Keeping It Wild: An Interagency Strategy to Monitor Trends in Wilderness Character

The Interagency Wilderness Character Monitoring Team—representing the Department of the Interior (DOI) Bureau of Land Management, DOI Fish and Wildlife Service, DOI National Park Service, DOI U.S. Geological Survey, and the U.S. Forest Service—offers in this document an interagency strategy to monitor trends in wilderness character across the National Wilderness Preservation System. The overall strategy is for each wilderness to: 1) choose a set of measures from those provided in this document that are relevant, cost-effective, and tied to preserving wilderness character, 2) periodically collect data to assess trend in these measures, and 3) use these trends to assess and report on the trend in wilderness character. Each agency would then compile these trends from each wilderness to assess broad scale agency performance in preserving wilderness character. Similarly, data from each agency would be compiled to assess performance in preserving wilderness character across the National Wilderness Preservation System. This interagency monitoring strategy provides a solid foundation to tie wilderness stewardship to the legislative direction of the Wilderness Act and agency policies to preserve wilderness character.

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