

Authorized development   

 Inholdings  

Authorized motorized/mechanized 

Emergency motorized/mechanized   

Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation Quality

Visitor use  





User-created campsites 

Area away from developments 

outside wilderness  

Night sky light pollution 

Recreation facilities    Visitor restrictions   a For brevity, a subset of measures is used and the Other Features of Value Quality is not shown. 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 27

Determining trend in wilderness character

Trend in wilderness character is derived by combining the trends from all of the 

qualities. The Wilderness Act does not state that any one aspect of the Section 2(c) 

Definition of Wilderness is more or less important than another, so this monitoring

strategy assumes that all qualities are equally important, with one exception described 

below for the Untrammeled Quality. This assumption of equal importance includes the 

Other Features of Value Quality because even though such features may or may not be 

present in the wilderness, the Wilderness Act provides no reason to consider this quality (when present) more or less important than the other qualities.

Once trends in each quality have been determined, the overall trend in wilderness character is derived by following the same four rules listed above. However, if 

there are an equal number of upward- and downward-trending qualities, an additional 

rule is applied as a tiebreaker:

5. If there are an equal number of upward- and downward-trending qualities, the 

overall trend in wilderness character is determined by the trend in the Untrammeled 

Quality.

Three reasons support giving extra weight to the Untrammeled Quality in a 

tiebreaker situation: the statutory definition of wilderness describes “untrammeled” in

a separate sentence; the importance of untrammeled as the essence of wilderness has 

a long history in the wilderness literature; and no other land designations are by law 

to be kept untrammeled. These three factors serve to make the Untrammeled Quality “first among equals,” an idea supported by a recent legal review (Long and Biber

2014). Table 6 applies these rules to four hypothetical examples to illustrate how the 

trends in the five qualities are aggregated to assess the overall trend in wilderness

character. 

Trend in wilderness character is derived by comparing the most recent data for 

each measure with the baseline data for that measure and using the rules described 

above. For example, if the baseline assessment was conducted in 2015 and subsequent 

data are collected in 2020 and 2025, the trend in wilderness character for 2020 would 

be derived by comparing the 2015 data with the 2020 data, and the trend for 2025 

would be derived by comparing the 2015 data with the 2025 data, and so on. There 

may be situations where managers want to know the trend from one monitoring period 

to the next, say from 2020 to 2025 rather than 2015 to 2025, to closely track the effects of management actions and make mid-course corrections if needed. Even in such 

cases, the overall trend in wilderness character is determined and reported by comparing the most recent data with the baseline data to prevent slow, incremental degradation of wilderness character.

Flexibility and limitations in assessing trend

This approach to deriving an overall trend in wilderness character has several 

important features. First, by compiling trends (as opposed to data), this approach allows disparate types of data to be used for the measures. This in turn allows different 

wildernesses and different agencies to use a single, nationally consistent approach to 

assessing trend in wilderness character across the entire NWPS (see appendix 5 for 

resulting analyses and reports that can be derived from this consistent approach).
28 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Table 6—Four hypothetical examples showing how trend in wilderness character is derived from the trends in 

the qualities.a

Two qualities with an upward trend, one quality with a downward trend.

Quality

Trend in the 

quality

Trend in wilderness 

character

Untrammeled 



Natural 

Undeveloped 

Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation 

Other Features of Value 

One quality with an upward trend, two qualities with a downward trend.

Quality

Trend in the 

quality

Trend in wilderness 

character

Untrammeled 



Natural 

Undeveloped 

Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation 

Other Features of Value 

Two qualities with an upward trend, two qualities with a downward trend; Untrammeled Quality as “tiebreaker.”

Quality

Trend in the 

quality

Trend in wilderness 

character

Untrammeled 



Natural 

Undeveloped 

Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation 

Other Features of Value 

Two qualities with an upward trend, two qualities with a downward trend; Untrammeled Quality as “tiebreaker”; 

the trends in the other qualities offset each other, so the overall trend in wilderness character is stable–

offsetting, rather than the simple stable trend in the Untrammeled Quality.

Quality

Trend in the 

quality

Trend in wilderness 

character

Untrammeled 



Natural 

Undeveloped 

Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation 

Other Features of Value  aFor brevity, the measures, indicators, and monitoring questions used to determine the trend in each quality are not shown. 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 29

Second, the different number of monitoring questions, indicators, and measures 

within each quality does not affect the overall trend in wilderness character because 

each quality is represented by a single trend. Third, this hierarchical approach provides 

different levels of information for the different needs of different audiences: local 

managers need detailed information on specific measures and indicators, whereas

regional and national staff need broader trend information. 

Finally, this approach purposefully shows only the change that is occurring and 

not the magnitude of that change in the indicators, monitoring questions, qualities, and 

wilderness character. Magnitude is not included because it would: (1) imply a greater 

level of precision than is possible in this national monitoring strategy; (2) require a 

consistency across wildernesses and agencies in the number and types of measures 

that is not possible given the variability within the NWPS; (3) make outcomes more 

vulnerable to gaming or manipulation (whereas this strategy’s conservative approach 

counts any declining trend as a fully, not partially, declining trend); and (4) not provide 

any additional resources to local managers who already have the detailed information 

they need from the data and trends in the measures.

Reporting on Trend in Wilderness Character

This strategy recommends that the agencies produce three types of standardized monitoring reports, each designed for a different audience: local, regional, and 

national. Collectively, these reports will help managers understand how wilderness 

character is changing and promote understanding of larger regional and national trends 

in agency wilderness stewardship. Appendix 5 provides selected examples of local, 

regional, and national reports. Although each agency will need to determine its own 

content and format for these reports, consistency across the agencies would facilitate 

producing a single NWPS summary report. The frequency of these reports may be 

annually or biannually for the local report (to maintain ongoing interest and support 

for local wilderness character monitoring) and once every 5 years for the regional and 

national reports.

Local wilderness report

This wilderness-specific report would promote understanding of wilderness

conditions and facilitate discussion among local staff about preserving wilderness 

character. Local managers could produce two types of agency-specific local reports:

• A Summary Report would present trends in wilderness character and the qualities to 

a broad audience of decisionmakers and interested citizens, and would be used for 

upward reporting within the agency.

• A Detailed Report would present all the wilderness character monitoring information (from the data for each measure up to the overall trend in wilderness character) 

for use by the local wilderness managers to compare current conditions with locally 

established thresholds.
30 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Regional wilderness report

This report would promote communication and discussion of monitoring 

results among each agency’s regional wilderness program managers. A standardized 

reporting format would show trends in wilderness character, and trends in the 

qualities, monitoring questions, indicators, and measures for all wildernesses in a 

region. (Regional reports from FWS and NPS would likely not include information 

on measures because each wilderness is likely to have different measures.) A map 

would also show the percentage of wildernesses within each region that are preserving 

wilderness character. This report would provide the level of detail regional wilderness 

program managers need to help with accountability for wilderness stewardship and 

policy review.

National wilderness report

This report would promote communication and discussion of wilderness 

stewardship among national wilderness program managers within each agency, key 

national non-governmental partners, and congressional staff. A standardized reporting 

format would show, in approximately two pages, the agency-specific national summary of monitoring results suitable for high-level briefings. This report would present

the percentage of wildernesses in which wilderness character is being preserved, and 

the national trend in each of the qualities of wilderness character. 

Monitoring narrative

A monitoring narrative, included in each report, would provide relevant information about the local, regional, and national conditions, circumstances, and context 

that affect interpretation and use of the trends reported. This portion of the report 

would give staff the opportunity to add qualitative information and insights from their 

professional judgment to complement and help interpret trends as appropriate for local, regional, and national reporting. This text would be a valuable part of the legacy 

information passed to future wilderness managers and would help ensure consistency 

in reporting over time. The following questions could serve to structure this narrative:

• Is there confidence in the data generated by this monitoring?

• Does the trend in wilderness character accurately reflect recent conditions in the

wilderness?

• How should the trend in wilderness character be interpreted if some of the qualities 

are showing an upward trend while others are showing a downward trend?

• Have decisions been made (for example, to not take certain actions) that are not reflected in this monitoring but that affect the interpretation of the trend in wilderness

character?

Improving This Monitoring in the Future

Monitoring wilderness character is relatively new and the approach recommended here will most likely need to be reevaluated and revised in the future. To ensure 

credibility and continual improvement over time, this approach must incorporate input 

from on-the-ground wilderness managers, scientists, and the public to reflect lessons

learned during implementation as well as new thinking about wilderness character. 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 31

Both the interagency aspect of this approach and its usefulness to wilderness stewardship will require periodic reevaluation.

A standing interagency team is recommended to provide oversight and organization, and to ensure quality control in reviewing accomplishments and improving all 

aspects of wilderness character monitoring. Agency personnel on such a team could 

serve as a crucial first link for questions and oversight within each agency. Challenging questions could be posed to the entire team for discussion and interagency consensus recommendations. Meetings of the standing team at 5-year intervals could:

• Review agency accomplishments in implementing wilderness character monitoring.

• Solicit, compile, and organize input from users on what works and what does not.

• Evaluate the relevance of the measures that have been used and recommend 

changes as appropriate.

• Recommend new data sources and applicable research that are relevant to helping 

select new measures and interpreting trends in existing measures.

• Evaluate the effectiveness of the process for compiling trends.

• Evaluate the effectiveness of data storage and analysis methods.

• Evaluate the effectiveness of reporting and the use of this information by decisionmakers, compliance staff, and staff from other resource programs. 
32 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 33

Untrammeled Quality

Section 2(c) of the Wilderness Act defines wilderness as “an area where the earth

and its community of life are untrammeled by man,” as an area that “generally appears 

to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature[,]” and as an area “retaining its primeval character and influence.” The term “untrammeled” is defined in the

American Heritage dictionary (2011) as “allowed to run free,” and synonyms include 

unrestrained, unrestricted, unhindered, unimpeded, unencumbered, and self-willed. 

When testifying at the final Senate hearing for the proposed Wilderness Act, Zahniser

(1963b, p. 68) stated that in the bill’s definition of wilderness, “...the first sentence [on

untrammeled] is definitive of the meaning of the concept of wilderness, its essence, its

essential nature...The first sentence defines the character of wilderness.” In this monitoring strategy, the Untrammeled Quality means that wilderness is essentially unhindered and free from the intentional actions of modern human control or manipulation. 

Since passage of the Wilderness Act, the word “untrammeled” and its meaning 

for wilderness stewardship have been discussed at length (for example, Aplet 1999, 

Scott 2002). Zahniser (1963a, p. 2), in an editorial titled “Guardians not gardeners,” 

noted that the inspiration for wilderness preservation “is to use ‘skill, judgment, and 

ecologic sensitivity’ for the protection of some areas within which natural forces may 

operate without man’s management and manipulation.” Furthering this notion, Lucas 

(1973, p. 151) stated, “If ecological processes operate essentially uncontrolled within 

the Wilderness frame of reference, the results, whatever they might be, are desirable 

by definition. The object is not to stop change, nor to recreate conditions as of some

arbitrary historical date, nor to strive for favorable change in big game populations or 

in scenic vistas. The object is to let nature ‘roll the dice’ and accept the results with 

interest and scientific curiosity.” Nash (2004, p. 8) noted, “Restraint is at the core of

the new valuation of wilderness as a moral resource. When we protect wilderness 

we deliberately withhold our power to change the landscape.” Ridder (2007) defined

untrammeled as an absence of rationally planned human intervention.

Wilderness is different from other federal lands in that wilderness legislation 

dictates not only the goals of stewardship but also how management is to be 

approached—with the utmost humility and restraint. When there is an opportunity 

for restraint, wilderness legislation directs the managing agency to scrutinize its 

actions and minimize control or interference with plants, animals, soils, water bodies, 

and natural processes. The Untrammeled Quality is a unique legislative requirement 

among all types of land management, defining wilderness in terms of how it is 

managed rather than what is there. Management actions may be taken to achieve some 

positive outcome (for example, to improve one of the other qualities of wilderness 

character; to comply with federal law such as the Endangered Species Act or special 

provisions in wilderness enabling legislation; to address a problem with visitor 

safety; or to address a problem such as the presence of non-indigenous species), but 

if those actions intentionally manipulate the ecological system, they still degrade the 

Facing page: Denali Wilderness, Jacob W. Frank photo (Jacob.w.frank@gmail.com), courtesy of 

Nature’s Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wilderness50’s “Wilderness Forever” 

photo competition.
34 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Table 7—The monitoring question and indicators under the Untrammeled Quality.

Quality Monitoring question Indicator

Untrammeled What are the trends in actions that 

intentionally control or manipulate 

“the earth and its community of life” 

inside wilderness?

Actions authorized by the federal land 

manager that intentionally manipulate the 

biophysical environment

Actions not authorized by the federal 

land manager that intentionally 

manipulate the biophysical environment

Untrammeled Quality. To preserve the Untrammeled Quality of wilderness, managers 

need to exercise restraint when authorizing actions that manipulate any aspect of 

the wilderness—in general actions that trammel should be avoided as an essential 

principle of wilderness stewardship unless it can be shown that these actions are 

necessary to preserve wilderness character as a whole (Kaye 2014). This concept of 

trammeling applies to all manipulation since the time of wilderness designation. But it 

does not apply to manipulations that occurred before wilderness designation (such as 

the use of fire by indigenous people to promote game habitat) because the mandates of

the Wilderness Act do not apply prior to designation.

The Untrammeled Quality is clearly linked to the Natural Quality, but they differ 

in a key way. The Untrammeled Quality monitors actions that intentionally manipulate 

or control ecological systems, whereas the Natural Quality monitors the effects from 

actions taken inside wilderness or from external forces on these systems, regardless 

of whether the effects are intentional or not. Separating actions from effects offers 

a clearer understanding of the trends in actions compared with the trends in effects, 

permitting more effective analysis to improve wilderness stewardship. In addition, the 

Untrammeled and Natural Qualities are often linked in an inverse way because actions 

taken to improve the Natural Quality (for example, using prescribed fire to allow fire

processes to occur where adjacent land development precludes allowing lightningignited fires to burn naturally, or spraying herbicide to eradicate a non-indigenous species, or removing non-indigenous fish from lakes) are also intentional manipulations

that degrade the Untrammeled Quality.

Monitoring Question and Indicators

Table 7 summarizes the one monitoring question and two indicators under the 

Untrammeled Quality.

Monitoring question: What are the trends in actions that 

intentionally control or manipulate the “earth and its community 

of life” inside wilderness?

The single monitoring question for the Untrammeled Quality examines actions 

that intentionally control or manipulate the components or processes of ecological 

systems inside wilderness. In this context, “intentional manipulation” means an action 

that purposefully alters, hinders, restricts, controls, or manipulates the “the earth and 

its community of life,” including the type, quantity, or distribution of plants, animals, 

physical resources (such as air, water, or soil), or biophysical processes (such as fire)

inside a designated wilderness.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 35

Actions initiated outside the boundaries of a designated wilderness generally do 

not affect the Untrammeled Quality. However, some actions taken outside of wilderness boundaries do intentionally alter, hinder, restrict, control, or manipulate “the earth 

and its community of life” within wilderness. Examples are: introducing a game species outside a wilderness with the intention that the animals will occupy habitat within 

the wilderness, igniting a fire outside of a wilderness with the anticipation that the fire

will burn into the wilderness, installing a dam outside of a wilderness boundary that 

results in the containment of a watershed within the wilderness, and seeding clouds for 

weather manipulation over a wilderness.

Since implementation of the 2008 Keeping It Wild monitoring strategy, more 

questions have been raised about the Untrammeled Quality than any of the other 

qualities, especially about whether particular actions should be considered trammeling 

actions, and how to count these actions. Appendix 6 provides a detailed discussion and 

many examples of actions that would or would not typically be considered trammeling 

actions. The FS Technical Guide (Landres and others 2009) and the BLM Implementation Guide (BLM 2012) provide details about counting these actions.

As a general rule, all actions that intentionally control or manipulate ecological 

systems within wilderness should be counted equally as trammeling actions regardless of the magnitude of their effects. For practical reasons, however, this monitoring focuses on actions that represent larger scale and more intense manipulations 

of populations, communities, and disturbance processes, rather than smaller or less 

intense manipulations. Appendix 6 provides more discussion and many examples of 

how scale and scope are pragmatically used to determine whether an intentional manipulation is included in this monitoring. Examples of significant actions that would be

tracked, compared with smaller actions that would not be, are, respectively: removing predators to reduce their population size compared with removing an individual 

animal, installing a dam across a river channel compared with installing a waterbar on 

an existing trail, removing many trees to reroute a major section of trail compared to 

removing a few trees to reroute a small section of eroding trail, and restoring a mine 

site compared with restoring individual campsites.

Managers will need to determine what constitutes a trammeling action based 

on what makes the most sense for understanding the long-term trends in trammeling 

actions for each wilderness. These determinations may differ from one location to another depending on local circumstances, and need to be applied consistently over time 

within a wilderness to credibly assess trend in the Untrammeled Quality.

For monitoring trammeling actions, some wilderness managers created indices 

that take into account the area, intensity, frequency, or duration (in short, the scale 

and scope) of each trammeling action. The consensus view at the Interagency Lessons 

Learned Workshop, however, was to count all actions the same regardless of magnitude because the Untrammeled Quality focuses tightly on whether a particular decision 

to manipulate is made, not on the magnitude of that decision. In other words, taking 

any trammeling action manipulates “the earth and its community of life” and degrades 

the Untrammeled Quality. Another concern is that if scale and scope are taken into 

account, a wilderness could justify taking an action that has a smaller impact, with the 

potential consequence that taking many smaller actions will have a large cumulative 

impact on the Untrammeled Quality. Although Keeping It Wild 2 recommends not 
36 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

including scale and scope in monitoring trammeling actions, each agency has the discretion to do so. Areal extent, intensity, frequency, and duration, as well as the reason 

for the action, could also be included in local reporting.

Actions that degrade the Untrammeled Quality are primarily the result of decisions by the wilderness managing agency. However, intentional activities of other 

governmental agencies and the public that are not authorized by the federal land 

manager may also affect this quality. Therefore, two indicators are used to address the 

monitoring question—one that addresses intentional manipulations that are authorized 

by the federal land manager, and one that addresses intentional manipulations that are 

not authorized by the federal wilderness land manager.

Indicator: Actions authorized by the federal land manager that intentionally 

manipulate the biophysical environment

This indicator tracks all significant actions authorized by the wilderness managing agency that intentionally manipulate the biophysical environment, including those 

allowed under Section 4(d)(1) of the Wilderness Act (which states “measures may be 

taken as may be necessary in the control of fire, insects and disease, subject to such

conditions as the Secretary deems desirable”). Intentional manipulations taken by 

other federal agencies, state and tribal agencies, and private citizens are included under 

this indicator if these actions are authorized by the federal wilderness land managing 

agency. The intent of this indicator is not to produce a scorecard to grade management performance—the intent is to track whether management programs are trending 

toward more or less human manipulation in a given wilderness. Trend in this indicator 

tracks whether or not managers are practicing restraint to allow a wilderness area to 

persist in its free and self-willed condition. Examples of possible measures that could 

be included in this indicator are: number of actions that suppress naturally ignited 

fires; number of actions to stock lakes and other water bodies with fish; number of

actions to install guzzlers that provide water to animals; number of actions to install 

barriers to prevent movement of animals within a stream; number of actions to install 

structures that alter water flow; and number of actions to trap wildlife to place radio

collars, clip toes, or implant pit-tags.

Indicator: Actions not authorized by the federal land manager that 

intentionally manipulate the biophysical environment

Unauthorized intentional manipulations of plants, animals, physical resources, 

or biophysical processes within wilderness have the potential to affect all qualities of 

wilderness character. These actions are fundamentally different from those authorized 

by the wilderness managing agency: most authorized manipulations undergo a review 

process to determine their impacts on the various resources within wilderness, but unauthorized manipulations are often undertaken with little to no consideration for their 

effects on the broader ecological systems within wilderness and on the other qualities 

of wilderness character. Despite not being currently relevant in some wildernesses, this 

indicator captures an important type of trammeling action that can have a large impact. 

Examples of possible measures for this indicator are: number of actions to stock lakes 

or other water bodies with fish, number of actions to introduce plant or animal species,

and number of actions to control predators by other agencies without the wilderness 

managing agency’s approval.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 37
38 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 39

Natural Quality

One of the major themes running through the Wilderness Act is that wilderness 

should be free from the effects of “an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization” and that the “earth and its community of 

life...is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions” (Section 2(a) 

and 2(c), respectively). Historically, wilderness is strongly associated with protecting 

ecological systems from the impacts of modern people (Sutter 2004). In this monitoring strategy, the Natural Quality is preserved when wilderness ecological systems are 

substantially free from the effects of modern civilization. 

The Natural Quality of wilderness character encompasses all naturally occurring 

biological and physical elements of wilderness: plant and animal species and communities, soil, air, and water. This quality also includes the interactions among these 

elements and the resulting ecological processes or functions that occur in wilderness, 

including naturally occurring disturbance processes such as fire, flooding, and outbreaks of insects and pathogens. In short, the Natural Quality is the indigenous species 

compositions, structures, and functions of the wilderness. The indigenous ecological systems in wilderness serve as the best remaining “laboratory for the study of 

land-health” (Leopold 1968) and ecological baseline for understanding the effects of 

modern civilization on natural systems (Arcese 1997). Wilderness is the last best place 

to monitor the effects of regional and global threats, such as those resulting from air 

pollution and climate change, respectively.

Importantly, variability and change are hallmarks of all ecological systems, especially in wilderness, where the primary goal is to allow ecological systems to evolve 

and change freely without human influence. The Natural Quality should not be used

to set a target that maintains a particular ecological status quo or pushes an ecosystem 

towards a desired set of past or future conditions. Given this variability, determining 

the amount of change that is or is not natural is exceedingly complex and has been the 

subject of much scientific as well as philosophical discussion (for example, see Cole

and Yung 2010 and the references therein).

Ecological systems inside wilderness are directly affected by actions taken inside 

as well as outside the wilderness. Inside wilderness, for example, non-indigenous fish

have been intentionally introduced to improve recreational fishing, yet this action has

far-reaching negative effects on indigenous biological diversity and nutrient cycling 

in wilderness lakes (Knapp and others 2001). Likewise, lake ecosystems have been 

dramatically changed when fish are stocked in lakes that previously had none. Livestock grazing may be permitted in wilderness yet contributes to soil disturbance and 

the spread of non-indigenous plants (Belsky and Blumenthal 1997). Biological control 

agents may be used inside wilderness to eradicate invasive non-indigenous plants, yet 

may have unintended effects on indigenous plants (Louda and Stiling 2004). 

Facing page: Katmai Wilderness, Robert Amoruso photo (robert.amoruso@wildscapeimages.

com), courtesy of Nature’s Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wilderness50’s 

“Wilderness Forever” photo competition.
40 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Actions outside wilderness, either adjacent to it or far away, can also have 

large effects inside wilderness. For example, soil disturbance from logging next to a 

wilderness may create a pool of wind-dispersed exotic plants whose seeds can easily 

blow into a wilderness and become established there. Dams outside wilderness alter 

hydrological flow regimes, adversely affecting the riparian plant communities within

wilderness (Cowell and Dyer 2002). Air pollutants from sources outside wilderness 

disperse long distances, affecting wilderness vegetation, soils, and aquatic systems 

(Schreiber and Newman 1987). Developments outside the wilderness can fragment 

wildlife habitat, in turn affecting the distribution and abundance of wildlife populations inside the wilderness. Many wildernesses show impacts from becoming increasingly isolated within a “sea” of modern development (Landres and others 1998). At 

global and regional scales, climate change has a myriad of impacts on ecosystems 

inside wilderness.

Monitoring Question and Indicators

Table 8 summarizes the one monitoring question and four indicators under the 

Natural Quality.

Table 8—The monitoring question and indicators under the Natural Quality.

Quality Monitoring question Indicator

Natural What are the trends in the 

natural environment from 

human-caused change?

Plants

Animals

Air and water

Ecological processes

Monitoring question: What are the trends in the natural 

environment from human-caused change?

The single monitoring question for the Natural Quality tracks trends in the 

natural environment inside wilderness as a result of human-caused change since the 

area was designated (or by policy managed) as wilderness. Separating human-caused 

change from natural change requires sufficient understanding of natural conditions

and how they vary across time and space. In practice, this understanding is generally 

lacking. In addition, monitoring in wilderness ideally would track all the effects from 

both inside and outside the wilderness. Practical and conceptual constraints, however, 

mean that only a limited set of these effects can be monitored. Likewise, understanding cause-and-effect relationships is beyond the purpose, and practical and technical scope, of this monitoring strategy. Therefore, downward trends are considered 

“red flags” that call for research and more intensive monitoring to verify the change,

understand its cause, and take the minimum necessary mitigating action only when 

appropriate.

Under all four indicators described below, relevant and practical measures are 

(1) known human-caused threats to the ecological systems in the wilderness, (2) based 

on credible protocols that will be repeated over time to yield statistically reliable data 

and trends that are separable from natural variability, and (3) not based on historical 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 41

ecological conditions, keeping current conditions from changing, or desired future 

ecological conditions. In addition, this monitoring strategy recommends not using 

proxy or surrogate measures to infer broader and more difficult-to-measure effects on

the Natural Quality. For example, a guzzler should not be used as a proxy measure to 

infer ecological effects on the Natural Quality (such as changing the spatial pattern of 

species occurrence or their seasonal use of an area); instead, it should be counted as an 

installation in the Undeveloped Quality. To help agency staff select appropriate measures, Appendix 7 provides detailed discussion about selecting measures, examples of 

appropriate and inappropriate measures, and a flowchart showing the general selection

process. 

The four indicators selected to answer this monitoring question capture a broad 

spectrum of biological and physical attributes, as well as ecological processes that 

operate within wilderness. Fortunately, there are several national data collection 

programs (for example, air quality monitoring) and some of the wilderness managing 

agencies have robust natural resource inventory and monitoring programs that can 

provide much of the data needed to monitor this quality. The intent of this monitoring 

strategy is not to replicate these other monitoring programs, but instead to carefully 

select a few measures for each indicator that best represent trends in the area’s Natural 

Quality.

Indicator: Plants

 Indigenous plant species and plant communities are an integral part of the 

Natural Quality of wilderness. Indigenous plants are uniquely adapted to local 

environmental conditions, and contribute to the maintenance of those conditions 

through such roles as providing soil nutrients and preventing soil erosion. In addition, 

these plants support the larger community of life by providing food and habitat for 

indigenous animals. Alterations of plant communities within wilderness may result 

in changes to the composition, structure, and function of individual plant communities, as well as cascading effects to the larger community of life within the wilderness 

through the loss, degradation, or alteration of habitat. For convenience, non-vascular 

plants (for example, bryophytes, lichens, and mosses) and fungi are also included in 

this indicator.

This indicator captures the primary threats to indigenous plants and plant communities: the addition of non-indigenous species or the loss of indigenous species. A 

decrease in the presence of non-indigenous species would result in an upward trend 

in this indicator. An example of a possible measure for this indicator is the number, 

distribution, or abundance of non-indigenous invasive plant species. 

Indicator: Animals

The presence of vertebrate and invertebrate species within wilderness is an integral part of the Natural Quality of wilderness and these species play specific roles in

the larger community of life. An animal may be food for another animal or regulate the 

population of plants or animals upon which it feeds. Alterations in the occurrence or 

abundance of animals may result in cascading changes within the animal community 

as well as associated plant communities.
42 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

This indicator captures the primary threats to indigenous animals: the addition 

of non-indigenous species or the loss of indigenous species. A decrease in the presence 

of non-indigenous species would result in an upward trend in this indicator. Examples 

of possible measures for this indicator are: number, distribution, or abundance of 

non-indigenous animal species; and an index of stocked lakes that could include, for 

example, a ratio of indigenous to non-indigenous aquatic species.

Indicator: Air and water

Air and water are essential to maintaining properly functioning natural systems 

inside wilderness. Both are vulnerable to degradation by pollutants produced outside 

of wilderness as a result of land development and industrial activity. The presence of 

airborne pollutants in soil and water within wilderness can have direct adverse effects 

on sensitive plant and animal species and can directly affect essential ecosystem 

functions such as nutrient cycling. Air pollutants can reduce visibility. In addition to 

vulnerability to pollutants, water quality, water quantity, and associated features such 

as stream morphology are vulnerable to the effects of physical manipulations within 

and outside of wilderness. For example, dams outside the wilderness can markedly 

affect water quantity and quality, as well as stream morphology, inside the wilderness. 

In some cases, such as in some desert wildernesses, loss of cryptobiotic soils from 

grazing or recreation trampling is a significant concern and would be appropriate to

include in this indicator if such data are available.

This indicator captures quantities of selected pollutants present within wilderness, as well as selected measurable physical effects of pollution on visibility or the 

diversity and abundance of pollution-sensitive species. A wealth of air quality data is 

available from national sources. Though air pollution originates outside wilderness, 

identifying trends in air pollutants within wilderness may influence external decisionmaking processes, especially in wildernesses that are designated as Class I airsheds. 

This indicator also captures physical manipulations of free-flowing water within

wilderness and their effects, as well as the effects of similar manipulations outside wilderness. Examples of possible measures for this indicator are: ozone exposure statistics, concentration of nitrogen and sulfur in wet or dry deposition, visibility statistics, 

altered water flow rates, and index of pollutant-sensitive lichen species.

Indicator: Ecological processes

The integrity of ecological processes within wilderness is vital to preserving the 

Natural Quality of wilderness. This indicator captures changes in ecological processes 

that have impacts on multiple components of the ecological systems within wilderness. Change, at any level, to one of these processes results in long-term cascading 

effects throughout the natural community. Data for potential measures in this indicator 

are likely to come from national programs with no local data collection, unless a local 

office has better data and the means to develop its own protocol.

Ecological processes are complex and difficult to quantify. Therefore, many of

the potential measures for this indicator track either the magnitude or intensity of the 

factors likely to be affecting the natural processes within wilderness. Others quantify 

the resulting effects of processes that have changed. Finally, potential measures could 

take advantage of existing datasets that provide an index of the condition of certain 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 43

processes within wilderness. Examples of possible measures for this indicator are: 

average watershed condition class, index of fragmentation, and acres of active grazing 

allotments.

Human-caused climate change measures would be included under this ecological processes indicator if an agency or individual wilderness chooses to include such 

measures. Climate change has the potential to drastically alter natural systems within 

wilderness. Despite well-documented impacts to the Natural Quality of wilderness, the 

feasibility and relevance of climate change measures to wilderness character monitoring need to be carefully considered before including such measures. Appendix 7 

provides a detailed discussion and a flowchart to help staff determine whether climate

change measures are appropriate for wilderness character monitoring. 
44 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 45

Undeveloped Quality

Wilderness is defined in Section 2(c) of the Wilderness Act as “an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent

improvements or human habitation,” with “the imprint of man’s work substantially 

unnoticeable.” The basic idea that wilderness is undeveloped runs through every 

definition of wilderness. For example, Aldo Leopold (1921) envisioned wilderness as

“a continuous stretch of country preserved in its natural state, open to lawful hunting 

and fishing, devoid of roads, artificial trails, cottages, or other works of man.” Hubert

Humphrey (1957), an original sponsor of the Wilderness Act, clarified his definition of

wilderness as “the native condition of the area, undeveloped ... untouched by the hand 

of man or his mechanical products.” In this monitoring strategy, the Undeveloped 

Quality means that wilderness is essentially without permanent improvements or the 

sights and sounds of modern human occupation. 

The Wilderness Act identifies “expanding settlement and growing mechanization” as the forces that cause wild country to become occupied and modified, and

clarifies in Section 4(c) that “there shall be no temporary road, no use of motor

vehicles, motorized equipment or motorboats, no landing of aircraft, no other form of 

mechanical transport, and no structure or installation.” An early FS review of wilderness policy (Worf and others 1972) noted that buildings or other structures are usually 

set up for only one purpose: to facilitate human activity. The building or structure 

not only occupies the land, but also makes it easier for people to impose their will on 

the environment, thereby modifying it. This policy review also found that motorized 

equipment and mechanical transport similarly make it easier for people to occupy and 

modify the land. Zahniser (1956, p. 38) articulated this idea when he argued the need 

for “areas of the earth within which we stand without our mechanisms that make us 

immediate masters over our environment.” Even though the use of motor vehicles, 

motorized equipment, or mechanical transport diminishes the opportunity for visitors 

to experience natural soundscapes and primitive recreation, these uses are included 

under this Undeveloped Quality and not in the Natural or Solitude or Primitive and 

Unconfined Recreation Qualities because of the close association in the legislative history between motorized use and mechanical transport, and people’s ability to develop, 

occupy, and modify wilderness.

Few wildernesses have escaped at least some modern human occupation and 

modification. In addition, many developments and motorized or mechanized uses are

allowed by special provisions in enabling legislation, including buildings, roads, dams, 

powerline and water pipe corridors, mines, aircraft landing strips, and in Alaska, snow 

machines by subsistence and traditional users. Although the continuing presence of 

these developments and uses may be legally allowed in a wilderness, the resulting 

facilities, structures, and authorizations for motorized use and mechanical transport 

can have far-reaching effects on wilderness character (Dawson and Hendee 2009). 

Facing page: Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness, Nate Zeman photo (natezeman@me.com), 

courtesy of Nature’s Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wilderness50’s 

“Wilderness Forever” photo competition.
46 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

The status of these developments and uses at the time of designation form the baseline from which change and impacts to wilderness character can be assessed. Special 

provisions that are unique to a wilderness underscore the importance of not comparing 

one wilderness to another.

The most common types of infrastructure found in wilderness facilitate recreational use, and include system trails, bridges, designated camping areas and associated structures, and in some cases toilets. These types of infrastructure degrade both 

the Undeveloped Quality and the Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation

Quality, but their primary purpose is related to recreation and they are therefore monitored only in the latter quality. The first monitoring question and associated indicators

for the Undeveloped Quality reflects this distinction and focuses on trends in nonrecreational physical developments.

Table 9—The monitoring questions and indicators under the Undeveloped Quality.

Quality Monitoring question Indicator

Undeveloped What are the trends 

in non-recreational 

physical development?

Presence of non-recreational structures, 

installations, and developments

Presence of inholdings

What are the trends in 

mechanization?

Use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment, 

or mechanical transport

Monitoring Questions and Indicators

Table 9 summarizes the two monitoring questions and three indicators under the 

Undeveloped Quality.

Monitoring question: What are the trends in non-recreational 

physical development? 

The first monitoring question for this quality addresses the trends in non-recreational physical developments present in wilderness because these developments are 

clear evidence of human occupation or modification. Only developments that are not

primarily for a recreational purpose or use are monitored under this monitoring question, whereas developments that have a recreational purpose or use are included under 

the Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation Quality. Wilderness is supposed

to be a place where the evidence of human activity is “substantially unnoticeable.” 

However, some physical evidence of occupancy and use is allowed because of special 

provisions in legislation or because it is considered the “minimum necessary for 

administration of the area for the purpose of the Act” (Section 4(c) of the Wilderness 

Act). Managers need to exercise restraint in fulfilling these administrative responsibilities so that a wilderness does not increasingly appear developed, occupied, and 

modified.

This monitoring question focuses on “modern human occupation and modification.” Those features constructed by indigenous peoples prior to modern settlement, 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 47

such as cliff dwellings, pit houses, and kivas, are excluded from this quality—though 

they may be considered under the Other Features of Value Quality if they are determined to be integral to wilderness character.

Each of the two indicators under this monitoring question addresses distinct 

reasons and types of structures, installations, and developments that may occur inside 

wilderness.

Indicator: Presence of non-recreational structures, installations, and 

developments

Many different types of structures (intended for human occupation), installations (not intended for human occupation), and developments occur inside wilderness 

for reasons unrelated to recreation. Examples are: administrative sites, dams, water 

ditches and pipelines, old road beds, mines and mining structures, and communication facilities and fixed instrumentation sites for gathering a variety of data. These

developments may predate wilderness designation and in some cases their use and 

maintenance are allowed to continue, as provided by law. Both currently functioning 

and defunct structures, installations, and developments are included because all are 

signs of modern human occupation in the wilderness. Scientific installations (such as

geological activity sensors and snow gauging stations) and historical structures (such 

as cabins and fire towers) are also included in this indicator. Additionally, large trash

objects, such as motor vehicles, aircraft, earth-moving equipment, military and mining 

debris, or trash dumps, are included in this indicator because they are signs of modern 

human occupation even though they are not technically a structure, installation, or development. An example of a possible measure for this indicator is an index of physical 

development that takes into account the number of developments, their physical size, 

and the materials used.

Indicator: Presence of inholdings

Inholdings are parcels of land not owned by the federal land managing agency 

that are entirely surrounded by designated wilderness; they are therefore considered 

“inside” wilderness even though they are not part of the wilderness and not subject to 

wilderness laws and policies. Inholdings do not occur in every wilderness and some 

inholdings, such as state conservation lands, may be compatible with wilderness values. Other inholdings, however, are open to be developed for various purposes at the 

discretion of the landowner. Roads can be built, and the lands can be logged, or, more 

commonly, developed with recreational lodges, facilities, or private residences. Due 

to the vulnerability of these lands to development and the adverse effect this development would have on the surrounding wilderness values, inholdings are often considered a high priority for acquisition or exchange by the federal agency. An example of a 

possible measure that could be included in this indicator is an index of inholdings that 

takes into account the number, acreage, and development potential of existing inholdings. In this case, a decrease in the acreage of inholdings, or legal agreements with 

owners that limit development of inholdings, would enhance the Undeveloped Quality. 
48 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

In addition, the potential impact on wilderness visitors from development and use 

occurring in an inholding could be monitored in the Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation Quality (see the Remoteness from outside sights and sounds indicator

below).

Monitoring question: What are the trends in mechanization?

The second monitoring question tracks mechanization in wilderness. The 

Wilderness Act recognizes “growing mechanization” as a force that causes an area to 

become occupied and modified. The agencies may authorize a variety of mechanized

uses for administrative purposes, but the mandate from the Wilderness Act is that such 

uses are allowed only when they are the minimum necessary to administer the area as 

wilderness, and not merely because they are convenient. Mechanized uses are also allowed for emergency purposes, or when special provisions in a wilderness law, such as 

the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act, allow them. A single indicator is 

used to address a wide variety of authorized and unauthorized mechanized uses.

Indicator: Use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment, or mechanical 

transport

Section 4(c) of the Wilderness Act discusses three forms of mechanization that 

degrade wilderness character: motor vehicles, motorized equipment, and mechanical 

transport. This indicator tracks these mechanized uses for administrative, emergency, 

and other non-emergency purposes such as access to mineral rights, state land, and 

private land, and provision of other laws. Detailed discussion defining motor vehicles,

motorized equipment, and mechanical transport can be found in agency policies. 

Monitoring allows managers to be aware of trends in increasing use and respond to 

them with appropriate management decisions to reverse or stabilize this trend. Examples of possible measures for this indicator are: index of administrative authorizations to use motor vehicles, motorized equipment, or mechanical transport; percentage 

of emergency incidents not using motor vehicles, motorized equipment, or mechanical 

transport; and number of non-authorized uses of motor vehicles, motorized equipment, 

or mechanical transport per unit of effort or time by law enforcement.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 49
50 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 51

Solitude or Primitive and 

Unconfined Recreation Quality

The Wilderness Act states in Section 2(c) that wilderness has “outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation.” There has

been much discussion and debate about the meaning of these words among wilderness 

managers and scholars (Dawson and Hendee 2009). Early wilderness writings of Aldo 

Leopold, Robert Marshall, Sigurd Olson, Howard Zahniser, and others paint a rich 

picture about the type of experience envisioned in wilderness environments. These 

writings strongly enforce the vital roles of solitude, self-reliance, and freedom as central to the idea of wilderness. In this monitoring strategy, the Solitude or Primitive and 

Unconfined Recreation Quality encompasses outstanding opportunities for people to

experience solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation in wilderness, including the

benefits and inspiration derived from physical and mental challenge.

The meaning of solitude has been at the center of considerable debate among 

researchers and the public (for example, see Washington Trails Association 1997), 

with proposed definitions ranging from not seeing other people, to privacy, to freedom

from societal constraints and obligations, to freedom from management regulations 

(Hall 2001, Hollenhorst and Jones 2001). The content of early wilderness writings 

suggests that solitude was viewed holistically, encompassing attributes such as separation from people and civilization, inspiration (an awakening of the senses, connection 

with the beauty of nature and the larger community of life), and a sense of timelessness (allowing one to let go of day-to-day obligations, go at one’s own pace, and spend 

time reflecting). A review of research suggests that solitude encapsulates a range of

experiences, including privacy, being away from civilization, inspiration, self-paced 

activities, and a sense of connection with times past (Borrie and Roggenbuck 2001).

The meaning of primitive and unconfined recreation has also been the subject of

much debate. Primitive recreation has largely been interpreted as travel by non-motorized and non-mechanical means (for example by horse, foot, or canoe) that reinforces 

our connection with our ancestors and our heritage. However, primitive recreation also 

encompasses reliance on personal skills to travel and camp in an area, rather than reliance on facilities or outside help (Roggenbuck 2004). Unconfined recreation involves

attributes such as self-discovery, exploration, and freedom from societal or managerial 

controls (Dawson and Hendee 2009, Lucas 1983, McCool 2004, Nash 1996). A primitive and unconfined recreation experience provides the ideal opportunity for physical

and mental challenges associated with adventure, real consequences for mistakes, 

and personal growth from facing and overcoming obstacles (Borrie 2000, Dustin and 

McAvoy 2000).

Many different complex factors contribute in known and unknown ways to how 

people experience solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation (Borrie and Birzell

2001, Dawson and Hendee 2009, Manning and Lime 2000). For example, experiences 

Facing page: Olympic Wilderness, Pablo McLoud photo (grover@warmlava.com), courtesy of 

Nature’s Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wilderness50’s “Wilderness Forever” 

photo competition.
52 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

may be influenced by factors largely beyond managers’ control and influence, including attributes of the physical landscape, the presence of certain animals (for example, 

mosquitoes and grizzly bears), local weather, intra- and inter-group dynamics, and 

the skills and knowledge an individual brings to the experience. In contrast, managers may exert some control over use levels, the types and patterns of use, the level of 

development (both inside and adjacent to wilderness), the amount and type of information available about the wilderness, and the kinds of regulations imposed, all of which 

influence the opportunity to experience solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of

recreation (Cole and others 1987, Hollenhorst and Jones 2001, Lucas 1973, McDonald 

and others 1989, Patterson and others 1998, Pietila and Kangas 2015, Watson 1995). 

Managers may face difficult decisions protecting resources while providing outstanding opportunities for solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation. For example, administrative sites or a minimal system of trails may be considered necessary for 

managing recreation while still allowing people to use and enjoy wilderness. However, 

administrative sites and trails concentrate visitors and reduce outstanding opportunities 

for solitude. Similarly, a bridge across a river may be considered necessary for allowing visitor access to a portion of the wilderness, yet this bridge also reduces outstanding opportunities for primitive recreation. Last, imposing more regulations on visitor 

behavior may be considered necessary to reduce the physical impacts of recreation and 

improve opportunities for solitude, but such regulations reduce outstanding opportunities for unconfined recreation.

In all three situations described above, managers may feel that a primary goal 

is to reduce the physical impacts from recreation while providing opportunities for 

a greater number of visitors. This goal, however, creates a self-reinforcing cycle in 

which more installations and regulations allow more visitors, in turn requiring more 

installations and regulations. Furthermore, this goal ignores the impact of the installation and regulation on the quality of the experience. There is a tension in the Wilderness Act between realizing the act’s recreational purpose and preserving wilderness 

character in general and the Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation Quality

in particular. Properly considering the effects of a potential action on the quality of the 

visitor experience is a vital part of management decisions arising from this tension. 

In these situations, the agencies need to be careful that the Solitude or Primitive and 

Unconfined Recreation Quality, as well as the quality of visitor experiences, does not

slowly and incrementally erode over time. 

Given the complexity of people’s interactions with their environment and with 

other human beings, the intent of monitoring this quality is not to understand their experiences, perceptions, or motivations in wilderness. Instead, this monitoring strategy 

focuses on the mandate in the Wilderness Act to provide outstanding opportunities for 

solitude or primitive and unconfined reaction, and to monitor how these opportunities

are changing over time (Cole 2004, Dawson 2004). This monitoring will not answer 

questions related to whether people perceive these changes as good or bad, nor will it 

answer questions about whether the changes are causing people to alter their expectations or their behavior. Though important, these questions are beyond the current 

scope of this monitoring strategy.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 53

Table 10—The monitoring questions and indicators under the Solitude or 

Primitive and Unconfined Recreation Quality.

Quality Monitoring question Indicator

Solitude or 

Primitive and 

Unconfined 

Recreation

What are the trends in 

outstanding opportunities for 

solitude?

Remoteness from sights and 

sounds of human activity inside the 

wilderness

Remoteness from sights and 

sounds of human activity outside the 

wilderness

What are the trends in 

outstanding opportunities 

for primitive and unconfined 

recreation?

Facilities that decrease self-reliant 

recreation

Management restrictions on visitor 

behavior

Monitoring Questions and Indicators

Table 10 summarizes the two monitoring questions and four indicators under the 

Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation Quality.

Monitoring question: What are the trends in outstanding 

opportunities for solitude?

The Wilderness Act acknowledges that wilderness, being protected from human development and settlement, provides an opportunity for solitude not available 

elsewhere. Opportunities for solitude are degraded by both visitor use in wilderness 

and certain characteristics of the setting. Specifically, encountering other visitors in

wilderness, or seeing or hearing the signs of modern civilization, may detract from 

opportunities to experience solitude. Increasing visitation, human population growth 

(especially near wilderness), and areas of concentrated use within wilderness all have 

the potential to degrade opportunities for solitude. The opportunity to achieve solitude 

within the wilderness is a function of both the density of visitors, most of whom stay 

on established trails and preexisting campsites, and the opportunity to get away from 

those visitors and their impacts by going to more remote areas.

Two indicators are associated with this monitoring question. The first, remoteness from sights and sounds of human activity inside the wilderness, allows managers 

to track conditions that are more subject to management control. The second, remoteness from sights and sounds of human activity outside the wilderness, offers a way to 

track the effects of developments outside the wilderness that impinge on opportunities 

for solitude within the wilderness.

Indicator: Remoteness from sights and sounds of human activity inside 

wilderness

Remoteness—being distant from the sights and sounds of civilization—is 

important for achieving a sense of solitude (Dawson 2004, Manning and others 2007). 

Seeing or hearing other people inside a wilderness directly affects opportunities for 

solitude. Opportunities for solitude can exist on established travel routes and near developments within wilderness if visitation is low, or solitude can be found by entering 
54 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

undeveloped areas where there are no official travel routes. In addition to visitors, this

indicator can also capture trash and debris that degrade most people’s sense of what 

to expect in a wilderness. For example, in wildernesses that have beaches, trash that 

washes ashore may be a significant concern and degrades the feeling of remoteness.

Similarly, trash and debris from hunting and outfitting camps can negate the feeling

of being remote. Examples of possible measures that could be included in this indicator are: number of visitor encounters on travel routes; number of occupied campsites 

within sight and sound of one another; area of wilderness away from access and travel 

routes and developments; index of user-created campsites based on the site number, 

density, and impacts; and miles of user-created trails.

Indicator: Remoteness from sights and sounds of human activity outside the 

wilderness

This indicator focuses on human activity occurring outside of wilderness that is 

evident within the wilderness. Even though many wilderness laws prohibit the denial 

of activities outside a wilderness simply because they can be seen or heard inside the 

wilderness, these activities nevertheless can degrade the wilderness experience. Signs 

of human activity and development outside wilderness include the sight and sound of 

(1) automobiles and off-road vehicles on nearby travel routes, (2) airplanes, (3) development and use of inholdings, (4) air and light pollution, and (5) urbanization from 

high ridges and peaks. Examples of possible measures that could be included in this 

indicator are: area of wilderness not affected by travel routes and developments that 

are outside the wilderness, and night sky visibility.

Monitoring question: What are the trends in outstanding 

opportunities for primitive and unconfined recreation?

The second monitoring question for this quality addresses the opportunities for 

primitive and unconfined recreation. Including primitive and unconfined recreation as

a separate monitoring question acknowledges the importance of non-motorized and 

non-mechanized travel, self-reliance and self-discovery, and places where people can 

be free from the confines of social constraints. Because primitive recreation requires

self-reliance and skills in wilderness travel, opportunities for such experiences are 

degraded by the presence of facilities that make wilderness travel easier, such as 

bridges and high-standard trails. Unconfined recreation encompasses the sense of

discovery, adventure, and mental challenge where one can travel and explore unique 

and unknown environments on one’s own. The two indicators under this monitoring 

question focus on the presence of facilities in wilderness that decrease opportunities 

for primitive recreation, and management restrictions on visitor behavior that decrease 

opportunities for unconfined recreation.

Indicator: Facilities that decrease self-reliant recreation

Primitive recreation requires self-reliance, as well as travel that is unassisted 

by mechanical or motorized equipment. Many different types of structures, installations, and developments are constructed to facilitate access or use of the wilderness, to 

improve visitor safety, or to protect other wilderness resources from visitors. Facilities 

designed for these reasons are categorized as recreational in this monitoring strategy 

and occur in many wildernesses. Examples are: system trails, trail signs, bridges, 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 55

sleeping platforms in swamp wildernesses, toilets in high-use areas, aircraft landing 

strips, food storage lockers or bear poles where bears pose a threat to safety, hardened 

and designated campsites in high-use areas, and the “comfort” facilities provided by 

outfitters and guides for their clients. Although trails and other recreation facilities in

wilderness concentrate user impact and protect resources, and visitors appreciate and 

use these facilities, such developments reduce the experience of primitive recreation 

and the need to practice primitive backcountry skills.

This indicator provides a means for measuring trends in the presence of those 

durable or relatively permanent facilities provided by the agency and others (such as 

outfitters and guides) that affect the opportunity for primitive recreation. This indicator

also provides a means for monitoring facilities or services that do not have a physical presence but still diminish self-reliant recreation, such as cell-phone coverage. 

Examples of possible measures for this indicator are: index of authorized recreation 

facilities that includes number and type, miles of developed trails, and area of cellphone coverage.

Indicator: Management restrictions on visitor behavior

Management restrictions in wilderness are often adopted to protect resources or 

opportunities for solitude. However, unconfined recreation refers to types of recreation

in which visitors experience a high degree of freedom over their own actions and decisions (Dawson and Hendee 2009, Dustin and McAvoy 2000); management restrictions 

degrade this sense of freedom and limit opportunities for unconfined recreation. In

the context of this monitoring strategy, management restrictions on visitor behavior in 

wilderness are agency regulations or policies that govern visitors’ behavior, travel, or 

equipment. An example of a possible measure for this indicator is an index of visitor management restrictions based on the size of the area affected, the duration of the 

restriction, and the intensity or magnitude of the restriction.
56 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 57

Other Features of Value Quality

Section 2(c) of the Wilderness Act defines wilderness as an area that “may also

contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or

historical value.” Incorporating these unique features, where they exist, in wilderness 

character monitoring can provide a more complete picture of wilderness character. The 

primary challenge with this quality lies in determining which features are truly unique 

and essential to the character of a particular wilderness. Guidelines are offered later in 

this section to help local staff make this determination. 

This monitoring focuses on the physical condition of select features, and not on 

the scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value derived from these features. By

protecting the physical condition of these features, the values associated with them are 

most likely preserved. Furthermore, wilderness managers have some ability to protect 

the physical condition of a given feature, whereas scientific, educational, scenic, or

historical values are contextual, dynamic, and difficult or impossible to quantify and

hence to monitor. For example, unique paleontological features may occur in a wilderness and these features may have scientific and educational value; managers can ensure that these features are protected, but they cannot feasibly gauge or track changes 

in either the scientific or educational value of these features. Unique features related to

subsistence use in Alaska may be relevant to monitor as part of this quality. 

There are important distinctions between this quality and the other four qualities: 

•  Use of this quality is not required. Unlike the other qualities that apply to 

every wilderness, the Section 2(c) definition notes that other features may

be present; they are not required to be present. However, if features exist 

that are truly integral to wilderness character, then this quality would be 

used in monitoring.

•  This quality focuses on site-specific features. Unlike the other qualities that 

apply to the entirety of a wilderness, the features monitored within this 

quality usually occur only at specific sites, although some features such

as cultural landscapes (Cowley and others 2012, Meyer 2013) and certain 

geological or paleontological formations may occur over larger areas. 

•  Where this quality is used, the overall trend in wilderness character will be

based on five qualities instead of four. If this quality is used, the overall trend

in wilderness character is determined by using all five qualities and this

quality carries the same weight as the Natural, Undeveloped, and Solitude 

or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation Qualities. Because it will be used in

determining the overall trend in wilderness character, local staff must carefully 

consider whether a feature truly defines the wilderness character for an area

and whether the quality of the data about this feature is sufficient to support

using it as a measure. These considerations are especially critical if a small

number of features are included, because the trend in the condition of an individual feature may well determine the trend in the entire quality and thereby 

influence the overall trend in wilderness character.

Facing page: Paria Canyon-Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness, Josephy Rossbach photo (rossbachphoto@gmail.com), courtesy of Nature’s Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and 

Wilderness50’s “Wilderness Forever” photo competition.
58 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

For most wildernesses, this quality focuses on tangible features of unique 

geological, historical, or prehistoric value such as lava beds, cave formations, dinosaur tracks, cliff dwellings, or rock art (petroglyphs and pictographs). Other types 

of features with unique ecological, scientific, educational and scenic value are often

more appropriately included in one of the other four qualities. For example, views of 

an iconic mountain peak or a vast expanse of undeveloped land may be appropriately 

monitored by a measure of visibility under the Natural Quality, or by a measure of 

viewshed impacts in the Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Quality, because these

views would be degraded by air pollutants inside or developments outside the wilderness, respectively. 

In contrast to the example above, certain natural features that may be iconic to a 

wilderness and give it meaning do not fit the criteria described in appendix 7 for being

appropriate to include in the Natural Quality due to the difficulty of interpreting the

trend. In these cases, such features may be monitored in the Other Features of Value 

Quality or not monitored at all and simply described in the wilderness character narrative (see appendix 3). For example, a glacier may be iconic for a wilderness and be 

of particularly important scientific value, but glaciers naturally retreat and expand so

they would not be appropriate to include in the Natural Quality. Instead, to capture the 

scientific value of the glacier, a simple measure that expresses the overall condition of

the glacier, such as extent or area, could be used in the Other Features of Value Quality. Similarly, the occurrence and abundance of iconic plant or animal species, such 

as saguaro cacti or wolf populations, naturally change over time and from one area to 

another so they would not be appropriate to include in the Natural Quality. Instead, to 

capture the iconic value of these species, a simple measure of presence in the wilderness could be used in the Other Features of Value Quality. 

Intangible resources such as spiritual values, traditional practices, and traditional 

and historical stories, are important aspects of this quality but are not included in this 

monitoring. An appropriate place to address these intangible values is in the wilderness character narrative (see appendix 3). However, tangible features specifically associated with these intangible values may be considered integral to the area’s wilderness 

character and appropriate to monitor. For example, such features could include a wall 

of petroglyphs, a significant obsidian source, wagon ruts associated with a National

Historic Trail, a unique concentration of dinosaur tracks, a nationally recognized cave, 

or a glacier nationally recognized for its scientific and educational value. Alternatively,

a common trapper’s cabin, mining debris, and old logging camps are examples of 

features that are not likely to be considered integral to wilderness character and would 

be monitored in the Undeveloped Quality.

Which Features are Integral to Wilderness Character?

A key challenge to this quality is determining whether a site-specific feature is

integral to wilderness character. What is considered “integral to wilderness character” 

is anticipated to be a subset of the full suite of important site-specific geological, historical, cultural, and other features within a wilderness. The decision on whether or not 

a feature is integral to wilderness character is made by local staff and requires discussion between wilderness managers and resource specialists, notably cultural resource 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 59

staff. The following questions can help guide staff to determine whether a site-specific

feature should be considered integral to wilderness character:

• Is the feature specifically identified in the enabling legislation for the wilderness?

Features identified in the enabling legislation for a particular wilderness should be

strongly considered as integral to wilderness character. Features not listed in the 

enabling legislation may still be considered, but the determination of whether or not 

to include them will require considerably more discussion and scrutiny. 

•  Does the feature define how people think about the wilderness or how they value

the wilderness? The focus here is on selecting those features that play a central 

role in defining the meaning and significance of the wilderness, rather than those

features that relate to broader, non-wilderness themes. Important features that relate 

to broader themes may still be part of a larger wilderness monitoring program, but 

will not be monitored as part of wilderness character.

•  Is the feature nationally recognized (for example, through an official designation

such as the National Register) or considered a priority heritage asset (for example, 

identified as significant in an agency plan)? Features recognized by some type 

of national designation, such as a site listed on the National Historic Register, or 

as a National Geological Site or National Natural Landmark, should be strongly 

considered as integral to wilderness character. Historical and prehistoric features 

identified as “priority assets” should also be considered, particularly if the feature

has a national designation. 

These three questions help identify features that make the area’s meaning and 

significance as wilderness clearer and more distinctive. Discussions among staff 

should include consideration of the feature’s educational, scientific, or scenic value.

Additionally, for prehistoric or historical features, the physical evidence should convey 

a story about the distinctive interwoven human relationship with the land that helps 

enrich the meaning of the area as wilderness. Important features that are not considered integral to wilderness character may still be monitored under other resource 

programs; for example, cultural resource staff may track the condition of historical 

cabins. But they will not be monitored as part of the Other Features of Value Quality 

of wilderness character.

Threats to this quality result primarily from direct human actions, such as looting or vandalism, and indirect human disturbance, such as camping or trail use that 

creates unintended adverse effects. Such damage is most often associated with visitor 

use, although other management activities, notably fire suppression activities, could

contribute to this disturbance. Projects to improve the condition of a feature monitored 

under this quality (for example, redirecting visitor use away from vulnerable features) 

could lead to an upward trend in this quality.
60 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Monitoring Question and Indicators

Table 11 summarizes the one monitoring question and two indicators under the 

Other Features of Value Quality.

Table 11—The monitoring question and indicators under the Other Features of 

Value Quality.

Quality Monitoring question Indicator

Other Features 

of Value (to 

be determined 

by local unit if 

relevant)

What are the trends in the 

unique features that are 

tangible and integral to 

wilderness character?

Deterioration or loss of integral 

cultural features

Deterioration or loss of other 

integral site-specific features of 

value

Monitoring question: What are the trends in the unique features 

that are tangible and integral to wilderness character?

The single monitoring question for this quality addresses the trend in unique, 

site-specific features that are integral to defining the meaning and significance of a

particular wilderness. Two indicators are used to address the monitoring question. The 

first focuses on cultural features and the second provides a catchall for other site-specific features, such as geological, ecological, paleontological, and other significant features that local staff may determine are integral to wilderness character. Depending on 

the features that are integral to the wilderness, either or both of these indicators may 

be used. A decline in the condition of any feature tracked under the Other Features of 

Value Quality is always interpreted as a downward trend in wilderness character.

Indicator: Deterioration or loss of integral cultural features

This indicator captures the condition of cultural features determined to be integral to wilderness character, as well as authorized and unauthorized actions that damage or disturb these features. “Cultural” is defined broadly to include both prehistoric

and historical features. A decline in the condition of integral cultural features or an 

increase in actions that damage or disturb these features degrades wilderness character. 

Examples of possible measures that could be included in this indicator are: condition 

index for integral cultural features, and number of authorized or unauthorized actions 

that damage or disturb integral cultural features. 

Indicator: Deterioration or loss of other integral site-specific features

This indicator captures the condition of other site-specific features determined

to be integral to wilderness character. Although it is expected that most wildernesses 

will not have other unique site-specific features that are integral to the area’s wilderness character, this indicator is intended to provide additional flexibility to use locally

relevant information to capture iconic geological, paleontological, and other features. 

A decline in the condition of other integral site-specific features degrades wilderness

character. Examples of possible measures that could be included in this indicator are: 

condition index for integral geological, paleontological, or other features; and number 

of authorized and unauthorized actions that damage or disturb integral geological, 

paleontological, or other features.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 61
62 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 63

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USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 71

Appendix 1. A Brief History Of Interagency 

Wilderness Character Monitoring

The U.S. Forest Service (FS) chartered a team in 2001 to develop a national 

wilderness monitoring strategy. This team, which included representatives from the 

other three wilderness agencies (the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land 

Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, and National Park Service; hereafter BLM, 

FWS, and NPS, respectively), published an FS national strategy to monitor wilderness 

character (Landres and others 2005)1. Then a team of subject-matter experts developed 

detailed monitoring protocols; these protocols were pilot tested and a technical guide 

was published (Landres and others 2009). 

In 2004, the Interagency Wilderness Policy Council (IWPC), composed of the 

highest-level administrative personnel responsible for wilderness in each of the four 

managing agencies, along with representatives from the Department of the Interior’s 

U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the research branch of the FS, identified in its

annual action plan the need to “create an interagency team to develop interagency wilderness character monitoring protocols.” The IWPC directed the Interagency Wilderness Steering Committee (IWSC), made up of the national program leads for wilderness in each of the four agencies and representatives from the USGS and FS research, 

to implement this action item. In 2006, the IWSC developed and signed a charter to 

staff and direct the Interagency Wilderness Character Monitoring Team, to be composed of representatives from the four wilderness managing agencies and the USGS, 

and chaired by a representative from the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute. 

This team was tasked with developing an interagency strategy to monitor wilderness 

character across the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS) based on the 

2005 strategy published by the FS. This team published the interagency Keeping It 

Wild monitoring strategy (Landres and others 2008) and conducted proof-of-concept 

testing in 2009. In 2009, the IWPC formally endorsed this monitoring strategy and 

recommended that the agencies complete wilderness character monitoring baselines by 

the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act in 2014.

A significant amount of effort has been spent by the four wilderness agencies

to develop the conceptual basis for wilderness character monitoring and its practical 

implementation. Through the various agency-specific efforts described below, a total

of just over 100 agency staff have been directly involved in developing wilderness 

character monitoring, these efforts were reviewed by 149 other staff selected for their 

expertise in wilderness, just over 1,000 review comments were received and discussed, 

and 44 pilot tests were conducted. Keeping It Wild 2 stems from a 2014 Interagency 

Lessons Learned Workshop (see below), and is based on the accumulated expertise 

of agency staff and experience gained through all of this effort and interaction (figure

A1-1). 

1 References in this appendix can be found in the “References” section after the main text.

Facing page: Joshua Tree Wilderness, Cliff LaPlant photo (laplant@cox.net), courtesy of Nature’s 

Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wilderness50’s “Wilderness Forever” photo 

competition.
72 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Figure 1. History of interaction among the wilderness managing agencies in developing Keeping It Wild 2. 

Other than agency acronyms, the acronyms in this figure are WCM (wilderness character monitoring) and 

WCIT (Wilderness Character Integration Team). Starting from the left, the “FS WCM Strategy Team” developed 

the Forest Service wilderness character monitoring national strategy (Landres and others 2005); the “FS Tech 

Guide Team” developed the Forest Service monitoring protocols technical guide (Landres and others 2009); the 

“Interagency Keeping It Wild Team” developed the first Keeping It Wild (Landres and others 2008); the “BLM WCM 

Team” developed the Bureau of Land Management wilderness character monitoring protocols (BLM 2012); the 

“NPS WCIT Team” developed the two National Park Service publications about integrating wilderness character 

into park planning, management, and monitoring (NPS 2014a, 2014b); the “FWS WCM Strategy Team” developed 

the Fish and Wildlife Service wilderness character monitoring strategy; and the 2010 “FS WCM Strategy Team” 

updated the original Forest Service wilderness character monitoring strategy to build on the 2008 interagency 

Keeping It Wild.

FS Tech 

Guide Team

Interagency

Keeping It

Wild Team

2001 2005

FS WCM 

Strategy Team

2013

Interagency 

Keeping It Wild

Publicaon

2006 2008 2009 2010 2014

BLM WCM 

Team

NPS WCIT

Team

FWS WCM

Strategy Team

FS WCM 

Strategy Team

Interagency

Keeping It 

Wild 2 Team

Agency Review

External Review

Pilot Tesng

Wilderness Fellow Input

Key

Although united by the conceptual basis of wilderness character monitoring, 

the four wilderness agencies have approached implementation of wilderness character 

monitoring and integration within their agencies in different ways (described below). 

As of spring 2015, the agencies have initiated wilderness character baseline assessments in 223 (29 percent) of the wildernesses in the NWPS.

Bureau of Land Management

In 2008, the BLM chartered a team to develop guidance on wilderness character 

monitoring. In 2010, the Director of the BLM issued an Instruction Memorandum 

requiring that baseline wilderness character monitoring be completed in all BLMadministered wildernesses by September 2014. Starting in 2010, the BLM’s goal was 

for 20 percent of the wildernesses in each state to complete baseline assessments of 

wilderness character. The requirement for wilderness character monitoring was also 

included in the 2012 policy revision of Manual 6340, Wilderness Management. In 

2012, the BLM developed an implementation guide for standardized measures and 

monitoring protocols across the agency (BLM 2012). As of spring 2015, wilderness 

character baseline assessments and data collection have been completed for 113 (51 

percent) of the BLM wildernesses. 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 73

Fish and Wildlife Service

In 2010, the Assistant Director of the National Wildlife Refuge System issued 

a directive chartering a team to develop the FWS strategy for monitoring wilderness character in all FWS wildernesses. Starting in 2011, the newly established FWS 

National Wildlife Refuge System Inventory and Monitoring Initiative hired Wilderness 

Fellows (all with recent undergraduate or graduate degrees) for 6-month positions to 

conduct baseline assessments of wilderness character. Wilderness character baseline 

assessments and data collection have been completed for all 71 (100 percent) of the 

FWS wildernesses, and for 14 proposed wildernesses.

Forest Service

After initiating the framework for monitoring wilderness character in 2001, the 

FS developed a technical guide that described the protocols for monitoring wilderness character. The guide was then pilot tested in all nine FS regions in 2006 and the 

results used to formulate an implementation plan, which had the intent of establishing 

baseline conditions in all wildernesses managed by the FS within 5 years. The agency 

was unable to provide the resources needed for nationwide implementation at that 

time. Although several national forests have moved forward with wilderness character 

monitoring in the interim, current plans are to revise and replace the existing technical 

guide in 2015 to make it consistent with Keeping It Wild 2. As of spring 2015, wilderness character baseline assessments and data collection have been completed for seven 

(2 percent) of the FS wildernesses.

National Park Service

In 2010, the NPS funded and chartered a Wilderness Character Integration Team 

to integrate the concept of wilderness character into NPS planning, management, and 

monitoring nationwide. The charter for this team gave it broad discretion for developing the strategies, products, and tools to accomplish its goals. Rather than focus 

exclusively on wilderness character monitoring, the NPS determined that it would be 

more effective to broadly integrate the concept of wilderness character into all aspects 

of wilderness stewardship. Primary products from this team were a user guide (NPS 

2014a) and planning handbook (NPS 2014b). Specific actions to integrate wilderness character were implemented in 31 (51percent) of the 61 NPS wildernesses. As of 

spring 2015, wilderness character monitoring baseline assessments and data collection 

have been completed for 12 (20 percent) of the NPS wildernesses, and for 10 recommended and proposed wildernesses.

Interagency Wilderness Character Monitoring Lessons 

Learned Workshop

In March 2014, the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute organized 

an Interagency Lessons Learned Workshop. The purpose of this workshop was to 

review agency-specific modifications made in implementing the 2008 Keeping It

Wild interagency wilderness character monitoring strategy to determine if a consensus 

view could be developed for improving wilderness character monitoring and ensuring 

consistency across the NWPS. Each agency was represented by two staff members 

familiar with wilderness character monitoring (BLM: Chris Barns and Emily Simpson; 
74 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

FS: Steve Boutcher and Linda Merigliano; FWS: Peter Dratch and Nancy Roeper; 

NPS: Tim Devine and Adrienne Lindholm). Other participants were Catherine Filardi 

from the University of Montana’s Wilderness Institute, who directed the citizenscience wilderness character monitoring program for 5 years, and workshop organizer 

Peter Landres from the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute. The results of this 

workshop were the impetus for updating and replacing the 2008 strategy with Keeping 

It Wild 2. 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 75
76 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 77

Appendix 2. Summary of Major Changes Made to 

the 2008 Version of Keeping it Wild

The following recommendations to change or clarify the 2008 version of 

Keeping It Wild were developed at the Interagency Wilderness Character Monitoring 

Lessons Learned Workshop, held in March 2014. Each major change or clarification

is described below, followed by a brief explanation of why this change or clarification

was made.

General

• A wilderness that is managed by more than one agency should use one set of measures for wilderness character monitoring.

Why: The 2008 Keeping It Wild was silent on this issue. Even though the issue 

does not affect many wildernesses, it was a major question that needed to be 

addressed for those 34 wildernesses that are managed by more than one agency.

• Wilderness character monitoring is appropriate for areas that are not legally designated as wilderness as long as agency policy requires that the area be managed to 

preserve its wilderness character.

Why: The 2008 Keeping It Wild stated that wilderness character monitoring 

applied only to designated wildernesses, but wilderness character monitoring 

can also track on-the-ground changes and inform stewardship in areas with 

future potential for wilderness designation, such as wilderness study areas or 

areas that are managed as wilderness by agency policy.

• When trends in a measure, monitoring question, indicator, and quality and overall 

trend in wilderness character are reported, these trends should be described as 

“downward” or “upward” instead of “degrading” or “improving,” respectively.

Why: The 2008 Keeping It Wild used “degrading” and “improving,” but from 

informal discussion with agency legal counsel, it was clear that the more precise 

descriptions of “downward” and “upward” trend needed to be used.

• A detailed description of possible measures is not included in Keeping It Wild 2.

Why: The 2008 Keeping It Wild included detailed descriptions of possible 

measures. Having such detail in the 2008 version was considered necessary 

to help users understand how this interagency strategy could be implemented. 

The primary purpose of Keeping It Wild 2, however, is to have interagency 

consistency across the qualities and indicators, not across the measures. Each 

agency needs to determine its own process for selecting measures, including 

whether to use agency-required measures or measures determined by the 

local wilderness unit. Although Keeping It Wild 2 does not include detailed 

descriptions of measures, general guidance for identifying appropriate measures 

for the Untrammeled and Natural Qualities is provided in appendices 6 and 7.

Facing page: Petrified Forest National Wilderness Area, Samuel Feron photo (samuel.

feron1@gmail.com), courtesy of Nature’s Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and 

Wilderness50’s “Wilderness Forever” photo competition.
78 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Untrammeled Quality

• The definition of this quality needs to include the idea of “intentionality” to focus

more tightly on the purpose behind a decision. The definition is “wilderness is essentially unhindered and free from the intentional actions of modern human control 

or manipulation.” 

Why: The 2008 Keeping It Wild did not include “intentionality” in the definition

of the Untrammeled Quality, but in practice, including it greatly improved 

understanding about this quality. In turn, this improved understanding helped 

staff identify appropriate measures. Appendix 6 helps clarify the definition of

trammeling actions.

• Subsistence or sport hunting that is allowed in wilderness areas is not considered an 

intentional manipulation that degrades the Untrammeled Quality unless that hunting is authorized or managed to intentionally alter natural wildlife abundance or 

distribution, or predator–prey relationships.

Why: Subsistence and sport hunting are clearly allowed in wilderness, but to 

many people they also appear to be direct manipulations of wildlife populations, 

creating substantial confusion about whether they should be included as 

trammeling actions. Making a distinction between intentionally taking individual 

animals versus intentionally altering abundance or distribution, or predator–prey 

relationships, reduces this confusion. 

Natural Quality

• The three indicators (Plant and animal species and communities, Physical resources, 

and Biophysical processes) are replaced with four indicators (Plants, Animals, Air 

and water, and Ecological processes) to provide greater clarity for agencies and 

links with existing monitoring efforts.

Why: The three indicators from the 2008 Keeping It Wild did not provide 

sufficient detail and structure to help staff identify measures, and there was

confusion over how “physical resources” differed from “biophysical processes.”

• Discussion about the possible use of measures of indigenous species and species 

that are listed as threatened, endangered, sensitive, or of concern under the former 

indicator Plant and animal species and communities has been deleted.

Why: These particular measures discussed in the 2008 Keeping It Wild created 

significant problems in providing interpretable trends in the data because humancaused change is confounded with natural variability. In addition, trends in these 

measures were frequently influenced by state and federal wildlife management

actions to increase or reduce populations of these species. Each agency must 

determine its own process for selecting measures, and appendix 7 provides 

guidelines for selecting appropriate measures under the Natural Quality. 

• A measure that relies on data from outside the wilderness (for example, intentional 

predator control actions) may be used to infer effects inside the wilderness if such 

a measure is the best or only one available, and the resource specialist can verify 

a direct link between the action outside the wilderness and its likely effect in the 

wilderness.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 79

Why: The 2008 Keeping It Wild was silent on whether it would be acceptable 

to use measures from outside the wilderness. Keeping It Wild 2 allows such 

measures because experience has shown that such measures, under certain 

conditions, can be appropriate and add an important attribute to wilderness 

character monitoring. 

Undeveloped Quality

• Defunct installations, structures, and developments may be included in a measure of 

physical developments.

Why: The 2008 Keeping It Wild was silent on defunct installations, structures, 

and developments, but where these do occur they are highly visible and a clear 

sign of past human modification and occupation of the area.

• Large debris and trash, such as motor vehicles, airplanes, earth-moving equipment, 

military debris, mining debris, or trash dumps, may be included in a measure of 

physical developments.

Why: The 2008 Keeping It Wild was silent on large debris or trash, but where 

trash does occur, it is highly visible and a clear sign of past human modification

and occupation of the area.

• The monitoring question and indicator that focused on cultural resources constructed by indigenous peoples prior to modern settlement, such as cliff dwellings, 

pit houses, and kivas, were moved to the new Other Features of Value Quality (see 

below).

Why: The 2008 Keeping It Wild included all cultural resource developments 

in the Undeveloped Quality as an indicator of people living in harmony with 

nature. But this was an awkward connection because these cultural resources 

were clearly developments.

Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined Recreation Quality

• Medium-sized trash, such as trash from hunting and outfitting camps or marine

trash on a beach, may be considered in a measure under the indicator Remoteness 

from sights and sounds of people inside wilderness. In contrast, micro-trash, 

such as twist ties or wrappers, should not be considered in a measure under this 

indicator.

Why: The 2008 Keeping It Wild was silent on including trash as a part of a 

measure tracking the sights and sounds of visitors inside wilderness. Mediumsized trash is a common occurrence in particular wildernesses and is appropriate 

to use as a separate measure (for example, if the wilderness is on a coastline 

and marine trash commonly occurs) or as part of a broader measure on the 

sights and sounds of people inside the wilderness. In contrast, micro-trash is not 

recommended as a measure, unless a wilderness can make a compelling case 

to include it, because very few wildernesses have data on it, in many cases it is 

insignificant, and the more important stewardship responsibility is just to pick it

up. 
80 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Other Features of Value Quality

• This quality was not in the 2008 Keeping It Wild publication but has already been 

used or proposed for use by all four agencies. This quality focuses on the condition 

of tangible, site-specific features that contribute to scientific, educational, scenic,

and historical values in wildernesses, as well as those that contribute to subsistence 

value.

Why: This quality accounts for cultural resources that are integral to wilderness 

character and were included in the Undeveloped Quality in the 2008 Keeping It 

Wild.

• This quality addresses one monitoring question, “What are the trends in the unique 

features that are both tangible and integral to wilderness character?” This question 

has two indicators: Deterioration or loss of integral cultural features and deterioration or loss of other tangible and integral features of value.

Why: The two indicators account for the primary type of physical feature 

likely to be included—cultural features—as well as all other types that may be 

included, such as geological or paleontological features.

Assessing Trend in Wilderness Character

• Text-based rules are used for compiling trends from the measures up through the 

qualities and in determining the overall trend in wilderness character instead of 

numeric-based rules. These text-based rules allow the trend in the Untrammeled 

Quality to be a tiebreaker that determines the overall trend in wilderness character 

if there are an equal number of upward and downward trends in the other qualities.

Why: The 2008 Keeping It Wild used numeric-based rules for determining trend, 

and in practice these were needlessly complex. The text-based rules in Keeping 

It Wild 2 achieve the same result and are simpler to understand and execute. The 

2008 Keeping It Wild assigned equal weight to all the qualities in determining 

the overall trend in wilderness character whereas the text-based rules in Keeping 

It Wild 2 allow the Untrammeled Quality to be “first among equals.” Three

reasons support this position: the statutory definition of wilderness describes

“untrammeled” in a separate sentence; the importance of untrammeled as the 

essence of wilderness has a long history in the wilderness literature; and no other 

land designations are by law to be kept untrammeled. 
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 81
82 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 83

Appendix 3. Wilderness Character Narrative

The wilderness character narrative is a qualitative, affirming, and holistic description of what is unique and special about a specific wilderness. Wilderness character narratives have been developed for several National Park Service (NPS) wildernesses. The 

narrative is discussed in this strategy because of its potential usefulness in complementing and enhancing wilderness character monitoring.

This monitoring strategy reduces wilderness character to specific measures and

data, and the narrative is a tool to help local staff recognize the broader and holistic

meanings of wilderness character for an area. These meanings, in turn, are essential for 

highlighting priorities for monitoring wilderness character as well as for identifying 

priorities in planning and stewardship. The narrative is intended to capture the feelings 

and relationships of a wilderness, for example to describe in a general way the ecological processes that shaped the landscape, visitor experiences that may not be available 

elsewhere, unique or rare natural features, or notable scientific, conservation, educational, scenic, or historical values of the area. In addition, the narrative can acknowledge, 

celebrate, honor, and respect the intangible, experiential, and inspirational aspects of a 

wilderness, including historical and current cultural connections to the landscape. The 

narrative can also include a description of the major factors that are likely to influence,

in both positive and negative ways, each of the qualities of wilderness character into the 

future. The five qualities of wilderness character provide a minimal structure to the narrative that grounds it in the statutory language of the 1964 Wilderness Act.

A well-crafted wilderness character narrative complements and enhances wilderness character monitoring in several ways. First, by clarifying what is important or 

significant about the wilderness and how it might change, the narrative provides a solid

basis for building a wilderness stewardship plan and for selecting appropriate measures 

to monitor trend in wilderness character. Second, by showing the relationships among 

the different resources in a wilderness, the narrative fosters communication and integration among different staff who need to work together to effectively monitor and 

preserve wilderness character. Third, by explaining what is unique and special about a 

wilderness, the narrative informs interpretive and educational themes to focus discussion 

with the public about the current and future state of the wilderness. 

A detailed description of the wilderness character narrative, examples of narratives, and recommendations for developing and using a narrative as a central part in 

wilderness planning, management, and monitoring can be found in appendices 2.1 and 

2.2 of Keeping It Wild in the National Park Service: A User Guide to Integrating Wilderness Character into Park Planning, Management, and Monitoring (NPS 2014a)1

. This 

document can also be found at http://www.wilderness.net/character. The narrative for a 

wilderness could be revisited at 5- or 10-year intervals and rewritten to capture overall 

changes in wilderness character if deemed appropriate.

1 This reference can be found in the “References” section after the main text.

Facing page: St. Marks Wilderness, Tara Tanaka photo (h2otara@comcast.net), courtesy of 

Nature’s Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wilderness50’s “Wilderness Forever” 

photo competition.
84 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 85

Appendix 4. Concerns About This Interagency 

Monitoring Strategy

Since the initial implementation of interagency wilderness character monitoring 

in 2008, several misuses, misconceptions, and concerns have been raised that are addressed here. Despite these concerns, this interagency monitoring has proved to be an 

important tool to help managers link the results of their stewardship to the Wilderness 

Act’s mandate to preserve wilderness character, and to improve communication among 

staff and with the public about wilderness.

Misusing the Five Qualities in Stewardship Decisions

Splitting the legislative definition of wilderness into five rather distinct and

tangible qualities imposes reductionist thinking on the fundamentally holistic concept 

of wilderness character. Though necessary for the purposes of this monitoring strategy, 

this framework of five qualities could be misused in the following ways.

•  Assuming that a decision to improve one quality will improve wilderness character.

Some wilderness units have justified decisions solely because they support one

of the five qualities, in practice trading one quality for another. For example, a

bridge may be built to reduce resource damage (such as increased sedimentation 

from people and horses crossing a stream), resulting in an upward trend in the 

Natural Quality. However, approving such an action solely on this basis ignores the 

adverse impacts the bridge will have on the Solitude or Primitive and Unconfined

Recreation Quality (because the personal discovery and challenge of crossing the 

stream is diminished) and on the Undeveloped Quality (because of the presence of 

an installation). Decisions affecting wilderness character need to preserve wilderness character in its entirety, which means transparently accounting for how a 

proposed decision affects all five qualities. The qualities used in this monitoring

strategy may be useful for organizing and describing potential effects from proposed projects and actions, but these effects would be only one of several factors 

a decisionmaker considers when determining whether to proceed with a proposed 

action.

•  Disregarding the unique importance of the Untrammeled Quality. A special case 

of the concern discussed above relates to the Untrammeled Quality. For example, 

a restoration action might be considered necessary to restore a listed species, but if 

framed only from the perspective of improving the Natural Quality, the decision ignores the adverse impact on the Untrammeled Quality. This interagency monitoring 

strategy shows the impact of stewardship decisions on all the qualities of wilderness character, including the Untrammeled Quality. As discussed in the section on 

the Untrammeled Quality, understanding how this quality is unique and why it is 

important is a crucial part of wilderness stewardship. The importance of this quality, and only this quality, is emphasized in this monitoring strategy by using it as a 

tiebreaker in assessing overall trend in wilderness character. This monitoring is not 

Facing page: Mark O. Hatfield Wilderness, Thomas Goebel photo (thomasgoebel01@gmail.

com), courtesy of Nature’s Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wilderness50’s 

“Wilderness Forever” photo competition.
86 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

a decisionmaking tool, and it cannot ensure the preservation of wilderness character 

and the Untrammeled Quality. This monitoring can, however, show how decisions 

affect wilderness character and the Untrammeled Quality.

•  Using the five qualities to identify areas eligible for wilderness designation. The 

four wilderness agencies have each developed criteria to select areas for possible 

wilderness designation, and replacing those criteria with the five qualities of wilderness character is inappropriate for several reasons. First, some areas might “score” 

low on one or more of the qualities of wilderness character, yet still be considered 

suitable by Congress; in other words, the criteria for suitability are less stringent 

than the criteria for managing the area after designation. Second, the Untrammeled 

Quality applies only to how the area is managed once it is designated as wilderness 

and it is inappropriate to consider prior to the area’s designation. Third, because 

this monitoring was designed to assess trend in wilderness character, it does not 

take into account a variety of other factors that are often considered in suitability 

determinations, such as management feasibility, competing resource values, or the 

potential contribution of an area to the existing National Wilderness Preservation 

System.

Misconceptions About Wilderness and This Monitoring

There are several basic misconceptions about wilderness and how this monitoring will and will not be able to be used to preserve wilderness character.

•  There is no need for this monitoring because wilderness takes care of itself. This 

common misconception is based on the assumption that the administrative boundary is sufficient to protect wilderness. It is now well established that ecological

systems inside designated wilderness may be profoundly affected by what is occurring outside the wilderness (see Landres and others 1998)1, and that visitor use 

or management activities, especially in specific areas, may have a large impact on

both the ecological system and visitor experiences. The purpose of wilderness character monitoring is to show how the wilderness is changing over time in response to 

myriad impacts.

•  This monitoring provides all the information that is needed to preserve wilderness 

character. Wilderness character monitoring cannot ensure that wilderness character 

is preserved, even if monitoring shows a stable or upward trend. From a legal 

standpoint wilderness character needs to be preserved from the time of wilderness 

designation. Determining the trend in wilderness character is necessary but not sufficient because this trend could be upward yet the condition could still be degraded

compared with the time of designation. Although this monitoring provides key 

information on attributes of wilderness character, it needs to be combined with a 

description of the condition of each indicator, monitoring question, quality, and 

wilderness character as a whole in the monitoring report to provide a more holistic 

and complete picture. 

1 This reference can be found in the “References” section after the main text.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 87

•  Each agency (and wilderness) has unique data needs, making it impossible for this

monitoring to function as an interagency and national strategy. Despite the different data needs as well as different wilderness policies and organizational cultures of 

each wilderness managing agency, all four agencies share the legal mandate to preserve wilderness character. This interagency strategy was designed to accommodate 

these differing data needs by allowing each agency to choose the measures that are 

relevant to that agency (or wilderness) for each indicator. All other aspects of this 

monitoring strategy were designed to ensure interagency consistency and facilitate 

practical implementation. 

Common Concerns About This Monitoring

Several legitimate concerns have been raised that are common to all national 

monitoring programs, including this one. These concerns typically occur because such 

programs necessarily balance several competing criteria to create a practical and useful monitoring strategy. 

•  There are insufficient funding and staff resources for wilderness character monitoring. There will always be limited funding and staff, especially for a rather 

new initiative such as this. To address this concern, this monitoring strategy was 

designed from the outset to be cost-effective and to minimize additional staff workload as much as possible. Use of existing data is encouraged, and each agency (and 

potentially each wilderness) may choose data sources that are appropriate for its 

needs and circumstances.

•  Local offices can “game” this monitoring to show an intended trend in wilderness character. Because this interagency strategy allows flexibility in selecting

measures, wilderness character monitoring can be abused. Significant concerns

with this flexible approach are that: (1) meaningless measures may be selected,

(2) particular measures may be selected to show a desired outcome, and (3) the set 

of measures that are selected may not add up to a coherent or viable assessment 

of trend in wilderness character. To prevent these problems, each agency needs to 

develop its own internal process for reviewing all measures that are selected for 

this monitoring, and for rejecting measures found to be inappropriate or inadequate 

for establishing a comprehensive and accurate assessment of trend in wilderness 

character.

•  It is impossible to really know if wilderness character is preserved because there 

will never be sufficient understanding about what to monitor, nor enough relevant

and appropriate data. Although this is a valid concern, law and policy nonetheless 

mandate that the agencies evaluate whether they are preserving wilderness character to the best of their ability. This interagency strategy provides a comprehensive 

and systematic framework that directly links the qualities of wilderness character to 

the statutory definition of wilderness. By implementing this monitoring, the agencies will show they are collecting the best information they can to assess changes 

in wilderness character, and will identify gaps in current data collection efforts. In 

turn, this process will allow the agencies to make informed decisions about how 

to reallocate managerial resources to fulfill the law and policy mandate to preserve

wilderness character, and thereby improve wilderness stewardship over time.
88 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

•  This monitoring will be a “report card” that “grades” managers on performance

in preserving wilderness character and it will require that certain actions be taken

or that certain actions be stopped. Wilderness character monitoring is not a report 

card; it is a reflection of the current condition of the wilderness and how this condition is changing over time. Some of these changes are beyond a manager’s ability 

to control. The only national “standard” by which management can be judged is 

the Wilderness Act’s mandate that wilderness character be preserved relative to the 

time when the area was designated. This interagency monitoring strategy does not 

create any new standard for preserving wilderness character. The trends revealed 

by this monitoring in the measures, indicators, monitoring questions, qualities, and 

wilderness character do not mandate any decision or action. These trends inform 

decisions—they do not trigger actions. Furthermore, each agency has performance 

systems used for accountability that are separate from this monitoring.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 89
90 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 91

Appendix 5. Example Local, Regional, and National 

Reports

These example reports are modified from the Forest Service Technical Guide

(Landres et al. 2009). For brevity, only one quality is shown for the local and regional 

reports. 

Monitoring Selected Conditions Related to

Wilderness Character

tWILDERNESSt

AMERICA’S

ENDURING

RESOURCE

A Report on Trends in the XXXX Wilderness from 2015 through 2020

“...each agency administering any area

designated as wilderness shall

be responsible for preserving

the wilderness character

of the area”

Wilderness Act of 1964: (Sec. 4b)

The overall trend 

in wilderness

character is 

upward

Trends in the Quali es of Wilderness Character

Quality of Wilderness Character Trend: 2015-2020

Untrammeled Upward

Natural Downward

Undeveloped Upward

Solitude Off se	 ng Stable

Other Features Stable

WILDERNESS CHARACTER UPWARD

Why Monitor Wilderness Character?

• To fulfi ll legal and policy mandates to preserve wilderness 

character.

• To assess the outcomes of wilderness stewardship.

• To improve wilderness stewardship.

• To establish informa on that will endure as personnel and 

condi ons change.

What is Wilderness Character?

For this monitoring, wilderness character is described as fi ve 

mutually reinforcing quali es derived from the Wilderness Act 

of 1964:

Untrammeled

The inten onal management ac ons that directly control 

or manipulate the components or processes of ecological 

systems inside wilderness.

Natural

The eff ects of modern people on ecological systems inside 

wilderness since the  me the area was designated.

Undeveloped

The structures, installa ons, and other evidence of modern 

human presence or occupa on, and the use of motor 

vehicles, motorized equipment, or mechanical transport.

Solitude or Primi ve and Unconfi ned Recrea on

The condi ons that aff ect the opportunity for people to

experience solitude or primi ve, unconfi ned recrea on.

Other Features of Value

The ecological, geological, or other features of scien fi c, 

educa onal, scenic, or historical value.

Local Report

Facing page: Zion Wilderness, Thomas Goebel photo (thomasgoebel01@gmail.com), courtesy of Nature’s 

Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wilderness50’s “Wilderness Forever” photo competition.
92 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Local report, continued

Summary of Trends in the XXXX Wilderness: 2015-2020

Trend

Measure Indicator Ques on Quality Wilderness 

Character

Untrammeled Quality

Authorized ac ons

Fires suppressed

Lakes stocked with fi sh

Unauthorized ac ons

Natural Quality

Invasive non-na ve plants

Invasive non-na ve animals

Visibility

Ozone

Water quality

Landscape connec vity

Undeveloped Quality

Authorized development

Inholdings

Authorized motorized/mechanized

Emergency motorized/mechanized

Solitude or Primi ve and Unconfi ned Recrea on Quality

Visitor use

User-created campsites

Area away from outside developments 

Night sky light pollu on

Recrea on facili es 

Visitor restric ons

Other Features of Value Quality

Cultural resource condi on
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 93

Local report, continued

Wilderness Act of 1964

Wilderness is “an area where the 

earth and its community of life are 

untrammeled by man,” and “generally

appears to have been aff ected primarily 

by the forces of nature.”

Howard Zahniser, the primary author 

of the Wilderness Act, noted that the 

inspira on for wilderness preserva on 

“is to use ‘skill, judgment, and ecologic 

sensi vity’ for the protec on of some 

areas within which natural forces may

operate without man’s management and 

manipula on.” 

This quality monitors management 

ac vi es that inten onally control 

or manipulate the components or 

processes of ecological systems inside 

wilderness.

The trend in the 

Untrammeled Quality

is upward

XXXX Wilderness Character Monitoring Results: 2015-2020

Wilderness is essen ally unhindered and free from inten onal modern human control or manipula on.

Narra ve about the Untrammeled Quality

• Why is this trend in the Untrammeled Quality an accurate refl ec on of recent condi ons in the 

wilderness?

• If problems occurred with the data used to generate trend informa on for this quality, what did 

they consist of?

• What is the explana on for the observed trend?

Trends in Indicators and Measures for the Untrammeled Quality

Indicator Trend Measure Trend Data Adequacy

Monitoring Ques on: What are the trends in ac ons that intenonally control or manipulate the 

“earth and its community of life” inside wilderness?

Ac ons authorized by

the federal land manager 

that inten onally

manipulate the biophysical

environment

Number of authorized ac ons to 

manage plants, animals, pathogens, 

soil, water, or fi re

High

Percentage of lightning fi res that 

are suppressed High

Number of lakes and other water 

bodies stocked with fi sh Medium

Ac ons not authorized 

by the federal land 

manager that inten onally

manipulate the biophysical

environment

Number of unauthorized ac ons 

to manage plants, animals, 

pathogens, soil, water, or fi re

Low
94 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Regional Report

Region 1 Trends in Wilderness Character

Regional trends are derived by compiling a trend in wilderness character and the quali es of wilderness 

character across all 15 Forest Service wildernesses from 2015 through 2020.

 = % of 15 wildernesses with wilderness character preserved

 = % of 15 wildernesses with wilderness character degraded

Region 1 Trends in the Five Quali es of Wilderness Character

Undeveloped Solitude Other Features

73%

27%

53%

47%

93%

7%

67%

33%

71%

29%

Region 1 Wilderness Character Monitoring Results: 2015-2020

What is Wilderness Character?

For this monitoring, wilderness character is described as fi ve mutually reinforcing quali es derived from the 

Wilderness Act of 1964:

Untrammeled

The inten onal management ac ons that directly control or manipulate the components or processes of 

ecological systems inside wilderness.

Natural

The eff ects of modern people on ecological systems inside wilderness since the  me the area was designated.

Undeveloped

The structures, installa ons, and other evidence of modern human presence or occupa on, and the use of 

motor vehicles, motorized equipment, or mechanical transport.

Solitude or Primi ve and Unconfi ned Recrea on

The condi ons that aff ect the opportunity for people to experience solitude or primi ve, unconfi ned recrea on.

Other Features of Value

The ecological, geological, or other features of scien fi c, educa onal, scenic, or historical value.

20% degraded

80% preserved

Untrammeled Natural

Narrave about these Regional Trends

Signifi cant fi ndings and key interpreta ons:

• .................

• .................

• .................

• .................

Data adequacy in the region:

 Data quan ty (percentage of wildernesses repor ng data and explana ons)

 Data quality (problems local wildernesses reported with collec ng data and trends shown)
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 95

Regional report, continued

Region 1 Wilderness Character Monitoring Results: 2015-2020

Summary of Trends in Wilderness Character across the 15 Wildernesses in the Region

Name of Wilderness Trend in Wilderness Character

Selway-Bi erroot

Gospel-Hump

Gates of the Mountains

Salmo-Priest

Absaroka-Beartooth

Ra lesnake

Mission Mountains

Lee Metcalf

Anaconda Pintler

Bob Marshall

Great Bear

Frank Church-River of No Return

Cabinet Mountains

Scapegoat

Welcome Creek

Upward

Downward

Stable Off se ng

Stable

or
96 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Regional report, continued

Region 1 Wilderness Character Monitoring Results: 2015-2020

Wilderness Act of 1964

Wilderness is “an area where the 

earth and its community of life are 

untrammeled by man,” and “generally

appears to have been aff ected primarily 

by the forces of nature.”

Howard Zahniser, the primary author 

of the Wilderness Act, noted that the 

inspira on for wilderness preserva on 

“is to use ‘skill, judgment, and ecologic 

sensi vity’ for the protec on of some 

areas within which natural forces may

operate without man’s management 

and manipula on.” 

This quality monitors management 

ac vi es that inten onally control 

or manipulate the components or 

processes of ecological systems inside 

wilderness. 

Wilderness is essen ally unhindered and free from inten onal modern human control or manipula on.

Trends in the Untrammeled Quality across

the 15 Regional Wildernesses

73% preserved

27%

degraded

Narra ve about the Untrammeled Quality

• What are the signifi cant fi ndings and key interpreta ons regarding trends in this quality?

• If problems occurred with the data used to generate trend informa on for this quality, what did 

they consist of?

• What is the explana on for the observed trends?

Trends in the Indicators and Measures across the 15 Regional Wildernesses

Indicator Trend Measure Trend

Monitoring Ques on: What are the trends in ac ons that inten onally manipulate the “earth and its 

community of life” inside wilderness?

Ac ons authorized 

by the federal 

land manager 

that inten onally 

manipulate

the biophysical

environment

Number of authorized ac ons 

to manage plants, animals, 

pathogens, soil, water, or fi re 7% 40% 53%

Percentage of lightning fi res that 

are suppressed 60% 7% 33%

Number of lakes and other water 

bodies stocked with fi sh 13% 67% 20%

Ac ons not authorized by the federal 

land manager that 

inten onally 

manipulate the 

biophysical environment

Number of unauthorized ac ons 

to manage plants, animals, 

pathogens, soil, water, or fi re 27% 33% 40%

47% 20%

33%

40%

33%

27%
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 97

National Report

tWILDERNESSt

AMERICA’S

ENDURING

RESOURCE

National Summary of Trends in Wilderness 

Character across 442 Forest Service 

Wildernesses 

2015-2020

Na onal Trends in Wilderness Character

Na onal trends are derived by compiling a trend in wilderness 

character and the quali es of wilderness character across all 442 

Forest Service wildernesses from 2015 through 2020.

 = % of 442 wildernesses with wilderness character preserved

 = % of 442 wildernesses with wilderness character degraded

 65% preserved 35% degraded

Na onal Trends in the Five Quali es of 

Wilderness Character

Untrammeled Natural Undeveloped

Solitude Other Features

80%

20%

50%

50%

90%

10%

70%

30%

“ is protocol provides 

a scienti cally defensible

basis for demonstrating

the changes to wilderness 

character we intuitively know 

are occurring.”

Deb Gale

Wilderness Manager

West Fork Ranger District

Bitteroot National Forest

“I  nd this new protocol to 

be a great tool to capture a 

picture of present conditions. 

With periodic monitoring, 

we can track changes over 

time and actually practice 

adaptive management.”

Gabe Garcia

District Ranger

San Bernadino

National Forest

Narrave about these Na onal Trends

The central mandate for wilderness stewardship is the Wilderness Act of 1964’s asser on that “each 

agency administering any area designated as wilderness shall be responsible for preserving the 

wilderness character of the area” (Sec. 4b). This monitoring provides a na onal summary of trends in 

wilderness character and the fi ve quali es that make up wilderness character: untrammeled, natural, 

undeveloped, solitude or primi ve and unconfi ned recrea on, and other features of value. The trends

seen in the past 5 years yield the following observa ons:

• Wilderness character is being preserved in a majority of Forest Service wildernesses.

• Suppressing naturally-caused intense fi res has caused degrada on of the Untrammeled Quality.

• Focused eff orts to restore fi re-adapted forests contributed to this degrada on. 

• New policy direc on to control non-indigenous invasive species has improved the Natural Quality.

75%

25%
98 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

National report, continued

Region 1

Region 2

Region 3

Region 5

Region 6

Region 4

Region 8

Region 9

Region 10

15%

85%

20%

80%

75%

25%

65%

35%

60%

40%

60%

40% 70%

30%

50%

50%

10%

90%

% wildernesses with wilderness character preserved

% wildernesses with wilderness character degraded

Legend

Regional Trends in Wilderness Character: 2015-2020
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 99
100 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 101

Appendix 6. What is a Trammeling Action?

This appendix provides guidelines and examples to clarify what is and is not a 

trammeling action. These are intended to capture the majority of trammeling cases and 

provide sufficient guidance for local staff to figure out the novel and rarer cases as they

occur. A trammeling action is defined as an action that intentionally manipulates “the

earth and its community of life” inside a designated wilderness or inside an area that by 

agency policy is managed as wilderness.

The following terms and phrases clarify the above definition:

• Intentional: done on purpose; deliberate; willful.

• Manipulation: an action that alters, hinders, restricts, controls, or manipulates “the earth and its community of life,” including the type, quantity, or 

distribution of plants, animals, or physical resources.

• Intentional manipulation: an action that purposefully alters, hinders, 

restricts, controls, or manipulates “the earth and its community of life.”

Two concepts are crucial for understanding what is and is not a trammeling action:

restraint and intention. Restraining human beings’ power to manipulate or control “the 

earth and its community of life” is at the core of the Untrammeled Quality of wilderness character. Trammeling actions occur when opportunities for restraint are ignored 

or bypassed; if there is no opportunity for restraint, there is no opportunity to trammel. 

Wilderness legislation and policies mandate that managers exercise restraint when

authorizing actions that interfere with or control wilderness ecological systems. Even 

though other agencies, organizations, and the public are not beholden to these same 

restrictions, activities that have not been authorized by the federal land manager and that 

manipulate the wilderness environment are still counted as trammeling actions. 

The second concept central to the idea of trammeling is intentionality. Actions 

that deliberately interfere with, manage, or control any aspect of wilderness ecological 

systems are intentional and clear instances of trammeling. As explained in the section on 

the Untrammeled Quality, intentional actions are counted as a trammeling regardless of 

the magnitude of their effects (including areal extent, intensity, frequency, and duration). For pragmatic reasons, however, some actions are not monitored if they fall below 

a minimum practical threshold of scale and scope (for example, hand-pulling a few 

individual noxious plants or restoring a campsite). A much more complex and nuanced 

case is whether to include actions whose purpose is not to manipulate “the earth and its 

community of life,” but which require some manipulation of the environment to produce 

the desired outcome. These types of actions can be confusing because they still result in 

an intentional manipulation of the biophysical environment even though that is not their 

primary purpose. In general, when such actions have substantial and foreseeable effects 

on the wilderness ecosystem, they are counted as a trammeling. All of these cases, with 

many examples, are discussed below.

The following sections describe three types of activities: those that are trammeling 

actions, those that are not trammeling actions, and those that may be trammeling actions. 

Following these sections, a flowchart provides general guidance for making these

determinations.

Facing page: Near the Wenaha-Tucannon Wilderness, Peter Landres photo.
102 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Activities that are Trammeling Actions

There are two broad classes of trammeling actions: those that are authorized by 

the federal wilderness manager, and those that are not. Three subclasses under both 

of these reflect whether the action is taken on a biological resource, on a physical resource, or on a resource outside the wilderness with the intent to manipulate biophysical resources within the wilderness.

Agency-authorized trammeling actions

These are actions that are authorized by the federal wilderness manager as well 

as actions by other agencies, organizations, or individuals that have been approved or 

permitted by the federal land manager.

1. Actions taken inside the wilderness on a biological resource to intentionally affect 

“the earth and its community of life.” Examples are:

a. Removing or killing indigenous or non-indigenous vegetation or fish and

wildlife.

b. Adding or restoring indigenous or non-indigenous vegetation or fish and

wildlife.

c. Using chemicals or biocontrol agents to control indigenous or non-indigenous 

vegetation or fish and wildlife.

d. Collecting, capturing, or releasing plants and animals under a research permit.

e. Enclosing or excluding fish and wildlife from an area.

2. Actions taken inside the wilderness on a physical resource or natural process to 

intentionally affect “the earth and its community of life.” Examples are:

a. Suppressing naturally ignited fire.

b. Lighting fire (under management prescription) for any purpose.

c. Constructing or maintaining a dam, water diversion, guzzler, or other 

persistent installation intended to continuously alter wilderness hydrology; 

each agency will need to determine counting rules for monitoring such 

installations.

d. Adding acid-buffering limestone to water to neutralize the effects of acid 

deposition.

3. Actions taken outside the wilderness on a physical or biological resource or process 

to intentionally affect “the earth and its community of life” inside a wilderness. 

Examples are:

a. Cloud seeding to intentionally increase precipitation inside the wilderness.

b. Damming a river outside the wilderness to intentionally alter the hydrology 

inside the wilderness.

c. Killing fish and wildlife outside the wilderness, or planting or stocking fish

or wildlife outside the wilderness, to intentionally affect the population or 

distribution of this species inside the wilderness.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 103

Unauthorized trammeling actions

These are citable or other actions taken by other agencies, organizations, or individuals that have not been authorized, approved, or permitted by the federal wilderness land manager.

1. Actions taken inside the wilderness on a biological resource to intentionally affect 

“the earth and its community of life.” Examples are:

a. Adding or removing plants or fish and wildlife.

b. Other direct manipulation of plants or fish and wildlife.

c. Indirect manipulation of fish and wildlife, such as changing hunting

regulations with the goal of decreasing predator populations within the 

wilderness.

2. Actions taken inside the wilderness on a physical resource or natural process to 

intentionally affect “the earth and its community of life.” Examples are:

a. Setting arson fire.

b. Modifying water resources to provide water for wildlife or otherwise store 

water or alter the timing of water flow.

3. Actions taken outside the wilderness on a physical or biological resource to 

intentionally affect “the earth and its community of life” inside a wilderness. An 

example is:

a. Releasing or killing species outside of the wilderness with the intention to 

affect populations whose ranges extend into the wilderness.

In some situations, staff may assume that they do not have the opportunity for 

restraint because an action is required to comply with other laws or agency policies, 

or to protect human life or property. Examples of such situations are: restoring habitat 

for a listed endangered species, spraying herbicides to eradicate an invasive non-indigenous plant that is degrading wildlife habitat, transplanting an extirpated species back 

into the wilderness, or suppressing a naturally ignited fire. These are still considered

trammeling actions because even in these situations staff are deciding to take action as 

well as deciding the type and intensity of action.

Activities that are not Trammeling Actions

Actions for which there is no opportunity for managerial or individual restraint 

are not considered a trammeling. For example, climate change, air pollutants wafting 

into a wilderness, and the presence of non-indigenous species that naturally dispersed 

into a wilderness are not the result of deliberate decisions or actions, and therefore 

do not provide an opportunity for management restraint. Accidental unauthorized actions, such as escaped campfires and oil spills, similarly lack an opportunity to restrain

individuals’ power over the landscape. Past actions that manipulated the biophysical 

environment before an area was designated as wilderness are not considered trammeling actions because the provisions of the 1964 Wilderness Act do not apply to an area 

prior to designation.
104 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Another group of examples that are not trammeling actions encompass those 

small-scale actions with no intent to manipulate “the earth and its community of life,” 

such as installing meteorological or other scientific instruments, landing a helicopter

for search-and-rescue operations, and removing trash. Camping violations, unauthorized motorized incursions, and other illegal activities that are not intended to manipulate the biophysical environment are also not counted as trammeling actions because 

legality is irrelevant in determining whether an action is a trammeling.

Hunting, for sport or subsistence, has provoked an enormous amount of discussion about whether it degrades the Untrammeled Quality. The consensus from the 

Interagency Lessons Learned Workshop in 2014 was that hunting is generally not a 

trammeling action because individual hunters are taking individual animals without 

the intention to manipulate the wildlife population. However, if a state wildlife agency 

manipulates hunting quotas (or takes other management action) to alter the predator–

prey relationship in order to maximize certain hunting opportunities, this manipulation 

of the “community of life” would degrade the Untrammeled Quality (see above). 

Activities that May be Trammeling Actions

There are two types of actions that may or may not be considered trammeling 

actions. The first includes intentional manipulations that interfere with or control an

aspect of wilderness ecosystems but are too small in scale or scope to be monitored 

practically. The second type encompasses those nuanced cases where the primary 

purpose of the action is not to manipulate the ecosystem, but a foreseeable and substantial effect on “the earth and its community” is required to achieve this purpose. In 

the latter case, the action is counted as a trammeling regardless of the purpose behind 

the action because the agency still has the discretion as to whether to take this action. 

As shown in table A6-1, several hypothetical situations illustrate how an action may 

or may not be a trammeling depending on the extent of the action and its effects. Each 

bullet in the table presents a situation where the action being taken probably would, or 

would not, be considered a trammeling.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 105

Table A6-1—Examples of actions likely not to be, and likely to be, trammeling actions based on the scale 

and scope of the action and its effects on “the earth and its community of life.”

Action Likely not to be a trammeling Likely to be a trammeling

Treating nonindigenous invasive 

plants

Hand-pulling a small area of non-indigenous 

invasive plants

Spraying herbicide

Permitting scientific 

activities

Installing research plot monumentation, such 

as rebar stakes or nails

Installing most scientific instrumentation

Collecting a limited number of voucher 

specimens with no impact on species 

distribution or abundance

Installing enclosures or exclosures

Installing instrumentation that disrupts the 

movement or behavior of plants, or fish and 

wildlife

Capturing, collaring, and releasing wildlife

Building system trail Routing a trail around a rock slide

Building a bridge across a stream to prevent 

streambank erosion

Installing a small section of corduroy across 

a wet area

Installing waterbars or building rock-cribbing

Routing a trail through an area of sensitive 

alpine butterfly habitat

Building a long trail to go around a section 

of river or cliff

Building a trail that requires extensive earth 

movement or tree cutting

Obliterating nonsystem trailPiling vegetation or rocks at the beginning 

and end of trail sections that cut a switchback

Obliterating a large section of non-system 

trail that requires extensive earth movement

Restoring campsites Restoring a single, isolated campsite

Restoring a number of campsites without 

needing to disrupt the soil or vegetation in 

the surrounding area

Restoring a number of campsites by 

moving a significant amount of soil or 

a significant number of plants in the 

surrounding area

Removing hazard 

trees

Removing one or a few hazard trees that 

threaten designated campsites or that are 

along a trail

Removing all of the hazard trees over a 

large area

Flowchart

The flowchart below is intended to provide general guidelines to help agency

staff determine when an action should be considered a trammeling. The first question

asks if there is an opportunity for restraint, and is placed first to help distinguish between those actions that are beyond the scope of management control, or are unauthorized accidents, and actions that managers or others do have an opportunity to influence. Political considerations are not a factor in determining whether or not there is an 

opportunity for restraint. The second question examines the intentionality of the action 

and whether the purpose is to manipulate “the earth and its community of life.” If 

there is a clear intent to manipulate, then the action is counted as a trammeling unless 

it does not meet a minimum threshold for practicable monitoring. If the purpose of the 

activity is not to manipulate the ecological system, the action is nonetheless considered a trammeling if it results in foreseeable and substantial effects to the wilderness 

ecosystem.
106 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Is the purpose of the action 

to intentionally manipulate 

the earth and its community 

of life inside a wilderness?

Are the effects of the action 

above a minimum threshold 

for practical monitoring?

Does the action have a 

foreseeable and substantial 

effect on the earth and its 

community of life? 

This is NOT a

trammeling action.

This is NOT a

trammeling action.

Is there an opportunity for 

restraint prior to the action?

This IS a trammeling action. This is NOT a 

trammeling action.

YES 

YES 

YES 

YES NO

NO

NO

NO

Example actions include:

• Global climate change

• Air pollutants that drift into 

a wilderness

• An escaped campfire

Example actions include:

• Installing a scientific 

monitoring station

• Landing a helicopter for 

SAR operations

• Maintaining or restoring 

campsites or trails

Example actions include:

• Authorized actions such as 

suppressing fire, lighting 

prescribed fire, capturing 

wildlife, restoring habitat, 

spraying herbicide

• Unauthorized actions such 

as releasing fish or wildlife, 

planting marijuana grow 

sites, modifying water flow, 

lighting arson fire

Example actions include:

• Hand pulling a few invasive 

non-indigenous plants

• Collecting a few voucher 

specimens under a 

research permit

• Unauthorized cutting or 

digging vegetation
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 107
108 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 109

Appendix 7. Selecting Measures for the Natural 

Quality

This appendix provides recommendations for selecting measures for the Natural 

Quality. It discusses the general considerations for selecting these measures and why 

certain types of measures are problematic, offers examples to clarify what are and are 

not appropriate measures, and provides a flowchart outlining the general selection

process. 

The essential requirement for all measures within this interagency monitoring 

strategy is the ability to assign an “upward,” “downward,” or “stable” trend based on 

changes in their condition. Applying this seemingly straightforward idea to the Natural 

Quality can be fraught because ecological conditions typically do not have a single 

natural state from which a trend can be assigned. Instead, ecological systems are complex; as the ecologist Frank Egler is credited with saying, “Ecosystems are not only 

more complex than we think, they are more complex than we can think.” Individuals 

of a species move around, and ecological conditions and processes vary over time and 

differ from one location to another. Species come and go, some years are warm and 

some are cold, and snowfields and glaciers expand and melt.

Natural change over time and from one place to another is a fundamental 

aspect of ecological systems and an essential aspect of the Natural Quality of wilderness character. To account for this change, the Natural Quality should not be used to 

recreate historical conditions from an arbitrary point in time (such as pre-European 

settlement or the date of wilderness designation), target a subjective set of desired 

conditions (such as the population of a specific game species), or otherwise maintain

unchanging ecological conditions. When combined with the Untrammeled Quality, 

the basic legal and philosophical tenet in wilderness is to watch what happens and not 

direct this change. This tenet means that there is no target for the species that occur 

there, or even for abiotic conditions such as temperature or precipitation. 

Given this tenet, the most direct and simple measures in the Natural Quality are 

those that quantify known direct threats to the ecological system. For example, air 

pollutants or non-indigenous species are known threats and generally there is good 

reference information for them. Even these variables, however, require sufficient understanding of whether changes are primarily natural or anthropogenic (for example, 

separating the effects of volcanic air pollutants from human-caused pollutants, or the 

natural dispersal of non-indigenous species from human-caused spread). Today, many 

changes in the Natural Quality are due to the interacting effects of natural variation 

and human-caused threats, and we may not be able to distinguish between the two. 

Moreover, even if interactions are understood on a global or regional scale, this knowledge may be lacking for the smaller spatial scale of a wilderness. Therefore, measures 

of threats should be selected only if they are determined (either by data or professional 

judgment) to be primarily anthropogenic and if they can show meaningful change 

within the timeframe that is appropriate for wilderness character monitoring (5 to 10 

years) as opposed to requiring decades or centuries of data collection.

Facing page: Mount Jefferson Wilderness, Adrian Klein photo (adrian@adrianklein.com), courtesy of Nature’s Best Photography, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wilderness50’s “Wilderness 

Forever” photo competition.
110 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

The wilderness agencies currently collect much natural resource information, 

and in some cases this information may be directly used in wilderness character monitoring. Wilderness character monitoring should not duplicate monitoring that is already being done, such as by specific resource monitoring programs. The data collected from these programs provide valuable insight into regional and local ecosystems, 

but may not be appropriate or feasible to include in wilderness character monitoring. 

Importantly, not all threats or features of the natural environment important to wilderness character need to be included as measures in wilderness character monitoring if 

these are being monitored by other resource programs. In such cases, only those measures that are appropriate and the highest priority would be included, typically selected 

because they quantify threats to features that are truly integral to and representative of 

the area’s wilderness character.

There are some cases in which a measure is inappropriate to monitor under the 

Natural Quality but is clearly integral to wilderness character. For example, bears and 

wolves—iconic species that were formerly extirpated—are returning to many wildernesses; from a wilderness perspective, their presence would be a significant improvement in the Natural Quality. Counting populations of naturally occurring species, 

however, does not monitor a human-caused threat, nor can a trend in the measure be 

assigned without assuming a target ecological state. For such cases, the importance of 

the non-selected measure should be acknowledged in the monitoring report’s narrative 

or by including it in other monitoring programs.

Occasionally, a measure may be included under the Other Features of Value 

Quality instead of the Natural Quality, such as measures related to iconic features (for 

example, glaciers) or species (for example, wolves) that define how people think about

the wilderness or are specifically identified in the enabling legislation. This decision

can be appropriate because trends in measures under the Other Features of Value Quality may be defined by human values (for example, the presence of the feature or the

species within a wilderness), whereas trends in measures under the Natural Quality are 

defined by the more stringent criterion of whether the ecological system is free from

the effects of modern civilization.

Examples of Appropriate and Inappropriate Measures

From experience in implementing wilderness character monitoring, the following examples show how measures that have been used in the past are and are not 

appropriate based on the guidelines presented in this appendix.

Appropriate measures

Appropriate measures are those that meet the following criteria: they are current 

or potential threats to the ecological systems in wilderness, they are primarily humancaused, they do rely on a static or target ecological state to make an assessment about 

trend, and they can show change within about 10 years. Four example measures are 

described below, each followed by a brief explanation of why it is appropriate for use 

in wilderness character monitoring.

Number of non-indigenous invasive species (plant or animal):

• Non-indigenous invasive species are a direct and significant threat to ecological systems in wilderness.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 111

• Non-indigenous invasive species are most commonly introduced or spread 

in wilderness areas by humans. Even populations of non-indigenous 

invasive species that are spreading naturally into the wilderness were most 

likely initially introduced outside of the wilderness by humans. In most 

cases, therefore, changes in the data result primarily from human agency.

• This measure clearly monitors an effect of modern civilization and does 

not reference a specific ecological state (any ecological state is natural so

long as it is substantially unaffected by human-caused introductions of 

non-indigenous invasive species). A trend can be assigned for the measure 

such that increasing numbers of non-indigenous invasive species degrade 

the Natural Quality and decreasing numbers improve it.

• A meaningful trend in the data can be observed in a short timeframe.

Ozone concentration:

• Ozone in the lower atmosphere is a pollutant formed primarily from reactions involving emissions from cars, industrial facilities, power plants, and 

other types of combustion. It can have a significant effect on ecological

components, structures, and functions and is therefore a threat to the 

Natural Quality.

• Air pollutants such as ozone are a by-product of modern civilization and 

changes in the data result primarily from human agency.

• This measure monitors an effect of modern civilization and does not reference a specific ecological state (any ecological state is natural so long as

it is substantially unaffected by human-caused air pollution). A trend can 

be assigned for the measure such that an increasing concentration of ozone 

degrades the Natural Quality and decreasing concentration improves it.

• A meaningful trend in the data can be observed in a short timeframe.

Number of watersheds with modified water flows:

• The effect of modern human manipulation of water flow on wilderness

ecosystems is a threat to the Natural Quality.

• Dams are constructed and maintained by humans; changes in the data 

therefore result primarily from human agency.

• The number of watersheds with modified water flow monitors the effect

of a human-caused threat and does not require a specific ecological state

to assign a trend in the measure (any flow rate or water quantity is natural

so long as it is not substantially influenced by dams). Increasing modification of watersheds from an increase in the number of dams or other water 

diversions degrades the Natural Quality and decreasing modification

improves it.

• A meaningful trend in the data can be observed in a short timeframe.

Landscape fragmentation:

• Despite occurring outside the wilderness, landscape fragmentation can 

have wide-ranging effects on indigenous species and communities and is 

therefore a threat to the Natural Quality.
112 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

• Expansion of modern human settlements and increasing land development 

are the primary drivers of landscape fragmentation. Changes in the data 

result primarily from human agency.

• Less impact on wilderness ecological systems from modern human development improves the Natural Quality, and increasing the degree of impact 

degrades it. A clear trend in the measure can be identified and no specific

ecological state is referenced.

• A meaningful trend in the data can be observed in a short timeframe.

Inappropriate measures

Inappropriate measures are those that do not meet the criteria described above for 

appropriate measures. Four example measures are described below, each followed by a 

brief explanation of why it is inappropriate for use in wilderness character monitoring.

Average annual summer or winter temperature:

• Changing average temperature simply represents change and cannot be 

considered to improve or degrade wilderness character. To state that any 

change in temperature would degrade the Natural Quality would set a 

static target for what “natural” is in the wilderness. 

• Temperature naturally varies within a wilderness from year to year without 

necessarily degrading wilderness character. Although changes in global 

data reflect human-caused effects, making that determination for local

change—especially in the short term—may not be feasible.

• If data are not already being collected close to a wilderness, a long timescale would be required before a meaningful trend in the data could be 

observed.

• Established climatology monitoring programs already exist within the 

wilderness managing agencies and other federal agencies. This science is 

complex, nuanced, and time-consuming, and is already being conducted 

by specialists at a much higher level than is generally possible for an individual wilderness. Wilderness character monitoring should not duplicate 

or create new monitoring programs.

Keystone species abundance (plant or animal):

• Measures that quantify naturally varying population or distribution 

dynamics of indigenous species do not monitor a threat to the Natural 

Quality of wilderness. Because indigenous species are included as an 

inherent component of ecological systems, they cannot therefore be 

considered a threat to that same ecosystem.

• Measures that quantify the loss of an indigenous keystone species due 

to human-caused threats must be able to determine that population or 

distribution changes are due primarily to anthropogenic impacts and not to 

natural variation.
USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015. 113

• Change in a population of an indigenous species does not necessarily 

improve or degrade the Natural Quality of wilderness character because 

populations change naturally over time. Identifying a trend in the measure 

would require setting a static historical, current, or desired population or 

distribution range as a target state, which is inappropriate in wilderness.

Extent, volume, or mass of glaciers or permanent snowfields:

• Changes in glacial extent, volume, or mass due to climate change can occur in both recession and advancement. To state that both results degrade 

the Natural Quality implies that unchanging conditions are “natural” and 

forces the trend in the measure to reference a static or historical ecological 

state.

• It may be difficult to attribute the trend in the data primarily to human

agency, and the necessary timeframe to evaluate trend in the data may be 

too long.

Sea level rise:

• Changing sea levels cannot be assigned trends for wilderness character 

monitoring without referencing an “ideal sea level” or implying preservation of an unchanging past, present, or future ecological state.

• If data are not already being collected close to a wilderness, a long timescale would be required before a meaningful trend in the data could be 

observed.

• Established sea level monitoring programs already exist within federal 

agencies. Wilderness character monitoring should not replicate existing 

monitoring initiatives.

Flowchart

The flowchart below provides general guidelines for selecting measures for the

Natural Quality. The first question is whether the measure is a threat to the Natural

Quality, with “threat” defined as human agency in directly or indirectly causing a

significant change to the composition, structure, and functioning of ecological systems

in wilderness (Landres and others 2009)1. The second question is whether the measure 

will provide an interpretable trend. This question, based on the discussion above, can 

be summarized as asking the following: (1) whether the measure holds the wilderness 

to a static or target ecological state, (2) if changes can be primarily attributed to human 

agency, and (3) if there is sufficient information or data to make a reasonable assessment of trend within about 10 years. For this flowchart, it is assumed that all measures

being considered have already been determined to be integral to wilderness character, 

significant or meaningful to understanding change in the indicator of the Natural Quality, and vulnerable to human-caused threats. It is also assumed that measures can be 

reliably monitored with a high degree of confidence in the data, and can feasibly be

monitored into the future. 

1 This reference can be found in the “References” section after the main text.
114 USDA Forest Service RMRS-GTR-340. 2015.

Does the measure have an interpretable trend? 

To answer "yes," all of the following criteria must be met: 

1. A trend can be assigned for the measure that does not refer to 

a static, historical, or target ecological state. 

2. Changes in the data result primarily from human agency.

3. A meaningful trend in the data can be observed within a 5-10 

year timeframe at the scale of the wilderness.

Does the measure monitor a threat 

to the Natural Quality of wilderness 

character, or the effect of a threat? 

YES 

YES NO

NO

Exclude the measure from 

monitoring under the Natural 

Quality of wilderness character and 

acknowledge its importance 

through other means. 

Example measures include:

• Natural population dynamics, 

distribution, or movement of 

native species

• Effect or extent of native 

pathogens

• Naturally varying water quantity, 

quality, or flow characteristics

Exclude the measure from 

monitoring under the Natural 

Quality of wilderness character and 

acknowledge its importance 

through other means.

Example measures include:

• Climate change measures such as 

average temperature, average 

precipitation, sea level rise, glacial 

extent, frequency or magnitude of 

severe weather events, phenology

• Departure from the historic fire 

regime

• Population dynamics of iconic or 

listed species

• Island geomorphology

The measure is appropriate 

to monitor under the 

Natural Quality of 

wilderness character. 

Example measures include:

• Number or extent of invasive species, 

or of species introduced by humans

• Concentration or quantity of air 

pollutants

• Impacts to water quality from 

pollutants

• Effect of dams on water flow

• Impacts to landscape fragmentation 

from expanding human settlement
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