foru the georgem wrightamerica, contributed intellectual momentum to the historic preservation...

THE GEORGE W R I G H T

FORUM volume 22 number 3 * 2005

Geoconservation

Geodiversity &

Origins Founded in 1980, the George Wright Society is organized for the purposes of promoting the application of knowledge, fostering communication, improving resource management, and providing information to improve public understanding and appreciation of the basic purposes of natural and cultural parks and equivalent reserves. The Society is dedicated to the protection, preservation, and management of cultural and natural parks and reserves through research and education.

Mission The George Wright Society advances the scientific and heritage values of parks and protected areas. The Society promotes professional research and resource stewardship across natural and cultural disciplines, provides avenues of communication, and encourages public policies that embrace these values.

Our Goal The Society strives to be the premier organization connecting people, places, knowledge, and ideas to foster excellence in natural and cultural resource management, research, protection, and interpretation in parka and equivalent reserves.

Board of Directors

DWIGHT T. PlTCAITHLEY, President • Las Graces, New Mexico

ABIGAIL B. MILLER, Vice President • Shclburne, Vermont

JERRY EMORY, Treasurer • Mill Valley, California

GILLIAN BOWSER, Secretary • Bryan, Texas

REBECCA CONARD • Murfreesboro, Tennessee

BRUCE M. KILGORE • Pocatcllo, Idaho

SUZANNE LEWIS • Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

DAVID J. PARSONS • Florence, Montana

JOHN J. REYNOLDS • Castro Valley, California

WILLIAM H.WALKER, JR. • Hemdon, Virginia

STEPHEN WOODLEY • Chelsea, Quebec

Executive Office DAVID HARMON, Executive Director EMILY DEKKER-FIALA, Conference Coordinator P. O. Box 65 • Hancock, Michigan 49930-0065 USA

1-906-487-9722 • fax 1-906-487-9405 [email protected] • www.georgewright.org

The George Wright Society is a member of US/ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites—U.S. Committee) and lUCN-The World Conservation Union.

Q 2005 The George Wright Society, Inc. All rights reserved. (No copyright is claimed for previously published material reprinted herein.)

ISSN 0732-4715

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THE GEORGE WRIGHT

FORUM volume 2 2 number 3 • 2 0 0 5

Society News, Notes & Mail • 2

Geodiversity and Geoconservation

Vincent L. Santucci, guest editor

Geodiversity and Geoconservation: What, Why, and How?

Murray Gray • 4

Application of Paleoecologic Methods to Coastal Resource Management:

An Example from Biscayne National Park

G. Lynn Wingard • 13

The Geological Foundation for Prescribed Fire in Mammoth Cave National Park

Rick Olson and Caroline Nobh • 22

Historical Perspectives on Biodiversity and Geodiversity

Vincent L. Santucci • 29

New Wildernesses Can Be Created:

A Personal History of the Gaylord Nelson Wilderness at Apostle Islands National Lakeshore

Bob Krumenaker • 35

Contemplating One-Sided Clams: The Northern Abalone Quincunx

K A. Sloan • 50

The Moral Power of the World Conservation Movement to Engage Economic Globalization

Ron Engel • 58

On the cover: Active volcanism, such as that displayed at Hawaf i Volcanoes National Park, is one of

many geological processes that contribute to the world's geodiversity. National Park Service photo

SOCIETY NEWS, NOTES & MAIL GWS to assist in revision of U.S. World Heritage preliminary list

As the result of a recent agreement with the National Park Service's Office of International

Affairs, the Society will help carry out the first revision in more than twenty years of the

United States' Tentative List for the World Heritage Convention. Each signatory country to

the convention produces these lists, which indicate those properties that the national com

mittee on World Heritage feels might be eligible for inscription as World Heritage sites.

Inclusion of a property on the Tentative List does not guarantee inscription, but it is a

mandatory first step toward a possible nomination. The GWS's role is to work with a con

sultant who will develop application materials, coordinate consultations with applicants and

peer review evaluators, and generally shepherd the revision through the legal and bureau

cratic process. It's envisioned that the newly revised Tentative List will contain as many as

twenty properties, which may be primarly cultural, primarily natural, or "mixed" sites com

bining both elements. Once revised, the Tentative List will guide U.S. nominations to

UNESCO, the World Heritage secretariat, for a decade or more. As part of the project, we

are looking to add considerable material on World Heritage to the GWS website. If you rep

resent a park or other site that you believe might be worthy of the U.S. Tentative List, con

tact the GWS office and we can put you in touch with the consultant for more details.

Revision of GWS by-laws open for comment

As part of a periodic review, the GWS Board is currently reviewing a number of changes to

the Society's by-laws. The proposed changes update the by-laws to reflect recent operating

changes, to eliminate inconsistencies in wording, etc. Members are invited to review the

changes and comment on them. You can access the red-lined document on the GWS web

site at www.georgewright.org/bylaws_amendments.html.

New and noteworthy

• Antiquities Act book slated for 2006. Next year marks the 100th anniversaiy of the

Antiquities Act, the U.S. law which provides the foundation for public archaeology in

America, contributed intellectual momentum to the historic preservation movement, and

resulted in dozens of important national monuments. To celebrate the act, a group of

scholars and monument managers have contributed chapters to The Antiquities Act: A

Century of American Archaeology, Historic Preservation, and Nature Conservation. The

book, which will be published by the University of Arizona Press in the spring, is co-edit

ed by Dave Harmon (GWS executive director), Frank McManamon (NPS chief archae

ologist and GWS member), and Dwight Pitcaithley (recendy retired NPS chief historian

and current GWS president). There will be more on the Antiquities Act centennial in

issues of The George Wright Forum next year.

• Most endangered historic, cultural places named. In June the National Trust for

Historic Preservation released its 2005 list of the most endangered historic places in

America. The list runs the gamut of places important to the American story, from a fash-

2 The George Wright Forum

http://www.georgewright.org/bylaws_amendments.html

ionable hotel to a Revolutionary War prison camp, and from Ernest Hemingway's house

in Cuba to Boston's Catholic churches. Information on-line at www.nationaltrust.org/

1 lMost/2005/index.html. Also in June, the World Monuments Fund announced its bien

nial list of the 100 most endangered historic architectural and cultural sites. The 2006

World Monuments Watch list includes sites in more than 50 countries. The U.S. sites

listed are 2 Columbus Circle (New York, N.Y.), Bluegrass Cultural Landscape of

Kentucky, Cyclorama Center (Gettysburg National Military Park, Pa.), Dutch Reformed

Church (Newburgh, N.Y), Ellis Island Baggage and Dormitory Building (Ellis Island

National Monument, N.Y), Ennis Brown House (Los Angeles, Calif.), Hanging Flume

(Montrose County, Colo.), and Mount Lebanon Shaker Village (New Lebanon, N.Y).

An American Family in World War II. Long-time GWS member Harry Butowsky, an

NPS historian, has co-edited this new volume of letters of a family headed by a combat

pilot. The letters from the family members, woven together with commentary by the edi

tors, present a vibrant picture of the reality of the home front—rationing, bond drives, and

the daily tension of war—through the people who lived it. Ordering information from

Word Association Publishers, 1-800-827-7903.

Volume 22 • Number 3 (2005) 3

http://www.nationaltrust.org/

Geodiversity and Geoconservation:What, Why, and How?

Murray Gray

IntroductionJUST 100 MILES NORTH OF PHILADELPHIA, the location of the 2005 George Wright Societyconference, and straddling Interstate Highway 476, the Northeast Extension of the Pennsyl-vania Turnpike, lies Hickory Run State Park. Through this protected area runs the outerlimit of the last ice-sheet to flow southwards into the USA about 20,000 years ago. As aresult, the park displays two very different landscape types that in turn have produced twodistinctive sets of wildlife habitat.

The George Wright Forum4

Geodiversity &Geoconservation

: .

The undulating nature of the westernpart of the park reflects the glacial deposi-tion associated with the end moraine of theice-sheet and the valley erosion associatedwith glacial meltwater rivers. The easternpart of the park is higher and was not cov-ered by the ice, but was affected byperiglacial processes. These included thefrost disturbance of rock outcrops, the frostweathering of boulders, and the downslopemovement of these boulders to accumulatein the famous Hickory Run Boulder Field, aNational Natural Landmark and State ParkNatural Area (Figure 1).

On the glaciated western side of thepark, the end moraine is dominated by thinand moist soils, evergreen trees, and sphag-num moss bogs. Blackburnian warbler, red-breasted nuthatch, and northern waterthrush inhabit this area, and in the springspotted and Jefferson salamanders and

wood frogs flock to the bogs to breed. Onthe other hand, the unglaciated eastern sideof the park is dominated by beech andchestnut oak trees inhabited by the Ameri-can redstart, red-eyed vireo, and Louisianawater thrush (Commonwealth of Pennsyl-vania 2004).

Hickory Run State Park therefore illus-trates how the geological evolution of alandscape has produced a diversity of land-forms and materials that in turn have pro-vided a range of habitats in which biodiver-sity has evolved. We do not have to thinktoo hard to understand that Hickory Run isonly one example of these types of relation-ships. For example, think of the range ofphysical habitats within any one of the largeAlaskan national parks, such as Denali,Glacier Bay, or Wrangell–St. Elias. And thencontrast these glaciated mountain parkswith others such as Hawaii Volcanoes,

Grand Canyon, Carlsbad Caverns, andDeath Valley, and add in any national sea-shore and national river. This issue of TheGeorge Wright Forum contains papers out-lining in detail several other examples illus-trating similar physical/biological relation-ships. From this and other studies acrossthe world, it can be argued that the Earth’sbiodiversity is largely due to the diversity ofthe geological world (geodiversity), and thatfor land management to be fully effective aholistic understanding and approach is nec-essary.

What is geodiversity?“Geodiversity” can be defined simply as

“the natural range (diversity) of geological(rocks, minerals, fossils), geomorphological(land form, physical processes) and soil fea-tures. It includes their assemblages, rela-tionships, properties, interpretations andsystems” (Gray 2004:8). The term first

appears in articles from Tasmania, Aus-tralia, in the mid-1990s (Sharples 1993;Dixon 1995; Kiernan 1996) and it is nocoincidence that this immediately followedthe adoption by many countries of the U.N.Convention on Biodiversity at the EarthSummit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Tas-manian geoscientists realized that there aremany parallels between biological diversityand diversity in the abiotic world. Using theterms “biodiversity” and “geodiversity”helps to indicate that nature consists of twoequal components, living and non-living,and which, taken together, could help topromote a more holistic approach to natureconservation than the traditional biocentricfocus.

Subsequently, the use of the term “geo-diversity” has spread, particularly in Aus-tralia, where it is an integral part of the Aus-tralian Natural Heritage Charter (AustralianHeritage Commission 1996, 2002), in

Geodiversity & Geoconservation


Figure 1. Hickory Run National Natural Landmark. Note the graffiti on some stones. Photo courtesy of the author

Scandinavia (Johansson 2000), and in theUnited Kingdom (Gray 2004), where sever-al local geodiversity action plans (LGAPs)mirror their biological equivalents (LBAPs)and where a report titled State of Nature—Geodiversity has been published (EnglishNature 2005). However, the term has yet tobe adopted in the USA.

Geological diversity is illustrated by the5,000 or so minerals known to exist in theworld, some of which are very rare andcould easily be lost. These diverse minerals,when combined with other factors, such ascrystal or particle size, shape, and structure,create thousands of different named rocktypes. About a million fossil species havebeen identified, but probably millions moreawait discovery. There are 19,000 namedsoil series in the USA alone (Brady and Weil2002). Less easily classified are landformsand topography. Some landform names,such as canyons, end moraines, and arches,are used widely, but much of the Earth’ssurface form does not fall neatly into anamed landform category. There are alsomany commonly used names for physicalprocesses, e.g., coastal erosion, landsliding,and glacial abrasion, but, when examined indetail, these processes become increasinglycomplex. Given the above brief discussion,the conclusion must be that there is asmuch geodiversity in the world as biodiver-sity.

Why should we conserve geodiversity?Geodiversity ought to be conserved for

two reasons. First, geodiversity is valuableand valued in a large number of ways, andsecond, it is threatened by a huge variety ofhuman activities. It is a measure of a civi-lized and sophisticated society that itshould want to conserve elements of theplanet that are both valued and threatened

(Gray 2004).Values. Table 1 gives a summary of over

30 recognizable values of geodiversity withexamples where appropriated from protect-ed areas in the USA. These could bereferred to as “geosystem services” to indi-cate equivalence with the common ap-proach of ecosystem services often used tojustify wildlife conservation. Many of themare included in the classification of intangi-ble values given by Harmon and Putney(2003) and Harmon (2004), though herewe focus specifically on the values of geodi-versity.

Intrinsic or existence values are thoseassociated with things simply for what theyare rather than what they can be used for byhumans (utilitarian values). There is alarge philosophical and ethical discussionon this topic in the literature, and interestedreaders are referred to, for example, Attfield(1999) and Beckerman and Pasek (2001).

Cultural values may originate from folk-lore associated with the origin of rock for-mations or landforms. For example, the col-umnar jointing of the Devils Tower Na-tional Monument in Wyoming is reputed tobe the claw marks of a giant grizzly bear try-ing to reach a group of people on the sum-mit. Cultural values are also associated withlinks between rock sites and archaeology.Obvious examples here are the AlibatesFlint Quarries, Canyon de Chelly, Gila CliffDwellings, and Petroglyph National Monu-ments. Similarly, some geological featuresmay have spiritual value. Examples includethe sacred vision quest sites of NorthAmerican Indians, such as Chief Mountainwithin Glacier National Park, Montana(Gulliford 2000) or the nearby Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park in Alberta, Canada.Many other present-day societies also feel astrong bond with their physical surround-





Intrinsic Value 1. Intrinsic value Abiotic nature free of human valuationsCultural Value 2. Folklore Devils Tower NM; Sleeping Bear Dunes

NL3. Archaeological/Historical Alibates Flint Quarries NM; Petroglyph

NM4. Spiritual Chief Mountain, Glacier NP5. Sense of Place John Muir at Yosemite

Aesthetic Value 6. Local Landscapes Sea views; sound of waves; touch of sand7. Geotourism Grand Canyon NP; Yellowstone, NP8. Leisure Activities Rock climbing; caving; skiing; hiking9. Remote Appreciation Nature in magazines and TV10. Voluntary Activities Footpath construction; mine restoration11. Artistic Inspiration Moran & Jackson at Yellowstone

Economic Value 12. Energy Coal; oil; gas; peat; uranium13. Industrial Minerals Potash; fluorspar, rock salt; kaolinite14. Metallic Minerals Iron, copper; chromium; zinc; tin; gold15. Construction Minerals Stone, aggregate; limestone; bitumen16. Gemstones Diamond; sapphire; emerald, onyx; agate17. Fossils Tyrannosaurus “Sue”; fossil & mineral

shops18. Soil Food production; wine; timber; fiber

Functional Value 19. Platforms Building and infrastructure on land20. Storage & Recycling Carbon in peat and soil; oil traps; aquifers21. Health Nutrients & minerals; therapeutic

landscapes22. Burial Human burial; nuclear waste chambers23. Pollution Control Soil and rock as water filters24. Water chemistry Mineral water; whisky; beer25. Soil functions Agriculture; horticulture; viticulture;

forestry26. Geosystem functions Operation of fluvial, coastal, glacial

processes27. Ecosystem functions Habitats and biodiversity

Scientific Value 28. Geoscience Research History of Earth; evolution; geoprocesses29. History of Research Early identification of unconformities,

etc.30. EnvironmentalMonitoring

Climate change; sea-level change;pollution

31. Education & Training Field studies; professional training

Table 1. Summary of geodiversity values with some examples.

ings, allowing local inhabitants to develop asense of place. John Muir developed afamously strong relationship with Yosemite,and today the parks are “a lifelong source ofawe” for many (Pritchard 1995:xvi).

Aesthetic values relate to the valuedimpact on the senses instilled by many pro-tected areas. John Muir (1901:56) invitedus to “climb the mountains and get thegood tidings. Nature’s peace will flow intoyou as sunshine flows into trees.” Todaytourists are drawn to the stunning sceneryof Glacier Bay, the grandeur of the GrandCanyon, the geothermal wonders of Yellow-stone, or the rock colors of Zion. Geo-tourism is at least as popular as ecotourism.We also use the physical landscape forrecreational activities. Skiing, rock climb-ing, caving, canyoneering, whitewater raft-ing, glacier hiking, all require specific land-scapes or geological environments. Manyvalued landscapes have inspired painters,sculptors, poets, and musicians to createimportant works. Harmon (2004) notes thecontribution of the landscape painterThomas Moran and the photographerWilliam Henry Jackson in bringing the sce-nic wonders of Yellowstone to the attentionof the U.S. Congress and the general public.

Economic values of geodiversity includefuels such as coal, gasoline, and uranium;industrial minerals such as limestone, gyp-sum, and phosphates; metallic minerals;gemstones; and construction minerals suchas building stone, aggregate, sand, clay, andbitumen. Most of these are non-renewableresources and their use and limits ought tobe better understood than they are. Oil is anobvious example, leading to debates overthe need for oil exploration in Alaska’sArctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Functional values include geosystemservices of subsurface rocks as stores of

water, oil, and gas; as burial sites for nuclearwaste and potentially for carbon dioxide;and as filters for water as it moves down-wards to the water table. Soils are vital foragriculture, viticulture, and forestry, and arean important source of minerals vital forhealth, such as magnesium, zinc, calcium,selenium, and chromium. River channelsperform the function of transporting waterand sediment from land towards the sea andtheir capacity is adjusted to stream dis-charge. Beaches and sand dunes act to pro-tect the coastline and inland low groundfrom coastal flooding. Many of these physi-cal systems are in dynamic equilibrium andtheir continued functioning is vital to envi-ronmental systems. As outlined in the intro-duction, the physical environment alsoplays a huge role in providing diverse envi-ronments, habitats, and substrates that cre-ate and nurture biological diversity.

Finally, the physical world also providesopportunities for research and education.Research has given us a huge amount ofknowledge about the history of the planet,the processes that shape it, the way in whichclimates have changed, and the evolution oflife through time. It is important that thephysical evidence for further research isconserved and to ensure that further studiesand opportunities to train and educate pro-fessional geoscientists, university students,schools, and the general public are not lost.

Threats. Butcher and Butcher (1995)included a long discussion on threats to theU.S. national parks. These threats includeddams and diversions, water pollution, geot-hermal drilling, air pollution, noise pollu-tion, urban impacts both within or adjacentto parks, excessive numbers of cars, visitoruse impacts, a science shortfall, and an “etcetera” category that included the impact ofconcession structures and operations, inap-



propriate recreational activities, and poach-ing.

These and other threats continue tohave an impact of the georesources of theparks. River and coastal engineering worksdisrupt the operation of natural geomor-phological processes. Leaching of pollutedagricultural, mine, or sewage water contin-ues to affect a number of parks. The threatof geothermal resource exploitation in Ida-ho on the Yellowstone system is still a con-cern. Urban impacts and car numbers havecontinued to increase and are a seriousthreat to several parks, as are visitor andrecreational pressures, such as rock climb-ing at Devils Tower National Monument inWyoming. And unauthorized fossil collect-ing is a continuing concern (Santucci1999).

These human impacts may result in lossof, or damage to, important rocks, minerals,or fossils, remodelling of natural topogra-phy, loss of access or visibility, interruptionof natural processes, pollution, or visualimpacts. Figure 1 illustrates the problem ofgraffiti on the national natural landmarkboulder field at Hickory Run.

As touched upon above, the sensitivityand vulnerability of georesources vary.“Sensitivity” refers to how easily featurescan be damaged. Some features, such asmany cave deposits, are highly sensitive andvery easily damaged even by merely walkingon or touching them (Gray 2004). Othersare much more robust with much higherthresholds of energy required to damage orremove them, and some can repair them-selves, such as footprints on a beach whichare removed by the next high tide. “Vul-nerability” refers to the likelihood of dam-age given public access or lack of it. Obvi-ously the greatest threats are to highly sensi-tive and vulnerable features and systems.

How should we conserve geodiversity?Different elements of geodiversity need

to be protected and managed in differentways. Table 2 is a possible general scheme.It distinguishes between rare and commonoccurrences since it is argued that geodiver-sity, and indeed the environment in general,should be respected both within andbeyond protected areas. With these aims inmind we can then consider the detailedapproaches required to meet the aims.

Clearly, creating a protected area withthe supporting legislation and penalties isone approach but does not guarantee pro-tection due to infringement of regulationsor changes in political attitudes or funding.Fines are rarely substantial enough to detercommercial collectors. One of the mostsecure methods is to physically restrain vis-itors from reaching sensitive sites by fencingor even by placing them within speciallyconstructed buildings. For example, theremaining easily accessible petrified tree atYellowstone National Park is surroundedby a high fence to prevent illegal collecting(Figure 2). In other places at Yellowstone,boardwalks and fences encourage visitorsnot to stray onto delicate formations. AtCraters of the Moon National Monument inIdaho, notices inform visitors that they arenot permitted to stray from the pathsbecause of the easily cracked lava surface. Ifwe are dealing with rare fossils, minerals, orrocks, an effective means of protecting isburial in situ or removal and curation in amuseum. This is often the approach takenwith dinosaur and other fossils. A thirdeffective way of conserving nature is for anature conservation charity to buy siteswith the remit of retaining them for theirnature conservation value in perpetuity. Anexample is The Nature Conservancy, whichowns Egg Mountain in Montana, famous



for its Maiasaur dinosaur finds (Horner andDobb 1997).

Education has an important role to playin helping to conserve features. At DevilsTower National Monument, a climbingmanagement plan has been introduced tomonitor climbing impacts, educateclimbers, retain rock faces that are currentlyfree of bolts, and investigate whether somebolt holes can be repaired. Interpretationboards, leaflets, and trails can carry educa-

tional messages about nature conservationinterests and the correct behavior in con-serving them, as can ranger-led talks andwalks.

Part of conservation should also includeadequate scientific documentation aboutthe geological interest of protected areas,promotion of further research as necessary,and a conservation management plan that isregularly updated. The latter shouldinclude a program for monitoring the con-



Category Occurrence Geoconservation Management Objective

Rock Rare Maintain integrity of outcrop and subcrop. Removesamples for curation.

Common Maintain exposure and encourage responsiblecollecting and curation.

Mineral Rare Maintain integrity of outcrop and subcrop. Removesamples for curation.

Common Maintain exposure and encourage responsiblecollecting and curation.

Fossils Rare Wherever possible, preserve in situ. Otherwiseremove for curation.

Common Encourage responsible collecting and curation.

Landforms Maintain integrity of landforms and restore/encourageauthentic contouring.

Landscape Maintain contribution of topography, rock outcropsand active processes to landscape andrestore/encourage authentic contouring.

Processes Maintain and restore integrity of operation.

Soils Maintain soil quality, quantity and function.

Othergeoresources

Encourage sustainable use, and value that use inhistoric and modern contexts

Table 2. Geoconservation aims for the eight elements of geodiversity.

dition of geoheritage assets within the pro-tected area and an enhancement and res-toration program to upgrade facilities andrepair damage. The U.S. National Park Ser-vice’s abandoned mineral lands program isan example of the latter, and successful landrestoration schemes have been carried outat Redwood and Joshua Tree NationalParks in California. Land management ingeneral should aim to retain the integrity oflandforms, landscapes, and active process-es, and restore them authentically wherepossible.

ConclusionsGeoconservation should be driven by

the need to conserve geodiversity, given itsvalue and the real and potential threats to it.Without geodiversity there would be littlebiodiversity, and an integrated approach tonature conservation and sustainable landmanagement ought to be obvious. Toomany nature conservation organizations

and objectives are riddled with institutionalbiocentrism. But geoconservation is at lastbeing taken more seriously because it isimpossible to have a sensible land manage-ment strategy that ignores the physicalaspects of the environment, e.g., topogra-phy, soils, and physical processes. The con-cept of geodiversity provides a fundamentalbasis for geoconservation and deserves tobe more widely adopted in North America.I hope this volume of The George WrightForum helps to stimulate interest in anddebate on these new ideas.

AcknowledgmentsI am very grateful to Bob Higgins and

Vince Santucci for inviting me to partici-pate in the 2005 GWS conference and fortheir encouragement to develop and applythe concept of geodiversity. Matthew Ben-nett, Cynthia Burek, Lars Erikstad, andJonathan Larwood kindly helped developTable 2.



Figure 2. Fencing to protect a remaining petrified tree atYellowstone National Park. Photo courtesy of the author

ReferencesAttfield, R. 1999. The Ethics of the Global Environment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University

Press.Australian Heritage Commission. 1996. Australian Natural Heritage Charter. 1st ed.

Canberra: Australian Heritage Commission.Australian Heritage Commission. 2002. Australian Natural Heritage Charter. 2nd ed.

Canberra: Australian Heritage Commission.

Beckerman, W., and J. Pasek. 2001. Justice, Posterity and the Environment. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Butcher, D., and R. Butcher. 1995. Exploring our National Parks and Monuments. 9th ed.Boulder: Roberts Rinehart Publishers.

Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 2004. A Recreational Guide for Hickory Run State Park.Philadelphia: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

Dixon, G. 1995. Aspects of Geoconservation in Tasmania: A Preliminary Review ofSignificant Earth Features. Report to the Australian Heritage Commission, OccasionalPaper no. 32. Hobart, Tasmania: Parks and Wildlife Service.

English Nature. 2005. State of Nature—Geodiversity. Peterborough, U.K.: English Nature.Gray, M. 2004. Geodiversity: Valuing and Conserving Abiotic Nature. Chichester, U.K.: John

Wiley & Sons.Gulliford, A. 2000. Sacred Objects and Sacred Places: Preserving Tribal Traditions. Boulder:

University Press of Colorado.Harmon, D. 2004. Intangible values of protected areas: What are they? Why do they matter?

The George Wright Forum 21:2, 9–22.Harmon, D., and A.D. Putney, eds. 2003. The Full Value of Parks: From Economics to the

Intangible. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield.Horner, J.R., and E. Dobb. 1997. Dinosaur Lives: Unearthing an Evolutionary Saga. San

Diego: Harcourt Brace & Co.Johansson, C.E., ed. 2000. Geodiversitet I Nordisk Naturvård. Copenhagen: Nordisk Minis-

terråad.Kiernan, K. 1996. The Conservation of Glacial Landforms. Hobart, Tasmania: Forest

Practices Unit.Muir, J. 1901. Our National Parks. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin.Santucci, V.L. 1999. Palaeontological Resource Protection Survey Report. Washington, D.C.:

National Park Service, Ranger Activities Division and Geologic Resources Division.Sharples, C. 1993. A Methodology for the Identification of Significant Landforms and

Geological Sites for Geoconservation Purposes. Hobart, Tasmania: Forestry Commis-sion.

Murray Gray, Department of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile EndRoad, London E1 4NS, United Kingdom; [email protected]



Understanding natural patterns andcycles of change that have occurred in a sys-tem prior to significant human disturbanceis a critical component of restoration; how-ever, land managers do not have to rely onhistorical maps or anecdotal information, asthe above report suggests. Changes inecosystems take place at many time scales,from diurnal to millennial, and it is notpractical or even possible to directlyobserve change at these longer time scales.Basic paleoecologic methods have beensuccessfully used in ecosystems around thecountry to determine short- and long-termpatterns of change in the physical and bio-logical components of ecosystems. In SouthFlorida, these methods have been utilized toestablish the ecosystem history of theEverglades, and those of the downstream

estuaries of Biscayne Bay and Florida Bay.

ApproachAn integrated approach to interpreting

ecosystem history provides significant ben-efits. Data from different groups of plantsand animals enhance the reliability of theresults and provide an averaging effect tosmooth out species-level responses. Datafrom different scientific disciplines allowresearchers to derive information on manyaspects of an ecosystem and to determine ifsynchronous changes have occurred in dif-ferent components of the system. For exam-ple, if sediment geochemistry analysesdetect an increase in nitrogen, paleoecolog-ic assemblage analyses of the same samplewill indicate if a corresponding changeoccurred in the fauna. While these data do



Application of Paleoecologic Methods to CoastalResource Management: An Example from BiscayneNational Park

G. Lynn Wingard

IntroductionTHE NATION’S COASTAL ECOSYSTEMS HAVE CHANGED PROFOUNDLY during the last centurydue to human activities. The Estuary Restoration Act was passed by Congress in 2000 anda component of the act was to develop a National Strategy to Restore Coastal and EstuarineHabitat (NOAA 2002). The national strategy identifies the importance of establishing his-torical or baseline conditions within estuarine ecosystems “to determine rates of loss, evalu-ate threats and predict future trends for various habitat types and areas within the system”(NOAA 2002:2). The report continues: “The availability of historical information variesgreatly from place to place. For some estuarine systems, historical maps ... along with anec-dotal information on previous centuries may be available. For other systems, only limitedanecdotal information may be available.”

not prove cause-and-effect relationships,they point to areas where observation orexperimentation in the living system mightbe worthwhile.

The process begins by locating areasthat have sufficient sedimentary cover andas little bioturbation, storm disruption, anderosion as possible, within the area beingevaluated. Once sites are identified, coresare collected using methods that minimizesediment disruption. Cores are x-rayed anddescribed, then cut into samples 1 to 5 cmthick.

An age model for each core is derivedusing three methods, where possible. Lead-210 analysis establishes the chronology ofthe upper portions of the cores (see Holmeset al. 2001 for explanation of the methodol-ogy). Radiocarbon ages on shells or woodfragments provide data points for the lowerportion of the cores. Additional confirma-tion of the age model comes from pollen ofexotic flora with documented dates of intro-duction into the system. For South Florida,the first occurrence of Casuarina (Aus-tralian pine) pollen, an exotic introducedaround the beginning of the 20th century(Langeland 1990), provides an excellentstratigraphic marker for the early 1900s.

The basic principles of paleoecologyare utilized to interpret the faunal and floralassemblages in the core samples. Modernsites are established within the ecosystemfor routine observation and sampling. Envi-ronmental parameters such as temperature,salinity, and pH of the water and the natureof the substrate are recorded along withinformation on the faunal and floral speciesliving at each site. These data are enteredinto a database that is utilized for downcoreinterpretations. Comparison of the livingbiota to the core assemblage data allows usto develop a general picture of the environ-

ment at the time of deposition, includingthe range of salinities that existed, sub-strates, and availability of freshwater. (SeeBrewster-Wingard et al. 2001; Cronin et al.2001; Ishman et al. 1998; Willard, Holmes,and Weimer 2001; and Willard, Weimer,and Riegel 2001 for examples of paleoeco-logic studies in South Florida.)

Biogeochemical analyses of the calciumcarbonate tests of ostracodes, mollusks, orforams provide another method for derivingnumerical salinity values for each segmentof a core. A combination of ostracode andmollusk shell analyses can provide a power-ful tool to reconstruct seasonal and annualsalinity variations. Ostracode adult testsrepresent essentially instantaneous secre-tions recording the salinity and temperatureat that point in time. Mollusks provide anearly continuous record throughout thespan of the individual’s life. Experiments tocalibrate molluscan shell chemistry to waterchemistry are currently ongoing; however,calibration curves for the ostracodes havebeen successfully developed and utilized forSouth Florida (Dwyer and Cronin 2001;Dwyer et al. 2002).

Geochemical analyses of sediments areconducted to examine historical changes innutrients, primarily carbon, nitrogen, phos-phorous, and sulfur. Information on histor-ical changes in nutrient elements in sedi-ments reflects changes in nutrient load tothe watershed from both natural andanthropogenic sources (Orem et al., 1999;Zielinski et al. 2000).

Biscayne BaySetting. Biscayne National Park is a

unique subtropical preserve, sitting on theedge of the metropolis of Miami and con-taining part of the only living barrier reef inNorth America and the third-longest barri-



er reef in the world. The majority (95%) ofthe park’s 172,924 acres is underwater,making Biscayne the largest underwaterpark in the national park system. The parkitself contains four distinct environments:the mangrove coastline, the shallow watersof Biscayne Bay, the northernmost islandsof the Florida Keys, and the reef tract.

The Greater Everglades Ecosystemencompasses most of southern Florida fromthe Kissimmee River southward, throughLake Okeechobee, into the freshwatermarshes of Everglades National Park, andeventually into the estuaries of BiscayneBay, Florida Bay, and the southwest coast.

Since the beginning of the twentiethcentury, Biscayne Bay and the GreaterEverglades Ecosystem have undergone dra-matic changes as the population of Miami-Dade County has grown from 4,955 resi-dents in 1900 to 2,253,362 in 2000 (U.S.Census Bureau). As the populationincreased, so too did demands for protec-tion from seasonal flooding and for potablewater for the residents and for the growingagricultural area. A complex series of canalsand water control structures, built through-out the 20th century, have altered the natu-ral flow of freshwater through the wetlandsand into Biscayne Bay. Along the shores ofBiscayne Bay, power plants, water treatmentplants, solid waste sites, and large-scaledevelopments have stressed the ecosystem.

During the 1980s and 1990s, momen-tum began to build for restoration of a morenatural freshwater flow throughout SouthFlorida (National Research Council 2003),which led to the development of theComprehensive Everglades RestorationPlan (CERP; USACE 1999). The primarygoal of the CERP is to restore the timing,quantity, quality, and distribution of fresh-water to the ecosystem so that it approxi-

mates the predevelopment conditions asclosely as possible. The role of the U.S.Geological Survey (USGS) ecosystem his-tory projects is to provide information onthe pre-development conditions of theEverglades.

Ecosystem history results and dis-cussion. Nine sites within Biscayne Bay,Card Sound, and Barnes Sound have beencored. Four of the locations are within thepark boundaries; the other five are locatedat sites selected to examine changes infreshwater flow into the estuary (Figure 1).Paleoecologic, biochemical, and geochemi-cal analyses on these cores provide informa-tion on historical changes in salinity andnutrient influx into the bay. Details of thecore analyses are available in Wingard et al.(2003; 2004), but a brief summary is pro-vided here.

Faunal and floral assemblages fromcores at Middle Key and Manatee Bay(Figure 1) indicate that the southern end ofthe Biscayne system (Card Sound andBarnes Sound), had significantly morefreshwater influx prior to 1900 than in thelater half of the 20th century. Figure 2 illus-trates changes in percent abundance of keyindicator species throughout the core andover time. The fauna in the lower portion ofMiddle Key core, deposited prior to 1900,are predominantly freshwater gastropods(Figure 2, #1), but the environment beginsto shift around 40 cm and increasing num-bers of species typical of an upper estuarineenvironment appear (Figure 2, #2–4).Between 30 and 20 cm (approximately1900), freshwater species begin to decline(Figure 2, #5), and concurrent increasesoccur in all estuarine species: mesohaline(upper estuary; 5–18 parts per thousand(ppt) dissolved salts), polyhaline (middle tolower estuary; 18–30 ppt), and euryhaline





Figure 1. Satellite image map of Biscayne Bay, Florida, showing sites where USGS cores were collected (circles) and the boundaryof Biscayne National Park (dashed line). Source: Jones et al. 2001.

(tolerant of wide fluctuations in salinityfrom 10 to >40 ppt). At approximately10cm, (Figure 2, #6) the freshwater and low-salinity species (<10 ppt) almost disappearat the site, and the euryhaline species, toler-ant of wide ranges in salinity from 10 to >40ppt, become increasingly abundant. Similarchanges are seen at the Manatee Bay coresite, located 2.8 km (1.7 miles) to the southof the Middle Key core site (Figure 1).

Card Sound Bank is a shallow mud-bank that extends from the mainland justnorth of Card Sound Bridge, over to thenorthern portion of Key Largo, effectively

separating Card Sound and Barnes Sound(Figure 1). The lower portion of cores fromCard Sound Bank indicate that the area hasbeen transitional between a more restrictedupper estuarine environment and a moreopen estuarine environment, fluctuatingbetween these conditions over time (Figure3, below dashed line). During the later partof the 20th century, however, more marinespecies and fewer euryhaline species arepresent (Figure 3, above dashed line). Thisshift in the faunal assemblage indicates ashift from an estuarine environment subjectto frequent salinity fluctuations, to a more



Figure 2. Changes in salinity in Middle Key Basin (see Figure 1 for location), as indicated by percent abundance of key ostracodeand mollusk indicators plotted against depth in cm, from Middle Key core (GLW603-MKA). Calendar year is indicated on right.Numbers on plots are referenced in text discussion; ppt is a measure of salinity in parts per thousand dissolved solids. Note dif-ferent percent abundance scales.

stable marine environment with fewer salin-ity fluctuations.

Moving north in Biscayne to the moreopen waters of the mid-bay, the faunal as-semblages in cores from Featherbed Bankand No Name Bank (Figure 1) also showshifts from more fluctuating estuarine envi-ronments in the lower portions of the core(Figure 3, below dashed line) to more stablemarine environments in the 20th century(Figure 3, above dashed line). Figure 3compares indicator species at Card SoundBank and at No Name Bank. The trends arevery similar at the two sites, but based onour current age models, the environment atNo Name began to shift towards more

marine sooner than the environment atCard Sound Bank.

Implications and importance to man-agers

All nine cores demonstrate a commontrend—an increase in salinity in theBiscayne Bay ecosystem in the 20th centu-ry. The timing of the onset of increasedsalinity varies at different core sites, and theindicator species differ, but there are noexceptions to this trend. Our preliminaryage models indicate that a combination offactors is at work. The earlier onset ofincreased salinity in the more open portionof the bay at No Name and Featherbed



Figure 3. Comparison of changes in salinity from Card Sound Bank core (SEI297-CB1) and No Name Bank Core (GLW402-NNB)(seeFigure 1 for locations) as indicated by percent abundance of key ostracode, mollusk, and foram indicators plotted against depthin cm. Calendar year is indicated on right for No Name Bank core; age model for Card Sound Bank has not been completed.Dashed lines are referenced in text discussion; ppt is a measure of salinity in parts per thousand dissolved solids. Note differentpercent abundance scales.

Banks, compared with Card Sound Bankand the southern portion of the ecosystem,implies a rise in sea level. The more rapidand dramatic shifts seen in nearshore cores(for example at the top of the Middle Keycore) indicate other factors are involved. Anumber of potential factors could explainthe increase in salinity in Biscayne Bay:decreases in runoff entering the bay due tocanal construction and water managementpractices, decreases in rainfall, decreases ingroundwater upwelling, increases in evapo-ration, and a rising sea level. We are current-ly working on refining our age models andcorrelating results to known events affectingthe bay.

The trend of increasing salinity hasimmediate and long-term implications forresource managers at Biscayne NationalPark. In the park’s science overview docu-ment (NPS 2000), it is stated that “scienceaids in stewardship of resources” byanswering questions such as “How does thecondition of our resources change overtime?” As Biscayne Bay becomes increas-ingly marine, the biodiversity and, ultimate-ly, the distribution of the environmentswithin the park will shift.

From the restoration perspective, it isimportant to understand what componentof the increased salinity is due to naturalpatterns (sea level rise, climate change), andwhat is anthropogenically induced. Al-though the goal of restoration is to return toa predisturbance state, this may not alwaysbe possible. If a system has undergone sig-

nificant natural change, such as sea levelrise, the effects cannot be reversed withinthe scope of restoration; however, the com-ponent of change due to anthropogenic fac-tors, such as changes in freshwater influx,may be corrected. The results of thisresearch can be used by the restorationmanagers to set realistic targets and per-formance measures for restoration. In set-ting target salinity values, the immediateimplications of our findings are the follow-ing: (1) significant spatial and temporalvariations occur within the system, so sepa-rate target values need to be established fordifferent habitats; (2) targets must incorpo-rate the natural range of variation (mini-mums and maximums) that has existed inthe past, and not focus on mean values; and(3) nearshore sites are dramatically differentfrom the mid-bay mudbanks and have beenfor hundreds of years, so changes in fresh-water influx during restoration will have lit-tle effect on the central portions of the bay.

Natural systems are not static—theyevolve and change over time. So as societyattempts to manage and restore these sys-tems, it is important to look at natural pat-terns of change. Examining decadal to cen-tennial trends in a variety of habitats withinan ecosystem using basic paleoecologicmethods provides resource managers withthe information necessary to make informeddecisions and to enlighten the public onwhat the natural system of the bay lookedlike prior to significant human alteration ofthe environment.



ReferencesBrewster-Wingard, G.L., J.R. Stone, and C.W. Holmes. 2001. Molluscan faunal distribution

in Florida Bay, past and present: an integration of down-core and modern data. InPaleoecological Studies of South Florida. B.R. Wardlaw, ed. Bulletins of AmericanPaleontology 361, 199–232.

Cronin, T.M., C.W. Holmes, G.L. Brewster-Wingard, S.E. Ishman, H.J. Dowsett, D. Keyser,and N. Waibel. 2001. Historical trends in epiphytal ostracodes from Florida Bay: impli-cation for seagrass and macro-benthic algal variability. In Paleoecological Studies ofSouth Florida. B.R. Wardlaw, ed. Bulletins of American Paleontology 361, 159–198.

Dwyer, G.S., and T.M. Cronin. 2001. Ostracode shell chemistry as a paleosalinity proxy inFlorida Bay. In Paleoecological Studies of South Florida. B.R. Wardlaw, ed. Bulletins ofAmerican Paleontology 361, 249–276.

Dwyer, G.S., T.M. Cronin, and P.A. Baker. 2002. Trace elements in ostracodes. InApplications of the Ostracoda to Quaternary Research. J.A. Holmes and A.R. Chivas,eds. American Geophysical Union Monograph 131, 205–225.

Holmes, C.W., J. Robbins, R. Halley, M. Bothner, M.T. Brink, and M. Marot. 2001.Sediment dynamics of Florida Bay mud banks on a decadal time scale. In PaleoecologicalStudies of South Florida. B.R. Wardlaw, ed. Bulletins of American Paleontology 361,31–40.

Ishman, S.E., T.M. Cronin, G.L. Brewster-Wingard, D.A. Willard, and D.J. Verardo. 1998.A record of ecosystem change, Manatee Bay, Bay, Barnes Sound, Florida. Journal ofCoastal Research 26, 125–138.

Jones, J.W., J.C. Thomas, and G.B. Desmond. 2001. South Florida Everglades SatelliteImage Map. USGS Miscellaneous Investigations Series Map no. I-2742, 2 sheets, scale1:100,000. On-line at http://sofia.usgs.gov/projects/remonte_sens/sflsatmap.html.

Langeland, K. 1990. Exotic Woody Plant Control. Florida Cooperative Extension ServiceCircular no. 868.

National Research Council. 2003. Science and the Greater Everglades Ecosystem Restoration:An Assessment of the Critical Ecosystem Studies Initiative. Washington, D.C.: NationalAcademies Press.

NOAA [National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]. 2002. National Strategy toRestore Coastal and Estuarine Habitat. Arlington, Va.: Restore America’s Estuaries.On-line at http://era.noaa.gov/htmls/support/sup_natstrat.html.

NPS [National Park Service]. 2000. Science in the park [Biscayne National Park]. On-line athttp://www.nps.gov/bisc/manage/science.htm.

Orem, W.H., C.W. Homes, C. Kendall, H.E. Lerch, A.L. Bates, S.R. Silva, A. Boylan, M.Corum, M. Marot, and C. Hedgman. 1999. Geochemistry of Florida Bay sediments:nutrient history at five sites in Eastern and Central Florida. Journal of Coastal Research15:4, 1055–1071.

USACE [United States Army Corps of Engineers]. 1999. Central and Southern FloridaProject Comprehensive Review Study: Final Integrated Feasibility Report andProgrammatic Environmental Impact Statement. Jacksonville, Fla.: USACE. On-line athttp://www.evergladesplan.org/about/rest_plan.cfm.

Willard, D.A., C.W. Holmes, and L.M. Weimer. 2001. The Florida Everglades Ecosystem:climatic and anthropogenic impacts over the last two millennia. In PaleoecologicalStudies of South Florida. B.R. Wardlaw, ed. Bulletins of American Paleontology 361,41–55.

Willard, D.A., L.M. Weimer, and W.L. Riegel. 2001. Pollen assemblages as paleoenviron-



mental proxies in the Florida Everglades. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 113,213–235.

Wingard, G.L., T.M. Cronin, G.S. Dwyer, S.E. Ishman, D.A. Willard, C.W. Holmes, C.E.Bernhardt, C.P. Williams, M.E. Marot, J.B. Murray, R.G. Stamm, J.H. Murray, and C.Budet. 2003. Ecosystem History of Southern and Central Biscayne Bay: Summary Reporton Sediment Core Analyses. U.S. Geological Survey Open File Report no. 03-375. On-line at http://sofia.usgs.gov/publications/ofr/03-375/.

Wingard, G.L., T.M. Cronin, C.W. Holmes, D.A. Willard, G.S. Dwyer, S.E. Ishman, W.Orem, C.P. Williams, J. Albietz, C.E. Bernhardt, C. Budet, B. Landacre, T. Lerch, M.E.Marot, and R. Ortiz. 2004. Ecosystem History of Southern and Central Biscayne Bay:Summary Report on Sediment Core Analyses—Year Two. U.S. Geological Survey OpenFile Report no. 2004-1312. On-line at http://sofia.usgs.gov/publications/ofr/2004-1312/.

Zielinski, R.A., K.R. Simmons, and W.H. Orem. 2000. Use of U-234 and U-238 isotopes toidentify fertilizer-derived uranium in the Florida Everglades. Applied Geochemistry15:3, 369–383.

G. Lynn Wingard, U.S. Geological Survey, MS 926A, National Center, Reston, Virginia20192; [email protected]





The Geological Foundation for Prescribed Fire inMammoth Cave National Park

Rick Olson and Caroline Noble

Karst landscape overviewTHE 52,830 ACRES OF MAMMOTH CAVE NATIONAL PARK are part of the South-CentralKentucky Karst, which is characterized by subterranean drainage to springs on major rivers.From the southeast to the northwest portion of the landscape (Figure 1), there is a gradientof decreasing maturity in karst development, which corresponds to the regional dip of thebedrock. The major cave-bearing limestones are barely exposed in the northwest part of thepark, so cave development there is in the earliest stages. The Sinkhole Plain located south ofthe park is an example of highly developed karst, and the geology here had profound effectson fire propagation and vegetation until land use changes that came with settlement.

Figure 1. Simplified geology mapof Mammoth Cave National Park.Note the connectivity between theSinkhole Plain and the majorkarst valleys within the park.Fires set by Native Americans onthe sinkhole plain could have eas-ily spread to the karst valleys,although there is no documenta-tion of that. Note also that thehabitat type in the valleys is thesame as on the Sinkhole Plain,and the lack of water due tounderground drainage can facili-tate fire propagation.

Surface habitat types in the parkA vegetation habitat classification was

developed for Mammoth Cave NationalPark that combines bedrock geology, slope,and aspect in the park’s GIS (geographicinformation system; Olson and Franz

1998). For a given climate, bedrock geologylargely determines soil type, and whethersurface or subsurface (karst) drainage pre-vails. Due to the tendency for subsurfacedrainage to develop in calcareous bedrocksuch as limestone, these sites will be more

xeric (dry) than an equivalent situationunderlain by sandstone or shale. The mag-nitude of this general difference appears tobe minimized on the steepest exposuresdue to rapid surface drainage.

One significant attribute of the habitatmap is that natural physical influences onvegetation types are made clear in a quanti-tative way that is not attainable by directstudy of geological quadrangle maps (seeTable 1). This is especially important giventhe complex history of cultural disturbanceover the past two centuries since settlement,and the profound impact on vegetation pat-

terns seen today. The vast majority of conif-erous forest stands in the park today arelinked to pre-park agriculture. Local envi-ronmental conditions amenable or inimicalto fire are controlled directly and indirectlyby the factors that determine habitat type.For example, at over 9,000 acres, the cal-careous mesic habitat type is important fortwo reasons: the change in fuel type onthese shaded slopes (Tim Sexton, NPS na-tional fire ecologist, pers. comm., 2000),and the fact that the great linear extent ofthese habitat patches will impede theprogress of fire across the landscape.



Habitat Type Acreage Percentage of parkCalcareous xeric 150 <1Calcareous sub-xeric 15,400 30Calcareous mesic 9,050 18Calcareous supra-mesic 130 <1Acid xeric 60 <1Acid sub-xeric 2,500 5Acid mesic 20,000 40Acid supra-mesic 1,000 2Alluvium 2,700 5

Table 1. Areal extent of habitat classes in the park. Habitat types in regular typeface are capable of carrying fire during the springand fall fire seasons. These habitat types account for approximately three-fourths of the park. Habitat types in bold, which accountfor approximately one-fourth of the park, do not support fire-dependent or -tolerant plant communities.

Park vegetation and fire regime in rela-tion to geology

Vegetation in the park was classifiedinto seven categories (Table 2) and mappedin the park GIS based upon individual sort-ing of 200 Landsat satellite spectral datachannels using the habitat map as a guide(Olson et al. 2000). This vegetation classifi-cation was condensed in order to facilitate

designation of fuel types for the park’s firemanagement plan. Fuel model and fireregime group designations were completedby fire ecologist Caroline Noble of theNational Park Service’s (NPS’s) SoutheastRegional Office. Fire regimes groups wereestimated based on current vegetation. Thefire regime classification system utilized isthat from Schmidt et al. (2002).

Within mesic upland oak–hickoryforests, the chemical and hydrological influ-ence of relatively thin limestone unitsinterbedded with sandstone on the ridges ismuted in comparison with the thick lime-

stone beneath karst valleys. This is due toweathered sandstone residuum on top ofthe limestone, and the limited degree ofkarst development possible. Karst usuallyleads to drier surface conditions due to sub-



Vegetation Habitat Type Typical Species Fire RegimeGroup

1. Subxeric deciduousforest / savanna

Acid subxeric

Calcareous subxeric

chestnut oakpost oak

chinkapin oakblackjack oakpost oak

IFrequent, 0–35years, surface andmixed severity

2. Mesic uplanddeciduous

Acid MesicCalcareous subxeric

(thin beds)

white oakpignut hickoryblack oak

IFrequent, 0–35years, surface andmixed severity

3. Mesic hollow /floodplaindeciduous forest

Calcareous mesicAcid mesicAlluvium

sugar maplebeechbox eldersycamore

VRare, >200 years,stand replacementseverity

4/5. Mixed deciduous/ coniferous

Mixed coniferous /deciduous forest

Acid mesic

Calcareous subxericAlluvium

red mapletulip poplardogwoodsweetgumcedar/pine

IIIInfrequent, 35–100years, surface andmixed severity

6. Coniferous forest Acid xeric to mesicCalcareous xeric to

subxeric

Virginia pineeastern red cedar

IIIInfrequent, 35–100years, surface andmixed severity

7. Prairie/open area Calcareous subxericAcid mesic

native grassesand forbsmown grass

IIFrequent, 0–35years, standreplacementseverity

Table 2. Vegetation, habitat types, and typical species. Habitat type nomenclature follows the system of the Kentucky State NaturePreserves Commission (Evans 1991). “Acid” refers to noncarbonate bedrock, which results in acid soil, and “calcareous” refers tocarbonate bedrock, which results in more alkaline soil. “Xeric” refers to dry areas, “mesic” to moist, and “alluvium” to river-lainsediments. In subxeric deciduous forest, chestnut oak and chinkapin oak sort very distinctly with sandstone and limestone sub-strates respectively, whereas blackjack and post oaks are less selective. With periodic fire, these forest stands may have been amore open woodland or savanna in the past.

surface drainage, but (paradoxically)upland swamps perched on sandstone mayhave originated as sinkholes in these thin-ner carbonates, such as the Haney lime-stone.

Mesic hollow deciduous forests aremost prominent in ravines directly connect-ed with the Green and Nolin River flood-plains, but small outliers exist in karst val-leys in the bottoms of large sinkholes. Inaddition to beech and maple, black cherryand black walnut can be locally prevalent.Floodplain forests are characterized bysycamore, silver maple, and river birch nearstreams, and box elder slightly further fromthe water. Mesic hollows were left relativelyundisturbed due to the rugged terrain,which cannot be said for the once heavilyfarmed floodplain. Being superbly adaptedto the highly disturbance-prone gravel barhabitat, sycamore trees are also found wher-ever significant disturbance has occurred,such as along roads. In exceptionally moistsandstone hollows, mostly found in thenorthwest extremity of the park, relictstands of hemlock and yellow birch arefound. None of these stands are consideredto be fire adapted.

Mixed deciduous/coniferous (and viceversa) forests in the park are overwhelming-ly successional after pre-park pasture androw crop use. These old fields are generallyfound in three habitat types: (1) on relative-ly level uplands with interbedded sand-stone and limestone, (2) in subxeric lime-stone habitats found in karst valleys, and (3)on floodplain alluvium. The nonsucces-sional mixed stands are found in sunny,xeric habitat types with the plant communi-ty specific to the geologic substrate.Virginia pine associated with chestnut oakis found at the tops of tall sandstone cliffs,and eastern red cedar with chinkapin oak is

found on relatively steep limestone slopes.Many of these stands appear to be virgin incontrast to the profoundly disturbed oldfields. On xeric limestone sites, solutionalfeatures called rillenkarren indicate that thethin soil and exposed bedrock is not due topost-settlement erosion.

Coniferous forests in the park, like themixed stands previously discussed, areoverwhelmingly successional after pre-parkagriculture. Stands in karst valleys are dom-inated by eastern red cedar, and those onsandstone uplands are mostly Virginia pine,but considerable mixing occurs.

Prairie in the park is limited to smallareas, each no greater than 40 acres, andnone can be considered actual remnantsfrom presettlement times. Even so, theseareas are rich in prairie grasses and forbs,such as big bluestem, Indian grass, golden-rod, and tall coreopsis. They serve asrefuges for species marginalized by conver-sion of former prairie on the sinkhole plainto agriculture, and by fire suppression with-in and beyond park boundaries (Seymour1997). Other open areas in the park arelargely mown roadsides, cemeteries, andlawns around developments maintained infescue.

Selection of prescribed fire areasThe process for selection of prescribed

fire areas with ecological criteria was GIS-based and is shown graphically in Figure 2.Only habitat types that would naturally sup-port fire-dependent or -tolerant vegetationcommunities were included. Next, vegeta-tion was considered, and the overwhelmingmajority of prescribed fire areas consistedof vegetation mature enough to benefit fromfire. Limited areas of successional vegeta-tion were included as part of an adaptivemanagement strategy, and fire should be



applied in these areas with caution andcareful study of what the restoration goalsshould be for each habitat and vegetationtype.

Setting fire restoration targets for parkvegetation communities

Geology and archaeology provideclues to past vegetation and the role of fire.Miles of cave passages within the park con-tain abundant artifacts left by NativeAmericans, mostly between 2,000 and3,000 years ago. Much of this ancient mate-rial consists of plant remains from varioususes, and these artifacts provide insight intosome presettlement vegetation characteris-tics under similar climatic conditions(Watson 1969; Watson et al. 1974; Olson1998). These plant remains preserved inpark caves indicate that vegetation condi-

tions other than closed-canopy forest exist-ed since light intensity on the groundbeneath a closed canopy would have beeninadequate. Given this evidence from parkcaves, it would not be unreasonable to set arestoration target for some portion of themesic upland deciduous forest to be openwoodland or savanna.

The question of presettlement vegeta-tion in karst valleys

Historically and prehistorically, bar-rens bordered by savanna covered largeportions of the Sinkhole Plain. Barrens aresimilar to prairie, and botanist FrancoisMichaux made some geological observa-tions while studying vegetation in the sum-mer of 1802: “It appears there are a greatnumber of subterraneous caverns in theBarrens, some of which are very near the



Figure 2. Prescribed fire areas (lettered areas at upper right) were selected on the basis of habitat types (lower left) and vegeta-tion types (center) that are ecologically appropriate for application of fire. GIS-based screening for cultural resources was alsoconducted.

surface.... We remarked in these meadowsseveral holes, widened at the top in theshape of funnels, the breadth of whichvaries according to depth” (Michaux 1805).In doing so, he noted both caves and sink-holes, which are the geological foundationfor fire-dependent barrens vegetation on theSinkhole Plain. The lack of surface streamsand relatively level terrain facilitates propa-gation of fire. Karst valleys within the dis-sected upland of the Mammoth CavePlateau offer an identical habitat type to theSinkhole Plain in smaller parcels (seeFigure 1), but no historical descriptions ofpresettlement vegetation have been found.

The ecology of shingle oak (Quercusimbricaria) offers some insights into pre-settlement vegetation. Locally, shingle oak iscommon and almost exclusively found inkarst valleys and the Sinkhole Plain in andnear the park, especially at the edge of forestopenings (Olson 2003). The fidelity of thisspecies with karst valleys is remarkable. It israre at any location up on Mammoth CavePlateau lands that surround all of these val-leys. If the occurrence of shingle oak weresimply linked to forest openings, then wewould expect to find this species up on theplateau since forest openings are common.Shingle oak was historically reported on theSinkhole Plain near the edges of sinkswhere fire would be less intense (Baskinand Baskin 1981). In a study of savannarestoration, shingle oak was found to bemore fire-resistant than black cherry, andless resistant than bur oak (Hruska andEbinger 1995). Significantly, this medium-sized tree is an edge species found at transi-tions between grassland and forest vegeta-tion. The high frequency of shingle oak inkarst valleys within the park, the virtualabsence of this species on the surroundingMammoth Cave Plateau even at forest

edges, and the presence of shingle oak outon the Sinkhole Plain where prairie main-tained by fire was documented, all lead tothe hypothesis that presettlement vegeta-tion in the park’s karst valleys was at least amosaic of grassland and forest. Therefore,consideration should be given to pursuingthis as a working hypothesis with restora-tion goals set limited in scale.

Fire effects monitoring and adaptivemanagement

The park has been implementing a fireeffects monitoring program utilizing theNPS standard fire monitoring protocolmethodologies since 2002. While limitedsample size precludes statistically conclu-sive evidence, the general trend appears tobe toward achieving stated objectives in tar-get prescribed-fire communities. A limita-tion of the fire effects monitoring program isthat monitoring is not currently occurringin nontarget communities, primarily due tostaffing and funding constraints.

These nontarget communities havebeen a source of struggle for park staff asthey try to balance the application of pre-scribed fire in previously agreed-upon areaswhile limiting the application of fire in adja-cent nontarget mesic sites. The park firemanagement plan states that “portions ofthese very moist habitat types will beincluded within a prescribed fire unit tomake the fire line safer and easier to man-age, but this fire-intolerant vegetation willnot be forced to burn.” Balancing theseoperational and ecological goals is bestachieved through collaborative planningand communication prior to burn imple-mentation. The fire effects data and ecolo-gists play a key role in facilitating this adap-tive management process.



AcknowledgmentMany thanks to NPS fire ecologist Lisa McInnis for critical review of the manuscript.



ReferencesBaskin, J., and C. Baskin. 1981. The Big Barrens of Kentucky not part of Transeau’s Prairie

Peninsula. In The Prairie Peninsula—in the “Shadow” of Transeau. Proceedings of theSixth North American Conference. R. Stuckey and K Reese, eds. Columbus: Ohio StateUniversity.

Evans, M. 1991. Kentucky Ecological Communities. Draft. Frankfort: Kentucky State NaturePreserves Commission.

Hruska, M., and J. Ebinger. 1995. Monitoring a savanna restoration in East-Central Illinois.Transactions of the Illinois State Academy of Science 88, 109.

Michaux, F.A. 1805. Travels to the West of the Allegheny Mountains in the States of Ohio,Kentucky, and Tennessee. Reprint edition: R.G. Thwaites, ed. 1904. Early WesternTravels, 1748–1846. Volume III. Cleveland: Arthur Clark Co.

Olson, R. 1998. Torch fuels used by prehstoric Indian cavers: their utility and botanical sig-nificance. In Proceedings of Mammoth Cave National Park’s Seventh Science Conference.Mammoth Cave National Park, Ky.: NPS, 5–8.

———. 2003. The ecological significance of shingle oak (Quercus imbricaria) in karst valleyswithin Mammoth Cave National Park. Paper presented at the Fifth Annual WesternKentucky University Biodiversity Conference, Bowling Green, Kentucky, November6–8.

Olson, R., and M. Franz. 1998. A vegetation habitat classification for Mammoth CaveNational Park. In Proceedings of Mammoth Cave National Park’s Seventh ScienceConference. Mammoth Cave National Park, Ky.: NPS, 19–25.

Olson, R., M. Franz, and G. Ghitter. 2000. A vegetation map of Mammoth Cave NationalPark using satellite remote sensing data. Proceedings of the Eighth Mammoth CaveScience Conference. In press.

Pennell, F. W. 1935. The Scrophulariaceae of Eastern Temperate North America. Lancaster,Pa.: Wickersham Printing Co.

Schmidt, K.M., J.P. Menakis, C.C. Hardy, W.J. Hann, and D.L. Bunnell. 2002. Developmentof Coarse-Scale Spatial Data for Wildland Fire and Fuel Management. GeneralTechnical Report RMRS-GTR-87. Fort Collins, Colo.: U.S. Department ofAgriculture–Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Watson, P.J., ed. 1969. The Prehistory of Salts Cave, Kentucky. Illinois State MuseumReports of Investigations no. 16.

———. 1974. Archaeology of the Mammoth Cave Area. New York: Academic Press.

Rick Olson, Division of Science and Resources Management, Mammoth Cave NationalPark, P.O. Box 7, Mammoth Cave, Kentucky 42259; [email protected]

Caroline Noble, National Park Service Southeast Region, Tall Timbers Research Station,13093 Henry Beadel Drive, Tallahassee Florida 32312; [email protected]



A basic premise of the geodiversityconcept recognizes that there is an intrinsicrelationship between biological diversityand geological diversity. In principle, thegeologic bedrock is viewed as the founda-tion of the ecosystem. Geologic resourcesand processes sustain much greater rela-tionships with biotic resources and biosys-tems than is commonly recognized. Theserelationships are integrated at the ecosys-tem, community, species, organism, cellular,and genetic levels.

The relationship between biodiversityand geodiversity can be evaluated in mod-ern environments or past environments(paleoenvironments). Gray’s book presentsa multitude of examples from around theworld demonstrating the inherent relation-ships and patterns between modern bioticand abiotic resources. Similarly, the fossilrecord preserves excellent examples of rela-tionships between ancient organisms andpaleoenvironments. Research focused onpaleoecological changes or trends over timemay enable greater understanding of theinfluences that geologic resources may haveexerted over biotic resources in the past.

Modern relationshipsIn recent decades the relationships

between biodiversity and geodiversity havebecome more recognized by modern ecolo-gists and natural resource specialists. Anincreasing number of research publicationsand conferences focus on the integration ofmodern “bio-geo systems.” The relation-ships can be examined at the microscopicthrough the global levels of resolution.Below are a number of examples of howgeologic resources and geodiversity influ-ence biotic resources.

Climate. Climate can be influencedlocally by geologic features and processes.Mountain ranges can impact wind speedsand directions, as well as form rain shad-ows. Volcanic eruptions generating largevolumes of ash may be transported greatdistances and influence regional climaticconditions.

Hydrology. Hydrology is largely con-trolled by geology and geomorphology. Thedistribution of drainages, watersheds,aquifers, seeps, and springs are linked tolithologic and stratigraphic contacts andgeomorphic features. Lakes form within

Historical Perspectives onBiodiversity and Geodiversity

Vincent L. Santucci

IntroductionTHE CONCEPT OF GEODIVERSITY HAS COME TO RECENT ATTENTION largely due to the workand publications of geologist Murray Gray. In his book, Geodiversity: Valuing andConserving Abiotic Nature, Gray presents a comprehensive thesis assessing the role and sig-nificance of abiotic resources upon biotic resources (Gray 2004).

calderas, karst topography, periglacialzones, and where landslides or basalt flowsdam river valleys. Additionally, water chem-istry, salinity, and other variables influenc-ing biodiversity are directly associated withgeologic resources.

Soils. Soils are the link between theabiotic and biotic worlds. Soil compositionand chemistry are directly related to theunderlying bedrock. Consequently, the dis-tribution of many plant taxa is dependentupon the mineralogical and chemical com-position of the soil. Resource managementstaff at Capitol Reef National Park havebeen able to use geologic maps and soilsmaps to locate rare and endangered speciesof cacti which grow directly and sometimesexclusively within soils developed in theJurassic Morrison Formation.

Habitat. The diversity of geologic fea-tures and processes provides an almost infi-nite array of habitat types to sustain life.Changes in elevation between intermontanebasins and mountain ranges typically tran-scend multiple life zones; geothermalsprings sustain nutrients and temperaturesrequired by certain forms of cyanobacteria(Figure 1); caves fissures, talus slopes, andgypsum sands support species adapted tosurvive in these geologic environments.

Biogeographic distribution. The geo-graphic distribution of fauna and flora iswell studied. Range maps for modernspecies are typically illustrated in naturalhistory field guides. Geographic ranges andmigration routes are often influenced bysurficial geomorphology. Mountain ranges,canyons, deserts, water bodies, and othergeologic features may either represent corri-dors or barriers to migration. Paleonto-logical records show that historic ranges fortaxa may change over time, often related togeologic factors. Continental drift and

changes in sea level can result in the con-nection or separation of land masses, in turnresulting in either the direct competition orgeographic isolation of biota.

Historical geologic and biological viewsGeologists are trained to assess the past

through evidence and information pre-served within rock units. Discernable char-acteristics such as mineral composition,sediment textures, morphology, and bed-ding often yield detailed informationregarding ancient depositional environ-ments.

Not all paleontologists spend theircareers hunting for dinosaurs. Scores ofspecialists have dedicated their careers inorder to establish scientific credibility in thefields of paleoecology, paleogeography,paleoclimatology, and related disciplines.The opportunity to assess both geologicand paleontologic data over long spans ofgeologic time is powerful. Historic biologi-cal and historic geologic data discernable inthe stratigraphic record may be of greatbenefit to the modern ecologist.

Geologic time scale. The division ofgeologic time is not arbitrary, but has beenbased upon significant geologic and paleo-biologic events. Major boundaries estab-lished in the geologic time scale often repre-sent mass extinction and speciation events.Research from around the world, which hasbeen incorporated into the geologic timescale, consistently support the concept ofchanges in past biodiversity are often tied tochanges in geodiversity.

Extinction. Extinction has been com-prehensively examined by both modernbiologists and paleobiologists (Raup andSepkoski 1982, 1986). Despite the hopesand efforts to establish a simple explanationfor extinction, such as a meteor impact, our



understanding of extinction re-mains limited. Certainly mass ex-tinctions, which transcend taxo-nomic boundaries, are somehowlinked to large-scale change in abi-otic resources.

Speciation. Just as biodiver-sity is dependent upon geodiversi-ty, biodiversity is a function ofgenetic diversity. Questions per-taining to systematics and evolu-tion are typically better addressedby way of paleontological re-sources than by modern species.The fossil record contains anabundance of evidence to derivephylogenetic relationships and evolutionarytrends (Raup 1981).

Origin of life. The adaptability of lifeis well demonstrated in the geothermalpools of Yellowstone National Park.Cyanobacteria thrive within the high-tem-perature, mineral-rich hot springs, demon-strating an interesting example of a closerelationship between biotic and abioticresources. The existence of high-tempera-ture cyanobacteria in Yellowstone hotsprings is considered important in researchassociated with the origin of life on earthand the existence of life on other planets(Reysenbach, in press).

Early biodiversity / Ediacara fauna.One of the most interesting and importantpaleontological discoveries occurred in aseries of very old rocks in the Ediacara Hillsof Australia (McMenamin 1998). Fine-grained Precambrian sedimentary rocks,deposited in a low-energy environment,preserve beautiful and delicate remains ofsoft-bodied organisms (Figure 2). Theserare and unusual life forms provide anexceptional view of early biodiversity onearth.

The rich Ediacaran fauna overturnedthe long-held misconception that biologicaldiversity during the Precambrian was low.In fact, since the discovery at Ediacara,fieldwork in Precambrian rocks has yieldednumerous other localities around the worldpreserving these mysterious soft-bodiedorganisms—experiments in the early evolu-tion of life.

Cambrian explosion. The beginningof the Paleozoic, referred to as theCambrian, is defined by the almost sudden,worldwide explosion of life forms, in termsof both diversity and abundance. This per-ceived biotic explosion is more directly tiedto the chemical evolution of the atmosphere



Figure 1. Cyanobacteria in a thermal pool at Yellowstone National Park.Photo courtesy of the author

Figure 2. An Ediacaran fossil. Photo courtesy of the author

with sufficient concentrations of oxygenavailable for organisms to precipitate calci-um carbonate exoskeletons. Over the past 4billion years, life has continued to evolve,diversify, and become integrated into com-munities and ecosystems.

Plate tectonics / continental drift.Modern geologic theory is based upon anunderstanding that the Earth’s crust con-sists of plates. These plates are dynamic andmobile. Geologists believe that the conti-nental landmasses of today were once partof a single landmass referred to as Pangaea.The distribution of identical fossil generafrom Permian rock units, exposed acrossfour widely separated continents, providesstrong evidence for the original proximityof these organisms and landmasses.

Mountain building / orogeny. Thegeographic range and migration routes ofspecies can be defined by geologic and geo-morphic features. The uplift of mountainchains, development of canyons, andexpansion of lakes are examples of geologicprocesses which may influence the distribu-tion and movement of biotic resources.

Visitors to Grand Canyon NationalPark may learn about the story of the tassel-eared squirrels. The Abert’s squirrel andKaibab squirrel are believed to be descen-dents of a common ancestor.With the development of theGrand Canyon, two popula-tions of the squirrel were geo-graphically isolated. Even-tually the isolated populationsevolved into distinct taxa(Figure 3).

Sea-level changes. Thegeologic record preservesabundant evidence of changesin worldwide sea level. Trans-gressive and regressive se-

quences, representing eustatic sea-levelchanges, punctuate the Paleozoic era.During the Cretaceous period, a shallowinland sea extended from the Gulf ofMexico to the Arctic Ocean. This Creta-ceous sea existed for millions of years, geo-graphically isolating populations of terres-trial plants and animals.

Continental glaciation. Four cycles ofglacial advance and retreat are documentedduring the Pleistocene. Continental icesheets expanded and withdrew in northernlatitudes. During periods of glacial advance,a worldwide drop in sea level was experi-enced. The drop in sea level, combinedwith the expanded ice sheet, resulted in adirect connection between Alaska andRussia, referred to as the Bering LandBridge.

Megafaunal migration. Changes insea level, expansion of continental icesheets, and the development of land bridgesenabled terrestrial species to migrate intoadjacent land masses. During the Pleisto-cene, large mammals and humans were ableto migrate across the Bering Land Bridge.In turn, these mammals came into directcompetition with existing species.

Pleistocene cave deposits. Pleistocene/ Holocene climate changes can be docu-



Figure 3. An example of geomorphically induced reproductive isolation: the distinc-tive Abert’s (A) and Kaibab (b) squirrel. Photo courtesy of the author

mented through analysis of packrat mid-dens and fossiliferous cave deposits (San-tucci et al. 2001). In classic studies under-taken by the paleontologist John Guilday,fossil-rich sequences of Pleistocene stratawere excavated from sinkholes and caves ofthe Appalachian states (Guilday andHamilton 1978). The stratified cave sedi-ments yielded fossil mammal remains alter-nating between southern warm-weatherspecies and northern cold-weather species.Through independent lines of evidence, itwas determined that this biostratigraphicpattern was due to the displacement southof the northern boreal species during glacialadvance, and the return of the southerntemperate species during glacial retreat.

Great Smoky Mountains refugia.Great Smoky Mountains National Park isrenowned for its rich biodiversity. This facthas been confirmed through comprehen-sive biological resource inventories inrecent years. Part of the historic biologicalstory at the park is tied to the expansion ofthe continental ice sheets during thePleistocene. During glacial advance, themore northern boreal and temperate spe-cies were pushed south and were eventuallyestablished themselves within Pleistocenerefugia in the southern Appalachians.

The Darwinian approachIn consideration of this geodiverse per-

spective, perhaps it is worth reflecting on

Charles Darwin’s contributions to naturalscience. Darwin proposed new ideas putforth in On the Origin of Species and otherpublications based upon observations anddata accumulated on a global scale. Overthe past half-century, natural science hasshifted its focus in education, research, andfunding away from the Darwin-style big-picture approach, to an emphasis on thecellular, genetic, and molecular levels ofbiology.

Unquestionably, we have benefitedfrom the scientific understandings gainedthrough this microscopic and submicro-scopic trend in natural science. However,the cost has been a diminished ability formany scholars and students to take on themultidisciplinary, big-picture questions. Inturn, we have migrated toward anthro-pocentric and biocentric strategies for natu-ral science.

Odds are that one would more likelyrecognize the influence of geodiversity onbiodiversity if one lives in the shadow of avolcano, along an active fault line, or in thepath of an advancing glacier.

As we continue to integrate biotic andabiotic components of the natural worldinto our conscience and routinely recognizethat geology is the foundation of the ecosys-tem, then we may come to fully understandthat “Earth and its inhabitants have evolvedtogether.”



ReferencesGray, M. 2004. Geodiversity: Valuing and Conserving Abiotic Nature. Chichester, U.K.: John

Wiley & Sons.Guilday, J., and H. Hamilton, 1978. Ecological significance of displaced boreal mammals in

West Virginia Caves. Journal of Mammalogy 59:176–181.McMenamin, M. 1998. The Garden of Ediacara: Discovering the First Complex Life. New

York: Columbia University Press.Raup, D. 1981. Evolution and the fossil record. Science 213, 289.Raup, D., and J. Sepkoski. 1982. Mass extinctions in the marine fossil record. Science 215,

1501–1502.———. 1986. Periodic extinction of families and genera. Science 231, 833–835.Reysenbach, A.-L. In press. Biodiversity, Ecology, and Evolution of Thermophiles in

Yellowstone National Park: Overview and Issues. New York: Plenum Press.Santucci, V.L., J. Kenworthy, and R. Kerbo. 2001. An inventory of paleontological resources

associated with National Park Service caves. National Park Service NPS / NRGRD /GRDTR-01/02. Denver: National Park Service Geological Resources Division. On-lineat www2.nature.nps.gov/geology/paleontology/pub/cavepaleo.pdf.

Vincent L. Santucci, National Park Service, George Washington Memorial Parkway, TurkeyRun Park, McLean, VA 22101; [email protected]



Honoring former Wisconsin governorand senator Gaylord Nelson is a fitting trib-ute to the person many view as the father ofthe Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.Nelson, best known for being the founder ofEarth Day in 1970, fought tirelessly for theprotection of the Apostle Islands, culminat-ing in legislation which established the parkthat same year. The park consists of approx-imately 69,000 acres of islands, mainlandshoreline, and waters of Lake Superioralong Wisconsin’s north coast.

What makes this designation highlyunusual is the speed with which itoccurred, and the overwhelming, perhapsunprecedented, public support that thewilderness proposal received. That sup-port, however, was not a given, and devel-oped in the course of three years of inten-sive civic engagement. This was also thefirst time in a generation that the NationalPark Service’s (NPS’s) own wildernessstudy and designation process was followed,more or less in sequence, from start to fin-

ish. In addition, the park’s embrace of itshuman history as a complement, rather thana competitor, to wilderness may be uniqueand hopefully heralds a new era in celebrat-ing the integration of natural and culturalresource preservation in the national parksystem. For these reasons, wilderness desig-nation at the Apostle Islands is both notableand worthy of scrutiny, in hopes that thissuccess story may be useful to other parkswhere wilderness values are worthy of pro-tection.

Early interest in wilderness preserva-tion at the Apostles2

Initial interest in establishing a protect-ed area in Wisconsin’s Apostle Islandsarchipelago followed after President CalvinCoolidge visited the area in 1928 and localboosters recognized that tourism mightrejuvenate an economy devastated by thedemise of the lumber industry (and later, bythe Great Depression). Heavily cut over,however, the area was dismissed by a 1930


New Wildernesses Can Be Created: A PersonalHistory of the Gaylord Nelson Wilderness atApostle Islands National Lakeshore

Bob Krumenaker

ON DECEMBER 8, 2004, PRESIDENT BUSH’S SIGNATURE on the Consolidated AppropriationsAct of 2005 established the national park system’s 55th unit of the national wildernesspreservation system.1 The Gaylord A. Nelson National Wilderness includes approximately33,500 acres, roughly 80% of the land area of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. This isthe first designated wilderness area in any of the four national lakeshores in the national parksystem, and also the largest of Wisconsin’s seven federal wildernesses.

NPS study of the area as not meeting stan-dards for a national park: “What must havebeen once a far more striking ... landscapeof dark coniferous original forest growthhas been obliterated by the axe followed byfire. The ecological conditions have been soviolently disturbed that probably nevercould they be more than remotely repro-duced.”3

The NPS study did see potential, how-ever, and recommended that the area beprotected from development, perhaps bythe state. Although there would be numer-ous attempts during the 1930s and 1940sby various individuals and groups to facili-tate the state of Wisconsin’s acquisition ofsome of the islands, significant progress wasnot made until 1955, when the state conser-vation commission issued a policy in sup-port of “Acquisition of an Apostle IslandsWilderness Area.”4 Indeed, four of thetwenty-one islands that eventually becamepart of the national lakeshore were acquiredby the state of Wisconsin, beginning in1958.

In the meantime, the forests regrew,belying the dire prediction from the 1930NPS assessment. While logging continuedon some islands, and fishing camps andsummer cabins dotted the shores, the archi-pelago increasingly became known for itsundeveloped landscape and its recreationalpotential.

Gaylord Nelson, first as Wisconsingovernor (1958–1962) and later as U.S.Senator (1963–1980), championed the fed-eral protection of the islands as part of thenational park system. After the passage ofthe federal Wilderness Act in 1964, somepark advocates promoted immediate desig-nation as wilderness. But Nelson was notamong them:

Although Nelson had empathy forthose who had urged immediate des-ignation of the islands as a part of thenational wilderness system (he per-sonally favored keeping the islandswilderness), such an amendmentwould have created substantial politi-cal problems with local people....Those favoring a more cautiousapproach at the time knew that theWilderness Act mandated that theNPS would have to consider wilder-ness designation in their master plan-ning process after authorization.5

The national lakeshore was establishedby act of Congress in 19706 without anywilderness designation. The legislative his-tory made clear that development on mostof the islands was intended to be limited toprimitive trails and campsites, as well asdocks for boats to access the islands. Thefinal bill that was passed deleted at theeleventh hour more ambitious plans for twolarge mainland units of the park whose pur-pose would have included the constructionof parkways, marinas, and large camp-grounds which would have been clearlyincompatible with wilderness. Estimates ofpotential (and perhaps unrealistic) park vis-itation and economic impact figures for thelarger park, whose core would have beenthe undeveloped islands but whose marginswould have been highly developed, areremembered by many in the local commu-nity.

Early park planning and wildernessThough NPS policy requires that all

parks with potential for wilderness undergoa formal wilderness study, that process hasbeen wrought with peril due to the contro-versial nature of wilderness in recent years.Despite the obvious intent that ApostleIslands eventually be considered for wilder-


ness designation, even here managers werein no hurry to tackle the issue head on. Thenational lakeshore designation meant tomost people that the park was a recreationarea first and foremost, and this attitude wasprevalent even among park staff. Over timewe perhaps forgot our own history, and newstaff transferring in may never have knownabout the intent of the state or the politicalleaders who led the fight for the park.

The park’s first general managementplan (GMP) was completed in 1989. Whileit was an ambitious plan for development,like many GMPs of its era it also identifiedthat about 97% of the land area of the parkwas as yet undeveloped and thereforepotentially suitable for wilderness designa-tion.7 Though NPS policy requires that weprotect wilderness values until such time asa formal study is completed, the park man-aged these undeveloped lands as wilder-ness, at least in the early days of the GMP,more as a result of lack of developmentfunding than as a deliberate strategy. Therewas little movement towards conducting therequired formal study.

There things would have remained ifnot for the leadership of Senator RussFeingold (D-WI), who, after several years ofdiscussion, succeeded at inserting languagein the fiscal year 2001 Department of theInterior appropriations bill requiring (andprovided funding for) the NPS to conductthe formal wilderness study and environ-mental impact statement (EIS) for theApostle Islands. This would be the firstwilderness study not associated with aGMP or other planning process conductedby the NPS in a generation.

The wilderness suitability study, partone: building understanding whiledeveloping alternatives

Initial scoping for the wilderness studyduring the summer of 2001 sought publiccomment on the possibility of wildernessdesignation at the Apostle Islands, but inretrospect we started too late on the criticaleducational step. Wilderness meant differ-ent things to different people, and the com-ments we received clearly reflected a lack ofunderstanding by many respondents ofwhat wilderness designation would mean—or not mean—for the park. Several petitionswere circulated opposing wilderness at theApostle Islands. As soon as the studybegan, we attempted to clearly define theterms and educate the public as to whatwilderness really meant, but, in hindsight,we should have begun the public conversa-tion when we realized Senator Feingold wasintent on pursuing the study for the park.

In the midst of the initial confusion,though, we heard two very clear messagesover and over again. First, people liked thepark the way it was, and did not want to seeit change. Interestingly, this came from bothsupporters and opponents of wilderness.Second, we were told that we’d best noteven think about restricting boats on LakeSuperior or removing existing public dockson the islands—or else we’d see overwhelm-ing opposition. This combination of senti-ments, so often expressed, helped us to seethrough the myriad of positions that werearticulated to the interests behind thosepositions. In fact, it helped us see theNational Park Service’s own interests, too.

It’s necessary to learn a bit about thepark’s geography to understand those inter-ests. Each of the park’s 22 land units (21islands and a mainland coastline strip) isbounded by Lake Superior. NPS jurisdic-


tion extends out one quarter-mile into thelake but the state maintains ownership overthe lake bottom. The only way to get fromone unit to another, whether one is a visitoror an NPS employee, is by boat. But dis-tances in the lake are such that non-NPSwaters lie in the interstices between islands,and in fact, the NPS has authority over ascant 15% of the waters of the entire archi-pelago (Figure 1). Thirteen of the islandshave public docks on them, and six havehistoric lighthouses on the NationalRegister of Historic Places. The park’sislands are generally convex in shape, lack-ing narrow bays or other areas that couldplausibly be set aside as non-motorizedzones (Figure 2). We quickly realized that

restricting motorized boat use in the quar-ter-mile zone that rings each island, theresult if Lake Superior were included in thewilderness (while it would continue outsideour jurisdiction in the waters between theislands), would be impractical, if not impos-sible to enforce. It would also subject futuremanagers and park visitors to endless frus-trations and conflict. Considering the non-federal ownership of the bottomlands, wewere fairly certain it would be a legalmorass, too.

Park and NPS Denver Service Center(DSC) staff8 sat down in March of 2002 todevelop alternatives; while we were intenton having a concept which each alternativewould represent (e.g., maximum wilder-


Figure 1. The wilderness status of the various park islands. (Madeline Island is not part of the park.) Map courtesy of Apostle IslandsNational Lakeshore.

ness, all cultural resources excluded, wil-derness restricted to the outermost islands,etc.), it was mostly an exercise in drawingboundaries. This exercise took place duringmy first week on the job as the park’s newsuperintendent. With ten years of experi-ence with wilderness management in IsleRoyale and Shenandoah National Parks, Iestablished three conditions that each alter-native had to fulfill: boundaries had to bedefensible both on a map and findable onthe ground; no docks or other develop-ments that we intended to actively managewith modern technologies would be includ-ed in any wilderness alternative; and we hadto be able to live with any of the alternativeswe put forward. In other words, they all hadto be viable and we’d see what emerged.

There were no legal requirement toseek comment on the draft alternatives butwe elected to do so anyway during the sum-mer of 2002. Talking to people aboutwilderness, and listening to their concerns,became the vehicle for me to get to knowboth the park and the community. We heldfive public meetings, this time ranging as faras Madison and Minneapolis–St. Paul,where many Apostle Islands visitors comefrom. We held meetings with four Indiantribes, and a task force representing ninetribes. Once again we made it known that

we’d meet with any group that wanted totalk with us or had concerns. Long conver-sations, usually one-on-one, slowly butinexorably built trust and comfort with thewilderness options—and with us. Knowingthe affection that so many of our visitorsand neighbors had for the park’s existingmix of wildness and access, and havingbeen careful with the way we drew theboundaries of the alternatives, we were ableto portray wilderness designation as thebest way to assure that the park remainedthe same.

One meeting stands out. On Friday ofIndependence Day weekend, we held anopen house in the NPS contact station onStockton Island, the site of the park’s largestdock complex, largest campground, andbest natural harbor. It was a gorgeous sum-mer evening and there were upwards of 50power and sail boats either at the dock or atanchor in the bay. The 19-site campgroundwas full. The park’s wilderness study coor-dinator, Jim Nepstad, and I “worked thedock” in the afternoon, talking aboutwilderness and any other park issue thatpeople wanted to discuss, and inviting themto come to the open house that evening.Upwards of 100 people showed up, farmore than we saw at any other meeting inany other location. Seared in our minds are


Figure 2. Sand spit on Outer Island: a typical shoreline inthe park. Photo courtesy of Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.

the images of boat owners who came intothe meeting with arms folded and skepticalexpressions, certain that here was anotherexample for how the government wouldtake away something they valued to achievesome ideological objective. But the peoplewho came to talk about the park they lovedwere also willing to engage in dialogueabout it, and almost every one of the skep-tics seemed to leave satisfied that wildernesswould not cause the changes they feared. Infact, a number of great new wildernessadvocates emerged, converted to the ideathat wilderness would preserve the thingsabout the park that they cared about. Aninvitation to be the featured speaker at theDuluth Power Squadron’s annual meetingalso resulted from contacts made that day;that session, in the fall, with a community ofpark users who were not expected to besupporters of wilderness, ended with astanding ovation and the recognition ofcommon interest that has value to the parkwell beyond the wilderness issue.

In requesting comment on the draftalternatives, we asked people to tell us if wewere on the mark with what we were con-sidering, and whether these were the rightalternatives. It may be a cliché, but we readeach one of the over 1,700 comments thatcame in. Either I or other members of theplanning team called or emailed many of therespondents when they wrote somethingwe thought was important, or we thoughtmight have been misunderstood. We notonly learned from these discussions, we alsobuild friends for the park and we increasedtrust. This round, there were no petitionsagainst wilderness, and there seemed to be agrowing comfort level that we were headedin the right direction.9 Wilderness was get-ting a lot of support, including an editorialin the state’s largest newspaper.10 More

importantly, we were able to improve ouralternatives in preparation for in-depthanalysis and identification of a preferredalternative.

The wilderness suitability study parttwo: the NPS chooses a preferred alter-native

Since the NPS had not done a stand-alone wilderness study in decades, we hadno cookbook to follow and therefore stum-bled into the realization that there were noestablished criteria (factors) by which weshould assess the alternatives and choosebetween them. We would use the choosing-by-advantages decision-making methodwidely used in the NPS. The initial sugges-tion that we use the standard GMP factorsjust didn’t seem right—mimicking theNPS’s strategic planning goals, these wouldhave given equal weight to resource protec-tion and visitor experience. They didn’tseem to have much to do with wilderness,however.

It was important to me that we hadclear decision factors, based in law and pol-icy, specific to wilderness and in the contextof other NPS mandates. I sought input fromcontacts all around the agency, both todevelop the factors and then to vet the oneswe came up with:

• Long-term preservation of park naturaland cultural resources;

• Ability of the NPS to preserve and tellthe stories of the people of the ApostleIslands;

• Consistency with the spirit and intent ofthe Wilderness Act, the EasternWilderness Areas Act, the intent of theWisconsin legislature when donatinglands to form the national lakeshore, andNPS wilderness policy; and


• Consistency with public commentsreceived during the comment period.

Obviously, the “preserve and tell thestories” factor is the unusual one, consider-ing the topic is wilderness. But we hadreceived a number of articulate commentsthat the human history of the islands wassomething that shouldn’t be lost or forgot-ten even while we contemplate celebratingwhat environmental historian James Feld-man has called their “rewilding.” WilliamCronon, University of Wisconsin historianand nationally recognized wilderness schol-ar (and part-time resident of Bayfield, thepark’s gateway community), has eloquentlyarticulated that the uniqueness of placeassociated with the Apostle Islands is large-ly the result of the interplay of the richhuman history of the area with the chal-lenges presented by the environment.11 Wewanted to consider how each alternativewould affect the cultural history and senseof place of the park, as distinct from how itmight affect the tangible cultural resourcessuch as buildings, archaeological sites, etc.

In comparing the alternatives againstthese factors, we recognized that “maxi-mum wilderness” has an unintended conse-quence for cultural resources, even if theNPS makes a strong commitment to fulfill-ing all of its historic preservation mandateswithin designated wilderness (as we arerequired to do). By limiting future develop-ment to non-wilderness areas, many ofwhich were excluded from wilderness dueto their cultural significance, we may beinadvertently directing development towardsensitive sites.

Spirited debate among park staff andthe planning team using these criteria re-sulted in the identification of the preferredalternative as the one which would preserve

80% of the land areas of the park as wilder-ness. Three islands were excluded in theirentirety from wilderness, two because of thedensity of cultural sites and our commit-ment to actively managing and interpretingthem. The other island which was left outwas done so in deference to the wishes ofthe Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chip-pewa Indians, who expressed concern thatany additional federal recognition wouldmake it more difficult for them to assert sov-ereignty over that island, which they believeis part of their reservation even while it ispart of the national lakeshore.12

Ironically, several of the most impor-tant natural resource areas of the park fellinto areas not included within the preferredwilderness alternative. It took considerablediscussion for our own staff to reach a com-fort level that not being in the wilderness inno way would lessen the protections thesewetlands and wildlife habitat were alreadyreceiving (Figure 3).

The selection of the preferred alterna-tive sparked a frenzy of analysis and EISwriting over the fall and winter of2002–2003, and we prepared to release thedraft study and EIS the following spring.Prior to doing so, however, it was essentialto secure the support of NPS Director FranMainella and the Department of the In-terior, so new NPS Midwest RegionalDirector Ernie Quintana and I traveled toWashington in April to make our case forthe 80% alternative. While there, I also vis-ited the offices of The Wilderness Society(TWS), knowing that they were highlyinterested and were likely to mobilize theirmembers to respond to our proposal. ThereI met, for the first time, Gaylord Nelson,who at age 86 was still coming to work eachday as counselor to TWS. Interestingly, hetold me that he was not particular about


which alternative we chose and would deferto the in-depth knowledge of the profes-sionals. His colleagues at TWS, however,made it clear that they favored the maxi-mum wilderness alternative.

Mainella asked tough questions at thebriefing, testing to make sure we had soughtthe input of, and engaged with, the spec-trum of park users and our political con-stituency. Not only had our civic engage-ment strategy worked with the public, but itwas essential in securing her support.Having satisfied her concerns, she was anadvocate for us with Deputy AssistantSecretary of the Interior Paul Hoffman,whose briefing followed. We leftWashington thrilled to have the depart-ment’s support for our wilderness proposal.In retrospect, we would not likely have hadTWS’ support unless we had advocated fora maximum wilderness alternative, and wewould not likely have had Interior support

unless we chose something other than amaximum wilderness alternative. In the pol-itics of 2003, it seems unlikely we couldhave emerged under any scenario with sup-port from both groups.

After publication of the required noticeof availability in the Federal Register, thedraft wilderness study and EIS was releasedfor another 60-day comment period in mid-June 2003. The final comment period, thethird one we sponsored, once again coin-cided with the park’s major visitor season.In many ways it was a repeat of the 2002campaign, with open houses this time innine locations across Wisconsin andMinnesota, and smaller meetings withtribes, local governments, and other stake-holders. This time, however, we were advo-cates for wilderness, and a particular config-uration at that, while earlier we had stead-fastly tried our best to be neutral.

In addition to the meetings, it was the


Figure 3. Bog on Stockton Island. Only part of Stockton is included in the wilderness area. Photo courtesy of Apostle Islands NationalLakeshore.

summer of tours—especially of Sand andBasswood Islands, which we were propos-ing to omit from the wilderness because oftheir cultural resources. Wilderness bound-aries are easy to pontificate on from afar,where on-the-ground reality doesn’tintrude. It was therefore important to bringthe people who were most worried on site,where they would be able to see and discusstheir concerns with us. The notoriouslyfickle weather and Lake Superior bothcooperated, and we were able to get into thepark most times we tried. Even the lessremote parts of the Apostle Islands are hardto access, I was reminded, and the ticks,mosquitoes, and one magnificent bald eaglesighting reminded my guests that Congressdoesn’t have to declare a place wildernessfor it to be one you’ll remember for a longtime afterwards.

The biggest uncertainty we faced thatsummer was what would The WildernessSociety and other environmental groupsdo? Would they mobilize their memberswith web and email alerts, as they had donethe previous summer, but this time opposethe preferred alternative? And if so, wouldthey risk public and political support forany wilderness at all by holding out for themaximum?

After several field trips with influentialpeople in the regional and national environ-mental groups, it became clear that theywere willing to buy our argument to excludeSand Island but they were holding firm thatBasswood should be wilderness. Severalkey local and regional opinion leaders withties to national environmental groups met inJuly and formulated what they called the“Shared Vision,” in effect a citizens’ pro-posal for wilderness that was a hybridbetween our preferred and the maximumwilderness alternatives. Relationships were

good enough that they sought my input intotheir proposal in an effort to win NPS sup-port (which I couldn’t provide) and consis-tency with NPS logic on boundaries (whichI could and did). The national environmen-tal groups subsequently sent out alerts totheir members to urge the NPS to supportthis configuration of wilderness rather thanthe NPS preferred alternative.

The citizens’ coalition neglected to dothe grassroots local work, however, to edu-cate the people living near or visiting theApostle Islands about their counter-pro-posal, and so, while it generated huge num-bers of comments, few came from thosewho knew the park well. In all those com-ments I didn’t read a single one with an elo-quent or cogent argument as to why theshared vision was notably better for thepark’s future than the preferred alternativethat we had proposed. It boiled down to“more is better,” which, while a legitimateviewpoint, wasn’t compelling.

One reason there was so little knowl-edge of the “alternative to the alternatives”is that most people got their informationabout the process and the options from theNPS. Our website had detailed maps, linksto newspaper and magazine articles andeditorials, and explanations and excerptsfrom law and policy articulating whatwilderness would really mean for the park.For obvious reasons, we were in no positionto advocate, or even explain, the “sharedvision.” The coalition would have to do itsown marketing.

Meanwhile, in addition to the openhouses, I once again spoke with every groupor agency body I could, patiently answeringquestions but hopefully showing throughmy own accessibility that the park seriouslycared about what people thought. Three ofthese meetings are especially notable.


The first, with the local RepublicanParty. The Democrats were already onrecord in support but I received a warmresponse to my request to talk with theGOP. We were fortunate that the chairmanof the local party was, in addition to being aprominent developer, married to the leaderof the park’s Friends group. Over thecourse of the previous year, we’d talkedoften about park’s role and impact in theeconomics of our gateway communities.Strong advocates of the park, but skeptics ofbig government, they came to believe thatwilderness would assure that any futuredevelopment needed to accommodate parktourists would be done outside the park andby the private sector, rather than by the NPSor concessionaires. With this innovativeargument, they were able to secure the offi-cial blessing of the local party leadership, acritical block in the foundation of the pro-wilderness coalition.13

The second notable meeting was withthe Bayfield Town Board. While the boardvoted on record to support wilderness, anew issue was raised about how we weredefining the boundary of the proposedwilderness boundary at the water’s edge.Our intent was to use the high-water markabove the beach as the boundary, to allowfor variation with fluctuating lake levels andto permit beaching of boats just outside thewilderness. Allowing beaching was impor-tant to boaters and we didn’t see it asmarkedly different from allowing motorboats a few feet off shore. There has to be aboundary somewhere, and in other wilder-nesses it is often at a parking lot or the edgeof a road. Though late in the process,thoughtful inquiry at this meeting made usgo back and work with the lands, legislativeaffairs, and solicitors office staff in the NPSand Interior to make sure we could find lan-

guage that would achieve our intent.Lastly, lest this narrative be construed

as one of success at every turn, I went beforea rather unsympathetic Bayfield CountyBoard and failed to either change minds ordo much to build trust. The top-of-the pagenegative headline in the local paper was asetback, but it curiously generated an out-pouring of positive community action andmedia activity in a classic Newtonian “equaland opposite” reaction. The county board’sstated reasons for opposing any wildernesswere ideological but such a misinterpreta-tion of law and fact that they, ironically,diminished their own influence in thedebate.

The Wilderness Act, passed in 1964,was one of the first laws that required feder-al agencies to seek public input prior tomaking major policy decisions. It mandatesa public hearing. Innovative for its day, thehearing requirement today seems like athrowback to an earlier era of very formal,but stifled and one-way public interaction.After all the open houses, meetings, andalmost 10,000 written comments, it alsoseemed anticlimactic. But it was required bythe law – so we had to learn how to conducta public hearing, something no one on thepark staff had ever done.

The hearing was held on August 27,2003, in the middle of the last commentperiod. Eighteen people testified. Of these,twelve were in favor of wilderness, four wereopposed, and the opinions of the two otherswere unclear. Two-thirds of the wildernessadvocates supported our preferred alterna-tive. There was little new that came out inthe hearing, but it was gratifying to haveseveral of the park’s friends, including themayor of Ashland, Wisconsin, the largestcommunity near the park, go on record instrong support. Counting the formal hear-


ing record, almost 99% of the written re-marks in the final comment period were insupport of wilderness in one configurationor another, a remarkable and gratifying out-pouring.

It certainly helped that we continued toget highly favorable editorial opinion inlocal and regional newspapers.14 Influentialpark advocates also facilitated a media eventon September 12 where Wisconsin Gover-nor Jim Doyle joined Gaylord Nelson onthe state capitol steps to call on the NPSand Congress to establish federal wilder-ness at the Apostle Islands. Doyle was thefirst to publicly advocate for naming thearea after Nelson.

Wrapping up the wilderness suitabilitystudy: now what?

After the last comment period ended,we retreated to a quiet, but critical stage ofthe study over the long Wisconsin winter of2003–2004. The planning team had thelaborious task of analyzing and categorizingevery comment and correcting errors in thedocument. I was comfortable with the pre-ferred alterative and received support fromthe regional director to finalize the studywithout significant change from the draftwhich had gone before the public. Mainelladid not feel the need for an additional brief-ing, so we submitted the package for finalregional and national review in January2004. The necessary Federal Registernotices were published in April.

An EIS is not considered legallyapproved, however, until a record of deci-sion (ROD) is signed, and regulationsrequire one final 30-day period to elapseafter the Federal Register notice of availabil-ity before the decision-maker can sign thedocument. While it’s not officially anothercomment period, and we were never certain

what we’d do if we did receive substantivecomment during this period, we had to waitpatiently for that last month.

Though the wilderness planning hadmoved to a quiet and behind-the-scenesstage, it was anything put a quiet winterpolitically for the park. With Yellowstone’son-again, off-again snowmobile regulationin the news, Apostle Islands had our ownsnowmobile crisis to deal with. While it wastotally unrelated to, and in different parts ofthe park than, the proposed wilderness, wefeared that the two issues would becomeconjoined. In closing down unauthorizedsnowmobile use in the park, we incurredthe wrath of many people in the gatewaycommunities, most especially ice fishermen.Fortunately, the openness we practiced overthe preceding two years with the wildernessstudy served us well and by once again vig-orously engaging with those most affectedby our actions, we were able to gain suffi-cient forbearance that the feared backlashdid not occur. I promised the communitythat the park would develop a new draft reg-ulation for snowmobiles to address what weall agreed was an untenable situation andwe would hold a few open meetings in thespring to seek input on the proposal.

It was a long winter and the ice finallyleft Bayfield Harbor in late April, ending atense ice fishing season. Quintana signedthe wilderness study ROD on May 6th andwe held the first snowmobile open housethat night.

Signing the ROD marked the comple-tion of the wilderness suitability study andthe formal beginning of the much murkierpolitical process. The park and region wereon record with a formal proposal for wilder-ness designation for 80% of the land areasof the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore.But only Congress can designate wilderness


and park, region, DSC, and NPS Washing-ton staff now had the task of unearthing, orreinventing, the process of officially advanc-ing the proposal to Congress for action. Ithadn’t been done in so long that the institu-tional memory was gone. There also had tobe one final Federal Register notice toannounce the availability of the ROD. Weprepared the ROD package and sent it up.

Informally, we knew the next step wasto secure the director’s approval, not justfor the ROD but for the actual proposal,and then the Department of the Interior’s. Amemorandum went from the regional direc-tor transmitting the study documents withthe appropriate recommendation. Grad-ually a consensus developed that the bestway to record the agency and department’ssupport was not a series of memos butthrough the development and approval ateach step of a formal legislative package thatwould go from NPS to Interior to the Officeof Management and Budget (OMB), repre-senting the White House, and then toCongress with a request for legislativeaction. If we had OMB’s concurrence, wewould have the recommendation of thepresident, which is what the WildernessAct says is supposed to happen beforeCongress acts on a wilderness proposal. Webegan discussions with the NPS legislativeaffairs office about the substance of the leg-islation we’d be drafting.

At every stage of the study, however, wealways explained to people that Congresscan act at any time, and need not await a rec-ommendation from the president. With2004 being an election year, it was obviousthat anything that happened here on outwould have to be seen through the lens ofstate and national politics, and Wisconsinwas a swing state in the presidential elec-tion. We would do our best as civil servants,

but we knew well that we were no longer incontrol of the process.

In late June the park received its firstinquiry from the secretary of the interior’soffice. They were interested in highlightingthe secretary’s support for the ApostleIslands proposal and asked for our help indrafting a press release and finding anappropriate venue to make the announce-ment. We worked on multiple drafts but thesummer was progressing rapidly.

September 3, 2004, also happened tobe the 40th anniversary of the passage of theWilderness Act, and as that date got closer,I suggested that perhaps the secretarywould be interested in making the an-nouncement in the context of the anniver-sary. Indeed, Assistant Secretary for Fishand Wildlife and Parks Craig Manson cameto Bayfield and the Apostle Islands andmade the announcement in a public cere-mony on September 2, the eve of theanniversary. To our delight and surprise,however, he went beyond the prepared re-marks and challenged the Congress to rap-idly enact legislation making the ApostleIslands wilderness a reality.

The presidential election loomedahead and most observers, as well as partic-ipants in the process, were skeptical thatCongress would take this on, with so manyhigher-profile issues dominating the nation-al agenda. But with Manson’s challenge, wewanted to seize the moment—just in case—and drafting a good Apostle Islands wilder-ness bill became our top priority, and a pri-ority of the secretary’s office.

My offer to write the first draft of a billwas accepted and the specifics of the parkproposal were incorporated into an emerg-ing series of drafts that went back and forthwith the NPS and departmental legislativeaffairs staff. The process continued into


October, though, and prospects for con-gressional action seemed unlikely. Con-gressman David Obey (D-WI), the park’srepresentative and the ranking minoritymember on the House AppropriationsCommittee, requested legislative draftingservices of the NPS, however, merging theagency effort to develop a wilderness billwith the congressional effort.

The presidential election came andwent without a wilderness bill, and, thoughwe were disappointed that a bill hadn’tmade it to Congress, we had always regard-ed that as a long shot. Our primary interestat this point was completing the legislativepackage and getting a transmittal memothrough the department and OMB, so thatat least the Apostle Islands wildernesswould become recommended wilderness, astep slightly further along than proposedwilderness. It’s a distinction with no practi-cal effect on the ground but potentially hugeimport should there be a long delay in con-gressional action.

I saw Obey on November 10, 2004,and he said there was one more chance toget a bill in the dwindling days of the 108thCongress, but it wasn’t something he couldbe sure of. Congress had to reconvene in alame duck session to pass the federal budg-et. Perhaps he could attach the park’s legis-lation to the appropriations bill.

And that’s the way it happened. Nocommittee hearings, no floor debates, verylittle mark-up. In the final moments of thelegislative session, the House passed theConsolidated Appropriations Act of 2005,with small, hardly noticed section whichcreated the Gaylord A. Nelson NationalWilderness in the Apostle Islands NationalLakeshore.

In the last-minute give and take, Obeyagreed to several “savings provisions” in the

bill that guaranteed that nothing in it wouldalter the existing management of LakeSuperior waters, the use of motors or snow-mobiles on the lake, or the maintenance andexpansion of existing docks. At least oneenvironmental group described this as a“slippery slope,” interpreting the provi-sions as exceptions to wilderness manage-ment. In fact, they will have no effect at allon the park, or on wilderness managementin the park, because the lake and all of thedocks are outside the boundaries of thewilderness.

Lessons learnedThe recent experience at the Apostle

Islands proves that wilderness designationremains a viable land management strategy,and that neither the purists nor the naysay-ers necessarily have the last word. Thepolitical environment here no doubt wasmore amenable than in many other areas,but the strength of our approach was in thegood will and trust built up slowly, one per-son and one group at a time. Com-munication, especially with those who weremost worried, was essential, and allowed usto build a strong and wide coalition.

Defining the terms of the discussionabout the certainty of the park’s future—what we believed wilderness wouldassure—resonated with people who told usthey didn’t want the park to change. Ithelped us answer the question “why wilder-ness?” in a way that increased people’scomfort level, even among skeptics. Andtrying to gently refocus the concerns ofthose skeptics on the legal definition ofwilderness, rather than the emotional orspiritual aspects of the proposal, alsohelped turn the discussion with those whodidn’t believe the park qualified because of


Endnotes1. Public Law 108-447, Division E, Section 140.2. This section is borrowed liberally and with permission from an unpublished manu-

script by Jim Nepstad, the park’s chief of planning and resource management and wilder-ness study coordinator, entitled “Wilderness in the Apostles: 1955–1970.”

3. Harlan P. Kelsey, “Report on Apostle Islands National Park Project: Memorandum forMr. Horace M. Albright,” January 20, 1931.

4. Wisconsin Conservation Commission, “Policy on Acquisition of an Apostle IslandsWilderness Area,” August 12, 1955.

5. Harold C. Jordahl, Jr., A Unique Collection of Islands: The Influence of History, Politics,Policy, and Planning on the Establishment of the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore(Bayfield, Wisc.: Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, 1994).

6. Public Law 91-424.7. This document later was determined to serve as the park’s wilderness suitability

assessment, the first step in the formal wilderness study process. It was not thought of thatway at the time it was written, however.

8. Michael Rees was the DSC team leader and principal author of the study and EIS.9. Only 17 of these comments were opposed to any wilderness.10. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, July 30, 2002.11. Cronon’s lengthy and articulate submission during the second comment period is

testimony that individual comments can and do influence decision making in an open pub-lic process. They helped us navigate the cultural–natural conundrum in wilderness in a waythat we believe strengthened our commitment to both. His comments were the basis for hisseminal article “The Riddle of the Apostle Islands” in the May–June 2003 issue of Orion

previous land use history or motor boatsand docks on its edges.

Listening to what worried people said,and factoring those concerns into our plan-ning, but equally importantly, into our com-munications, helped us make inroads withthe business community and user groups.Whenever possible, we let them speak forwilderness while we stood in the back-ground. This allowed public figures of bothpolitical parties to come out in supportwithout fear of backlash. Validating, evenembracing, the park’s human history as acomplement of wilderness, rather than acompetitor to it, also strongly resonatedwith people who knew the area.

Now, as we contemplate the beginning

of the first visitor season of the GaylordNelson Wilderness, we see opportunity.Our first obligation is to be true to thepromises: we said there’d be no significantchanges to the visitor experience, and wenow need to prove that. We also plan to cel-ebrate the value of wilderness through ourinterpretive efforts. We will begin to tell thestory of Gaylord Nelson to keep his legacyalive for future generations.15 But mostimportantly, we will be true to the law andspirit of the wilderness act by managing thearea using the “minimum requirement,”while securing “for the American people ofpresent and future generations the benefitsof an enduring resource of wilderness.”16



which was published, not coincidently, just prior to the opening of the final comment peri-od. The Orion reprint became, with permission, an important handout for us at public meet-ings and a link on our wilderness study web page. See www.nps.gov/apis/wstudy.htm andlink to Cronon article from this site.

12. This land dispute has never been formalized or adjudicated, but the lands clearly arein NPS ownership even if they fall within the Bad River reservation. Long Island is very nar-row, experiences high levels of day use in the summer, and has two historic light stations andthe ruins of a third on it. While it has some of the best bird and wetland habitat in the park,there were enough “issues” that keeping it out of the wilderness proposal seemed appropri-ate, and generated very little opposition while earning the (qualified) support of the tribalcouncil. Both the Bad River and the Red Cliff tribes made their support of wilderness con-tingent upon the NPS’ acknowledgement of the tribes’ off-reservation rights to hunt, fish,trap, and gather that they assert were guaranteed by their 1842 treaty with the United States.The issue of treaty rights is too complex to be discussed here but we tried hard to meet theirconcerns, which the park staff view as legitimate, while not encumbering the NPS with a legalposition prior to that process playing out, which will take years.

13. Hank and Sue Martinsen also actively encouraged state and national Republicanleaders to support wilderness at the Apostle Islands, including a conversation with PresidentBush at a Washington party. We’ll never know the impact of these conversations, but it’s hardto imagine they were anything but helpful.

14. See, for example, www.ashlandwi.com/placed/index.php?story_id=151079;www.superiorwi.com/placed/index.php?story_id=151820; www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=tct:2003:10:11:283971:EDITORIAL; and www.washburnwi.com/placed/index.php?sect_rank=5&story_id=154274.

15. The author is writing as of spring 2005. Nelson died on July 3, 2005.16. The Wilderness Act, Section 2(a).

Bob Krumenaker, Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Route 1, Box 4, Bayfield, Wisconsin54814; [email protected]

With over 2,500 species recorded sofar, invertebrates represent more than 90%of the marine animal species diversityaround Haida Gwaii (Sloan and Bartier2004). Yet marine invertebrates are usuallyoverlooked as focal species, in favor of high-profile vertebrate “charismatic megafauna,”when envisioning conservation (Lunneyand Ponder 1999).

Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserveand Haida Heritage Site is a national parkmanaged by Parks Canada Agency with theHaida in a First Nation–Canada cooperativemanagement agreement in place since1993. Given the success of this arrangementwith the lands, there are expectations thatadding on the proposed Gwaii HaanasNational Marine Conservation Area(NMCA) Reserve could involve anothercooperative management agreement withthe Haida. This implies full considerationof traditional Haida knowledge aboutmarine resource uses along with coastal

community experiential and Western sci-ence knowledge.

I explain how the northern abalone ofHaida Gwaii function as a focal specieswhose cultural history, protection, andrecovery could help focus public attentionon regional marine area conservation. To dothis, I use a quincunx—a rather exotic wordfor an arrangement of five items in whichfour are at the corners of a square or rectan-gle and one is at the center. This arrange-ment, shown in Figure 1, is useful whencontemplating a central role for northernabalone surrounded by four types of issuesrelevant to engaging Canadians in GwaiiHaanas’ marine conservation future.

FisheriesNorthern abalone was commercially

fished in British Columbia from the early20th century until the fishery’s closure in1990. This was the first total closure—cov-ering all sectors (Aboriginal, commercial,


Contemplating One-Sided Clams:The Northern Abalone Quincunx

N. A. Sloan

IntroductionIN THIS PAPER I DISCUSS A PROPOSED NATIONAL MARINE CONSERVATION AREA in BritishColumbia, Canada, using northern abalone (Haliotis kamtschatkana) as a lens throughwhich regional communities can view issues of culture, commerce and conservation.Indigenous Haida people, whose traditional territory includes Haida Gwaii (Queen Char-lotte Islands), sometimes refer to northern abalone as “one-sided clams.” British Columbiamarine waters have one species of abalone, a herbivorous snail reaching 140 mm in shelllength that uses its massive (and edible) foot to creep over lower intertidal and shallow sub-tidal rocky substrates under a canopy of kelp forest while grazing on algae.

recreational) and the entire geographicrange—in Canadian history (Sloan 2004). Itwas the advent of SCUBA diving in the1950s that initiated the decline. Landingspeaked, and a quota was introduced, in thelate 1970s, but stocks showed no recoverythrough many subsequent surveys, and thetotal closure remains in force. Further, highblack-market value and the difficult enforce-ment logistics, particularly along the ruggedand sparsely populated north coast, renderabalone vulnerable to poaching (Campbell2000). Aggressive fishing causing serialstock depletion has characterized abalonefisheries for various species throughoutPacific North America (Hobday et al. 2001;Sloan 2004).

In the last eight years of the fishery, thecoast north of Vancouver Island to Alaska

averaged 76% of annual coast-wide north-ern abalone landings. Within the northcoast, Haida Gwaii accounted for 63% ofmean annual landings over the same periodand the proposed Gwaii Haanas NMCAarea accounted for 61% of total annualHaida Gwaii landings (Sloan et al. 2001).That the Gwaii Haanas area has so muchprime abalone habitat is not surprising, asrocky coast with kelp forests characterizemuch of the shoreline.

Knowledge of abalone distribution anddensity around Haida Gwaii comes fromfishery-independent diving surveys byFisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) from1976 to 2002 during which index sites wereestablished. One area within Gwaii Haanas’proposed marine area, for example, wassurveyed seven times by 2002. Gwaii


Figure 1. The Haida Gwaii northern abalone quincunx. Abalone image courtesy of L. Lee, World Wildlife Fund–Canada.

Haanas represents, therefore, a well-docu-mented (by both fisheries-dependent and–independent sources) northern abalonearea, and recent surveys show this area con-tinues to support populations. As well,since 1998 further diving surveys, using aprotocol similar to that of DFO, have beenexecuted each year by the Haida FisheriesProgram (HFP) which has directly involvedthe Haida in abalone stock assessment.

To put abalone fisheries in an Alaska-to-Mexico context, commercial diving fish-eries for six abalone species have all beenaccompanied by serial stock collapses andcries for management reform that includethe use of refugia. The most dramatic case isof the deep-water white abalone (Haliotissorenseni) off southern California, which isnow approaching extinction (Hobday et al.2001). This is after a brief nine-year period(1969 to 1977) that accounted for 95% ofthe historical landings.

A second complexity to rock reef/kelpforest-associated fisheries is the on-goingcommercial diving fishery for red sea urchin(Strongylocentrotus franciscanus). Red seaurchins coexist with northern abalone asfellow algae-grazers associated with kelpforests and are fished commercially and forHaida subsistence (Sloan et al. 2001).

Haida subsistence and cultureThe collapse of abalone stocks and

subsequent closure to all, including theHaida for subsistence gathering, representsan appreciable cultural loss (Sloan 2004).Further, no Haida were among the 26licensed to participate in the commercialfishery that led to the stock collapse. TheHaida remain legally excluded (based onoverriding stock conservation concerns)from access to an otherwise constitutionallyestablished subsistence fishing right.

Competition for abalone between theHaida and sea otters (Enhydra lutris) wasdistinctly possible. The sea otter popula-tion of Haida Gwaii was likely intact,although hunted and perhaps locallydepleted nearby larger village sites, prior tothe vigorous sea otter fur trade betweenHaida and English and Americans from the1790s to 1830s. By the early 20th century,sea otters were effectively extirpated fromthe Haida Gwaii region (Heise et al. 2003).Sea otters are keystone, kelp-forest-associat-ed, specialist predators of invertebrates thatreduce abalone to sparse crevice-dwellingpopulations in areas where they co-occur(Watson 2000). It is possible, therefore, thatabalone were relatively more available to theHaida near village sites when sea otterswere hunted in the pre-contact era. Further,after the 1840s, abalone may have becomemore available throughout Haida Gwaiibecause of reduced sea otter populationsdue to the fur trade, as abalone populationsrebound in the absence of sea otters(Watson 2000).

There is, as well, an appreciable rolefor abalone shell in Haida trade and materi-al culture (Sloan 2003). Many NorthAmerican indigenous peoples prized thenacreous (mother-of-pearl) insides ofabalone shells (Dubin 1999). Abalone shellfrom at least four species in the Californiaarea was a trade commodity throughoutnorthwestern North America. Abalone waspart of an overall marine shell trade, alsoincluding tusk shell (Dentalium spp.) andolive snail (Olivella spp.), going back 7,000years.

The first recorded European contactwith the Haida occurred in July 1774 whenthe Spanish (Juan Pérez aboard the San-tiago) encountered Haidas off northwesternHaida Gwaii. Translations of ship’s logs


revealed that trading occurred duringwhich the Spanish exchanged goodsincluding “Monterey” (abalone) shell,brought north from the Spanish-occupiedarea of what is now California, for sea otterand other pelts (Sloan 2003). The earliestHaida article inlaid with abalone shell (alabret, or lip-plug) was collected by GeorgeDixon aboard the Queen Charlotte in 1787off the northwest coast of Haida Gwaii(King 1981). Amazingly, in the same year,other British on a trading mission along thesoutheast coast of the archipelago alsonoted high-status women’s’ labrets, “someinlaid with pearl” (Galois 2004:128).However, many authors, starting withSwanton (1908:303) have reported that theshell of northern abalone was less preferredfor decorative work compared with Calif-ornia-area abalone shell. In summary, theoccurrence of California-area abalone tradeshell in Haida art, language, and family crestusage demonstrates the influence of theabalone shell trade, particularly in the post-contact era (Sloan 2003).

Species at riskAn intriguing species-at-risk precedent

in Canadian marine conservation is thepotentially mutually exclusive recovery oftwo “listed” species: northern abalone andtheir predator, the sea otter (Sloan 2004).Northern abalone was Canada’s first marineinvertebrate to be federally listed by theCommittee on the Status of EndangeredWildlife in Canada as “threatened” in 1999.Sea otters have been internationally protect-ed since 1911 and federally listed as“endangered” in Canada since 1978(down-listed to “threatened” in 1996). Inthe U.S., white abalone was the first marineinvertebrate to be proposed for the endan-

gered species list (Hobday et al. 2001)—becoming federally listed in June 2001.

Canada’s Species at Risk (SAR) Act(passed 2002, fully in force 2004) compelsprotection and recovery of all federally list-ed species, including protection of theircritical habitats in federally controlled areassuch as NMCAs. Further, listed statusrequires the production of a national recov-ery strategy that goes through public con-sultation towards a formal action plan, alsosubject to public consultation, that guidesrecovery efforts. The SAR Act prohibitionsprotect individuals, their “residences” (e.g.,nesting trees) and critical habitats. Thestrategy and planning processes are nowcompleted for both northern abalone andsea otter.

Sea otters do occur around HaidaGwaii and there have been eight confirmedsightings, all likely free-ranging males,between 1972 and 2002. They could haveoriginated from any of the expanding popu-lations surrounding the Haida Gwaiiregion, such as southeast Alaska, or fromthe mainland coast, or from northernVancouver Island (Heise et al. 2003).

Northern abalone has become aregional marine conservation focal point.The federally funded, community-drivenHaida Gwaii Abalone Stewardship Pro-gram, now entering its fourth year, is animportant first for Haida Gwaii (Jones et al.2004). Abalone is the first marine species tounite local and national marine environ-mental nongovernmental organizations, theHFP, and federal agencies. One of the twostewardship areas is within Gwaii Haanas’proposed NMCA; it was selected accordingto fishery-independent survey data andlocal experiential knowledge.


Marine area conservationNorthern abalone is exemplary in its

spatially persistent clumping associatedwith kelp forest ecosystems, whose sea-sur-face canopies render them easy to map.Therefore, abalone is a useful surrogate forexploring area-based conservation ideassuch as zoning, including sizing and place-ment of no-take zones (Sloan 2004). Theprospect of zoning for no-take through to(sustainable) commercial extraction is artic-ulated in the Canada National MarineConservation Areas Act (passed in 2002).

Abalone populations generally relyupon having sufficiently dense clumps forsuccessful fertilization of broadcastergametes linked by relatively restricted dis-persal of their short-lived, non-feeding lar-vae. Therefore, understanding the dynam-ics of clump size, between-clump proximity,and connectivity via larval transport is keyto sustaining their populations. Further,abalone species respond well to area protec-tion and readily increase in density, averagebody size, and reproductive output withinrefugia (Sloan 2004).

ConclusionIssues of culture, conservation, and

commerce unite when contemplating nor-thern abalone. Concerning culture, the lossof northern abalone as a traditional food forthe Haida is ethically and politically impor-tant. As well, abalone has a long human-associated history linking material culture,trade, and ceremonial use, including post-contact Haida–European relations. Anothercultural aspect is the role of northernabalone as a focal species in increasing pub-lic awareness of marine conservation andchanging attitudes towards acceptance ofnew ideas about protecting species andhabitats (ecosystems) through protecting

marine areas. Finally, given that understand-ing coastal community values is central tosuccess in marine conservation, northernabalone provides a vehicle by which region-al communities can address complexmarine conservation challenges, such aszoning within protected areas and species-at-risk recovery.

Concerning conservation, there is fed-eral agency will to cooperate in regionalprograms to restore abalone populations.Provided that there is consensus and clarityon the population objectives for northernabalone, this species’ characteristics, suchas its tendency to clump, render it well suit-ed as a case study for discussing marine areaprotection. The goals of the local abalonestewardship program to restore populationsto the point of enabling a Haida (and thenan overall recreational) fishery (Jones et al.2004), and that of the national recoverystrategy to ultimately have the speciesdelisted, are not intractable, but representdiffering geographic scales of recovery.

Concerning commercial fishing, it ismost unlikely that a sustainable commercialfishery will re-emerge. However, fishing forred sea urchin, in kelp forest habitats, willcontinue in Haida Gwaii, including in theproposed Gwaii Haanas marine area. Thissupports the widely stated recommenda-tion in the literature for a multi-species,ecosystem-based management perspective.The interacting effects of the red sea urchinfishery on future northern abalone and seaotter recovery within kelp forest ecosystemswarrants careful consideration.

Abalone conservation poses someinteresting questions (Sloan 2004). First,why recover northern abalone if recoveredsea otter populations would likely cropabalone populations to low levels, threaten-ing even subsistence fishing? Confronting


such hard choices will help develop thepublic’s understanding of the innate com-plexity of marine area conservation.Second, what benchmark state of local kelpforest ecosystems, including optimal popu-lations of northern abalone, red sea urchin,and sea otter, should be the (integrated)recovery goal within Gwaii Haanas?Perhaps the goal should be the restorationof pre-European contact (pre-1790) condi-tions, which likely would mean low abalonepopulations with sea otters present.Whatever state is desired, we have littlelocal kelp forest ecosystem baseline datafrom which to compare current with paststates. Third, would protecting abalone insome areas lead to enhanced larval settle-ment in adjacent areas that could eventuallysupport some level of non-commercial fish-ing (Aboriginal and recreational)? Thepossibility of net export of recruits(“spillover”) from protected areas to adja-cent areas is an important considerationwhen discussing protecting marine areaswith the fishery sector (Roberts et al.2005). Finally, there is the important issueof propagule dispersal (Shanks et al. 2003).That is, what is the spatial scale of larval ori-

gin and destination dynamics of northernabalone populations? For Gwaii Haanas’future, this relates to zoning issues such asno-take zone sizes (to protect sufficient den-sities to maintain adequate recruitment),shapes (to preserve an adequate amount ofkelp forest habitat), locations (for appropri-ate distance between sub-populations) andconnectedness (to link sub-populations vialarval transport in currents and according todifferent planktonic larval durations).

With public consultations on establish-ing Gwaii Haanas NMCA imminent, thereis an opportunity for abalone to focus ideasand values. Thinking about northernabalone links people to the sea culturallyand fosters learning about the inherentcomplexity of contemporary marine conser-vation. If we are serious about the Panel onEcological Integrity’s core ideas ofCanadian national parks (and, by extension,forthcoming NMCAs) as “centres for eco-logical understanding” and “sentinels forthe ecological condition of their region”(PCA 2000a, 2000b), then we should seizeopportunities that species such as northernabalone present to us.


ReferencesCampbell, A. 2000. Review of northern abalone, Haliotis kamtschatkana, stock status in

British Columbia. Canadian Special Publication of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 130,41–50.

Dubin, L.S. 1999. North American Indian Jewellery and Adornment from Prehistory to thePresent. New York, N.Y.: Harry N. Abrams.

Galois, R., editor. 2004. A Voyage to the North West Side of America: The Journals of JamesColnett, 1786–89. Vancouver, B.C.: University of British Columbia Press.

Heise, K.A., N.A. Sloan, P.F. Olesiuk, P.M. Bartier, and J.K.B. Ford. 2003. Living marinelegacy of Gwaii Haanas. IV: marine mammal baseline to 2003 and mammal-related man-agement issues throughout the Haida Gwaii region. Parks Canada Technical Report inEcosystem Science 38.

Hobday, A.J., M.J. Tegner, and P.L. Haacker. 2001. Over-exploitation of a broadcast spawn-

ing marine invertebrate: decline of the white abalone. Reviews in Fish Biology andFisheries 10, 493–514.

Jones, R., N.A. Sloan, and B. DeFreitas. 2004. Prospects for northern abalone (Haliotiskamtschatkana) recovery in Haida Gwaii through community stewardship. In MakingEcosystem-Based Management Work. N.W.P. Munro, J.H.M. Willison, T.B. Herman, K.Beazley, and P. Dearden, eds. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference onScience and Management of Protected Areas. Unpaginated CD-ROM. Wolfville, N.S.:Science and Management of Protected Areas Association.

King, J.C.H. 1981. Artificial Curiosities from the Northwest Coast of America—NativeAmerican Artefacts in the British Museum Collected on the Third Voyage of CaptainJames Cook and Acquired through Sir Joseph Banks. London: British Museum Press.

Lunney, D., and W. Ponder. 1999. Emergent themes from the other 99%. In The Other 99%:The Conservation and Biodiversity of Invertebrates. W. Ponder and D. Lunney, eds.Mosman, N.S.W.: Transactions of the Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales,446–454.

PCA [Parks Canada Agency]. 2000a. Unimpaired for Future Generations? ProtectingEcological Integrity with Canada’s National Parks. Volume I: A Call to Action. Report ofthe Panel on the Ecological Integrity of Canada’s National Parks. Ottawa, Ont.: ParksCanada Agency. On-line at www.pc.gc.ca/docs/pc/rpts/ie-ei/report-rapport_1_e.asp.

———. 2000b. Unimpaired for Future Generations? Protecting Ecological Integrity withCanada’s National Parks. Volume II: Setting a New Direction for Canada’s NationalParks. Report of the Panel on the Ecological Integrity of Canada’s National Parks.Ottawa, Ont.: Parks Canada Agency. On-line at www.pc.gc.ca/docs/pc/rpts/ie-ei/report-rapport_1_e.asp.

Roberts, C.M., J.P. Hawkins, and F.R. Gell. 2005. The role of marine reserves in achievingsustainable fisheries. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 360, 123–132.

Shanks, A.L., B.A. Grantham, and M.H. Carr. 2003. Propagule dispersal distance and thesize and spacing of marine reserves. Ecological Applications 13 (Supplement),S159–S169.

Sloan, N.A. 2003. Evidence of California-area abalone shell in Haida trade and culture.Canadian Journal of Archaeology 27, 273–286.

———. 2004. Northern abalone: using an invertebrate to focus marine conservation ideasand values. Coastal Management 32, 129–143.

Sloan, N.A., and P.M. Bartier. 2004. Structuring natural science baselines including speciesinventories for marine area conservation. In Making Ecosystem-based ManagementWork. N.W.P. Munro, J.H.M. Willison, T.B. Herman, K. Beazley, and P. Dearden, eds.Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Science and Management ofProtected Areas. Unpaginated CD-ROM. Wolfville, N.S.: Science and Management ofProtected Areas Association.

Sloan, N.A., P.M. Bartier, and W.C. Austin. 2001. Living marine legacy of Gwaii Haanas. II:Marine invertebrate baseline to 2000 and invertebrate-related management issues.Parks Canada Technical Report in Ecosystem Science 35.

Swanton, J.R. 1908. Haida Texts—Masset Dialect. Memoir of the American Museum of


Natural History, Volume X, Part II. The Jessup North Pacific Expedition. New York:G. E. Stechert.

Watson, J.C. 2000. The effects of sea otters (Enhydra lutris) on abalone (Haliotis spp.) pop-ulations. Canadian Special Publication of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 130, 123–132.

N. A. Sloan, Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site, Parks CanadaAgency, Box 37, Queen Charlotte, British Columbia V0T 1S0 Canada;[email protected]



The Moral Power of the World ConservationMovement to Engage Economic Globalization

Ron Engel

Foreword: Pushing the “Yes” button for Bob LinnLATE ON THE EVENING OF NOVEMBER 24, 2004, THE RESOLUTION ON THE EARTH CHARTER

finally reached the floor of the World Conservation Congress at Bangkok. The resolutioncalled for the World Conservation Union to not only endorse the Earth Charter but “recog-nize it as an ethical guide for IUCN policy.” Years of work to bring ethics into the mainstreamof the international environmental movement were nearing fruition. As a delegate of theGeorge Wright Society, a organizational member of IUCN, I had the privilege to vote. In themoments that passed waiting for the vote to be taken a good part of my life was replayed.Right there at the center of it, like some guardian angel, was Bob Linn.

I first met Bob in June 1960 when stationed with my family on Mott Island en route toa seasonal ranger assignment on Amygdaloid Island, Isle Royale National Park. I rememberthe delight of my two-year-old son when he heard Bob play his marimba. As far as I couldsee, as park naturalist, Bob had the best job in the world—and he did not demur. A few yearslater, we were both to lament our exile in Washington, D.C. After my wife, Joan, and I builta cabin at the tip of Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula, as close as we could get to Isle Royale,and Bob had retired from the Park Service and was building the George Wright Society inHancock, we shared leisurely walks and dinners and talked about everything under theHeavens—family to wolves to politics to evolution to God.

In the course of one of these conversations in 1983, Bob suggested I read an essay inThe George Wright Forum on biosphere reserves. It took one afternoon for me to decide todevote an upcoming sabbatical to them. Bob gave me personal introductions—Bill Gregg,Ted Sudia, Tommy Gilbert, Jane Robertson, among others—and so sent Joan and me off ona journey that led, step by step, person by person, place by place, into the terra incognito ofthe international conservation movement. Eventually I landed on the doorstep of IUCN inGland, Switzerland, and the office of Jeff McNeely, who invited me to form an “ethics work-ing group.” IUCN, an acronym for International Union for the Conservation of Nature andNatural Resources (now known as IUCN–The World Conservation Union), is a supra-organization of some 1,000 governmental and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).Founded in 1948 to promote international cooperation on behalf of science-based conserva-tion, it is the only organization with “observer” status in the United Nations GeneralAssembly, providing expertise on the conservation of nature.

Over the following decade the IUCN Ethics Working Group grew into a network of per-


sons from sixty nations and helped pave the way for the writing of the Earth Charter in thelate 1990s—the most comprehensive declaration of values and principles for a just, sustain-able, and peaceful world the international community has yet composed (see www.earth-charter.org).

Bob was there the whole time. He published our first papers in the Forum. He workedin Ted Sudia’s Institute for Domestic Tranquility to give these ideals roots in the Americanpolity. And he was always there to listen and advise on those long summer evenings on theKeweenaw.

Now it is the evening of November 24, 2004, in the Queen Sirikit National ConventionHall in Bangkok. A representative of the American government asks to be recognized andstates her judgment that the Earth Charter resolution ought to be defeated. A delegate fromthe Netherlands voices strong support. We are asked to vote. I push the green “yes” buttonin front of me—this is for Bob Linn. We wait for the tally of the hundreds of delegates to bedisplayed on the great screen in front of us. The motion passes, overwhelmingly, with a sig-nificant majority of both government and nongovernmental members. Applause sweepsacross the hall. Another world is possible!

The following essay, which I delivered as a keynote address at the closing plenary on“Strengthening Corporate Social Responsibility, Law and Policy” at the Congress Forum, isdedicated to the life and ideals of Robert Linn.

I want to thank Jeff McNeely, IUCN chief scientist, Josh Bishop, IUCN senior advisorfor economics and the environment, and David Harmon, editor of The George WrightForum, for their comments and suggestions on this manuscript.

Ron Engel, Copper Harbor, Michigan, June 2005

The ethical basis of conservation Forty years ago when I arrived on the doorsteps of the University of Chicago to take up

studies in religion and philosophy, I was worried whether anyone on the faculty wouldunderstand my enthusiasm for nature and the kind of work I wanted to do in what has sincebecome known as the field of “environmental ethics.”

My first night in Chicago I attended a rally for SANE—the leading anti-nuclear organi-zation in the states at the time—and one of the speakers was introduced as a professor at theUniversity of Chicago Divinity School. Joseph Sittler began his speech by reading a poem byRichard Wilbur entitled “Advice to a Prophet,” which includes these haunting lines:

What should we be withoutThe dolphin’s arc, the dove’s return,

These things in which we have seen ourselves and spoken?Ask us, prophet, how we shall callOur natures forth when that live tongue is allDispelled, that glass obscured or broken . . .

. . . come demandingWhether there shall be lofty or long standingWhen the bronze annals of the oak-tree close.

Not only were my worries alleviatedthat evening, but I had my first lesson inenvironmental ethics.

The roots of environmental ethics lienot in philosophy books but in our grati-tude for the gift of life—“gracias a la vida”—the gift of our bodies as well as our souls. Inand through our experience of nature wecreate the world of interlaced meanings andmetaphors that constitute our distinctiveexistence as human beings. The very no-tions of “lofty” and “long standing” emergethrough the alchemy of the human imagina-tion interacting with other unique actualiza-tions of creative evolution. “How shall wecall our natures forth when that live tongueis all dispelled, that glass obscured or bro-ken?”

As Joseph Sittler later wrote, “Not inabstract propositions or dramatic warningsbut in powerful, earthy images the poetmakes his point. The point is single, simple,and absolute: human selfhood hangs uponthe persistence of the earth, her dear knownand remembered factualness is the matrix ofthe self.”

This is the ultimate motivation, I sus-pect, for our work in the international con-servation movement. We love life—“every-thing which is natural which is infinitewhich is yes” as the poet e.e. cummingsexpressed it, we know we owe everything toit, we are profoundly grateful, and we wantto repay our debt by responsible care andrespect, building a civilization that sustainslife as long as Earth shall last. I believe thisis true whether we work professionally asleaders of environmental NGOs, as scien-tists, artists, or teachers, or as dedicatedconservationists in the worlds of commerce,industry or government.

The moral authority of the WorldConservation Union

What this means for the topic at handis that the single most fundamental asset wehave as members of IUCN is our moralauthority. By “moral authority” I mean ourcapacity to articulate, justify, defend, andpractice principles of human action thatenhance the flourishing of the evolutionaryadventure, including all its human mem-bers. This authority has been built up overmany years by thousands of persons whohave found in this organization a way to actresponsibly and effectively on behalf of theiraffirmation of the sacredness of life.

We can identify a number of ways inwhich we draw upon this moral authority inour conservation activities. A good exampleis our work in environmental law, whichfinds its justification in its appeal to justice,among other moral values. Articles 2–9 ofthe IUCN Law Commission’s Draft Inter-national Covenant on Environment andDevelopment spells out the most basicmoral affirmations that ground the treaty’slegal obligations, e.g., Article 2: “Nature asa whole warrants respect; every form of lifeis unique and is to be safeguarded inde-pendent of its value to humanity.”

The scientific credibility of the Unionis also ultimately based on its moral author-ity—the belief that truth is a morally impor-tant value and that scientists are trustworthytruth-tellers regarding the biological healthof the planet. Our worldwide networks ofscientific experts labor diligently to be surethis trust is well-placed. Similarly, the polit-ical persuasiveness of the resolutions wepass at this Congress rests on the moralauthority of the Congress as a democraticdecision-making body—the fact that wetruly represent the international communi-ty, and practice fair, open, and informed


debate. As Valli Moosa, the newly electedpresident of IUCN has stated, “It is fromdiversity that we gain our strength andpolitical niche, and our unique moralauthority.” In addition, we depend uponour moral authority for support for ourcommunity conservation projects. It isassumed that we serve the common goodand that our actions will be in keeping withour stated purposes. Any perception thatour principles are being compromised isdamaging to our moral reputation, andhence the practical effectiveness, of ourprojects.

In recent years a major source of themoral authority of the Union has come fromour willingness to tackle the societal roots ofenvironmental problems. It was not only arealistic policy decision, but a courageousexercise of moral responsibility, that led theUnion to decide that nature protectionalone was not enough, and that humanpoverty, lack of political participation andeducation, and regional and global in-equities, must also be addressed. Our deci-sion to tackle these issues not only added toour moral authority but required our moralauthority. We had no standing in the inter-national community that warranted thiskind of activity until we took on board thefundamental moral premise of sustainabledevelopment, that concern for people andconcern for the environment are mutuallyinterdependent. Prior to Stockholm [the1972 U.N. global conference on the envi-ronment], this was not the case. MartinHoldgate recounts in his history of IUCN,The Green Web, that it took years of experi-ence in the field, internal debate, and insti-tutional self-examination to bring the Unionto adopt the vision of a “just world that val-ues and conserves nature.”

Since unsustainable and unjust eco-

nomic growth is one—if not the—cause ofbiodiversity loss, restructuring our domes-tic and global economic systems is anurgent priority. Ashok Khosla of Develop-ment Alternatives in India pointed out atthis Congress, “The fact that after 50 yearsof international development, $1 trillion indevelopment assistance, and a 20-foldgrowth in the world economy, there aremore poor people and vastly reducedforests should be a cause for worry amongthose who design our economic systems.”But redesigning our global economic sys-tem is likely the most difficult and complextask we can undertake, involving powerfulgovernment and business interests, some ofwhich are corrupt or weak or otherwiseincompetent, immense geopolitical forces,entrenched professional and academic in-terests, passionate public opinion, the wel-fare of countless individuals and communi-ties, and high stakes for the future of thebiosphere.

I therefore heartily commend theIUCN leadership for having the moralcourage and foresight to initiate an engage-ment with economics and the businesscommunity. The kind of serious dialoguebetween conservationists and businessleaders that is conceptualized in A Strategyfor Enhancing IUCN’s Interaction with thePrivate Sector (approved by the IUCNCouncil in March, 2004), and is now beingmodeled at this Congress, is long overdue.Furthermore, I believe the IUCN initiativehas placed the goal where it needs to be:biodiversity conservation and human well-being must become a central aim of busi-ness, not merely a regulatory obligation orcharitable expense.

To meet this challenge, we will need tomarshal all the resources at our disposal. Asthe Strategy suggests, in addition to our


capacities in environmental economic poli-cy analysis, environmental science, law,strategic planning, and community devel-opment, we also need to bring to the tableour moral values and authority. The moralstanding of the Union gives us access tocenters of decision-making, both privateand public, which few other organizationsin the environmental field can reach.

But we face a double challenge. To besuccessful, our approach to this work mustnot only draw upon our hard-won moralauthority, it must proceed with utter moralcredibility. It would be a blow to the moralauthority of the Union if this initiativeshould be perceived as a capitulation to thereigning economic powers. The Strategyexplicitly recognizes this risk, and acknowl-edges a “widespread skepticism in the con-servation community about the merits ofcollaborating with business.”

We are seeking to overcome a divisionthat has existed for over two centuriesbetween movements for environmentalpreservation and proponents of modernforms of economic development. We willneed to cut to the ethical roots of this con-flict if we are to succeed in building mean-ingful partnerships between conservation-ists, community advocates, economists, andbusiness leaders.

As a first step in that direction, let usacknowledge that it is proper that we useother forms of life. This is a condition of ourexistence as participants in the evolutionaryprocess, and as co-creators and beneficiar-ies of the productive powers of human soci-ety. But from an ethical perspective, usevalue is always secondary to intrinsic andsystemic value—to the flourishing of thecommunity of life on planet Earth. This isthe concern many of us have as we begin towalk down the road of engagement with

business and markets. The moral con-science of the Union strongly protests notonly economic inequality between persons,but any attempt to reduce life to its mere“resource” value. Animals, for example, arenot inherently “production units.” As wor-thy of admiration as human artifacts maybe, achieving at their finest a second-ordercultural form of intrinsic value, the baselinevalue that must be preserved at all costs,because it is the ultimate generative sourceof all other forms of value, is the wild valueoriginal to the universe as given. The mag-nificent flourishing of organisms, life formsand systems that we inherit can be imitated,but never replaced. It is they alone thatinspire us to “reverence for life.”

The need for ethical terms of referenceWhat we need are ethical terms of ref-

erence for this engagement. We cannotafford marriages of convenience. To achievesignificant policy improvements we willneed principled agreements that are bind-ing between all parties—citizens, corpora-tions, governments—new moral compacts,not mere contracts. As Paul Hawken writesin The Ecology of Commerce, business willbecome meaningfully involved in the transi-tion to sustainable development when itunderstands itself as “part of a larger cov-enant.” We can say the same of the conser-vation movement. Clear, strong, experien-tially informed, rationally defensible, ethicalframes of reference are essential precondi-tions to a true partnership in any aspect ofhuman affairs.

It is at this point that one more sourceof our moral authority (often taken forgranted) comes into play. This is the workwe do in ethical reflection.

In the final analysis, everythingdepends upon our capacity for critical and


constructive ethical thought. To step back—to examine as objectively as possible theissues at play in any decision or choice; toappreciate the multiple, often conflicting,values at stake; to listen and learn fromwhat others report of their experience; toquestion not only the opinions in play butthe presuppositions of the conversationitself; to turn the direction of discussion asmuch as possible toward joint inquiry; tobring every bit of knowledge available to thetable, scientific, cultural, personal; to con-sult the moral wisdom of our traditionsregarding what principles, virtues, and pur-poses are most crucial and helpful to thesubject at hand; to allow one’s imaginationto freely entertain novel alternatives; to offerreasoned moral arguments, and to carefullyand genuinely consider the moral argu-ments offered by others; to propose withoutdemanding; and then finally to reach explic-it consensus (but always revisable if newconsiderations make it necessary)—this isthe best description I can give of what isinvolved in ethical reflection, sometimescalled “practical moral reasoning.” Mosttypically this kind of critical and construc-tive moral thought happens as a step ormoment within the natural flow of sharedconversation, but there are times when itmust be quite deliberate, public and sys-tematic. In my judgment, this is one of thoseoccasions. If the engagement of IUCN withbusiness and markets is to follow “clear pri-orities and guidelines,” as the Strategy rec-ommends, we need explicit attention towhat ethical terms of reference are required.

There are several reasons why.First, it assures our ethical integrity.

Even if the ethical terms of reference that wepropose are not initially acceptable to ourbusiness partners, they make our intentionsclear, and give us a road map to follow when

issues become intractable. This kind of“truth in advertising” cannot help butreceive respect from the business communi-ty, and will reassure our constituencies thatwe are keeping our mission intact. Ethicalintegrity does not require ethical rigidity ordogmatism. But we will put everyone onnotice that convincing public reasons willneed to be given for any changes we make.

Second, ad hoc ethical norms are insuf-ficient to give us the comprehensive moraldirection we need. Our focus in thisCongress Forum is upon industries andbusinesses directly involved in naturalresource development or capitalizing uponecosystem services. This is an appropriatebeginning point. To be practically effective,ethical terms of reference need to addressthe special issues and conditions involvedin each particular form of economic activity.The IUCN Council has taken steps todefine such terms by insisting that “priorinformed consent” and “restoration of lega-cy sites” are among the key issues for dis-cussion (and for evaluating IUCN’s dia-logue) with the mining industries. Butsooner or later specific ethical guidelinessuch as those developed for the miningindustries must take their place within alarger and more complex ethical frame-work—an ethical philosophy, if you will—which has the capacity to provide generalterms of reference for all of our engage-ments. The suggestions I will be makingbelow leap-frog to this point in the process.In our future work we can anticipate a cre-ative interplay between the norms thatemerge in the course of our work in specificcontexts and the task of constructing gener-al ethical terms of reference.

Finally, social compacts between busi-ness and conservation based on clear rea-soned ethical terms of reference, far from


being a naïve and idealistic diversion, areone of the most hard-headed and realisticthings we can do in the cause of sustainabledevelopment.

While visiting Australia recently I hadthe opportunity to talk with GeraldineMcGuire, who worked for several years as acommunity facilitator for Rio Tinto, themultinational mining company, to helpachieve “responsible closure” of a largeopen-pit gold mine in a remote area inIndonesia. Her responsibility was to helpbuild a “tri-sector partnership” between thecompany, government, and civil society(including environmental advocacy groups)in order to address the issues involved inthe mine closing, most especially the pro-tection of worker rights and sustainablelivelihoods, dam safety, land compensation,and environmental restoration.

McGuire underscored what a pub-lished case study prepared by the NaturalResources Cluster of Business Partners forDevelopment (BPD) also emphasized—thatthree ethically significant components inthe process were of primary practicalimportance in achieving positive outcomes.One was moral trust, the sine qua non ofeverything else. The second was clearagreed-upon social and environmental cri-teria and goals. The third was the writing ofa “charter” for the Mine Steering Com-mittee, the decision-making forum thatbrought together stakeholder participantsin structured dialogue. The charter definedthe purpose of the partnership, the rolesand responsibilities of its members, deci-sion-making principles (decisions were tobe arrived at by consensus in the spirit ofmusyawarah untuk mufakat—the localIndonesian moral tradition), and therequirement that participants use anagreed-upon list of social and environmen-

tal criteria when making their decisions.The point McGuire wanted to drive homewas that without the charter the partnershipwould likely have dissolved in rancor andmisunderstanding. It was essential thatthese constitutive terms of reference beestablished at the outset, because it wouldhave been impossible to establish them inthe course of the negotiations.

One of the most important conversa-tions we can be having right now is aboutwhat ought to be the ethical terms of refer-ence for such charters.

Let me suggest three different sets ofterms for your consideration today. I believethat all three sets are essential if meaningfulpartnerships are to be formed. These arepreliminary thoughts, however, my first cutat this subject. I welcome your thoughts,criticisms, and suggestions.

The first set has to do with our commonmoral situation—the reality we share, theground upon which everything must bebuilt; the second with the process of en-gagement, the procedural norms that shouldgovern it; and the third with the agenda fordiscussion—the ethical issues that we agreebeforehand must be on the table for discus-sion.

Our common moral situationI would like to propose that the follow-

ing description of our common moral situa-tion serve as the fundamental ethical con-text and framework for our engagementwith business and markets:

• We are members of a planetary commu-nity of communities, an evolving inter-dependent community of life. We lovelife, we know we owe everything to it, weare profoundly grateful, and we want


now to return the gift by building a civi-lization that sustains life as long as Earthshall last.

• We acknowledge that each member ofthe community of life, human and other-than-human, has independent dignityand value regardless of its economicworth or use, and that we are so closelyrelated to one another that the welfare ofeach is bound up with the welfare of all.

• As a species engaged in a great evolu-tionary experiment testing whether ornot it is possible to create a form ofsocial life governed by free, morallyreflective, cooperative individuals, weaffirm that we are members of a univer-sal moral community, personally andcollectively responsible for the care andrespect of the community of life, and forthe equitable sharing of the goods of lifeacross present and future generations.

• We have so far largely failed in that res-ponsibility, separating ourselves fromthe community of nature and human-kind, hoarding the goods of life and thefruits of our shared labors, and as aresult are alienated from the ground ofour being and from one another. Somebear much greater culpability than oth-ers, due to profound inequalities ofpower and resources.

• Yet the experiment is not over and wehave hope because we are all born withthe potential for developing moral sensi-tivity, reason, and choice, and becauseour communities and institutions haveat critical times in history demonstratedthe ability to transform themselves andpursue authentic ethical purposes.

• The aim we all share is to place ourimmense capacities for technologicalinnovation and economic production inthe service of a flourishing planet in

which the capacities and rights of eachperson are realized.

This is a thumbnail sketch of the ethi-cal world view that has emerged in recentdecades across international civil society,portions of which are expressed in IUCNdocuments such as the World Charter forNature, Caring for the Earth, and the DraftInternational Covenant for Environmentand Development. The most comprehen-sive and widely endorsed of these declara-tions is the Earth Charter, which affirmsthat “the spirit of human solidarity and kin-ship with all life is strengthened when welive with reverence for the mystery of being,gratitude for the gift of life, and humilityregarding the human place in nature.”

You will also recognize that the morallandscape I have described is far distantfrom the moral ontology assumed by neo-classical economics, the world view thatdominates most public policy today andwhich provides the implicit ethical under-pinning for economic globalization.

As Stephen Marglin, professor of eco-nomics at Harvard University, who initiatedresearch aimed at opening debate withinIUCN on the ethical foundations of publicpolicy, has argued, the view of our commonmoral situation assumed by the discipline ofeconomics is based on assumptions ofhyper-individualism, radical subjectivism,maximization of self-interest, and unlimitedwants, prioritizing the values of efficiency,competitive advantage, and growth. This isan inaccurate picture of reality, and ethical-ly inadequate for formulating sound envi-ronmental and social policy. Marglin’sanalysis builds on the work of progressiveeconomists such as Herman Daly, who, inworks such as For the Common Good: Re-directing the Economy Toward Community,


the Environment, and a Sustainable Future,has sought to resituate our understandingof economic activity in a relational, evolu-tionary, purposive world view, one whichgives support to values such as respect,responsibility, cooperation, and love.

Ethical guidelines for dialogue The second set of ethical terms of ref-

erence that are essential to a productivepartnership between business leaders andconservationists involves the ethical criteriafor the dialogue that must necessarily lie atthe heart of such a relationship.

The Strategy for Enhancing IUCN’sInteraction with the Private Sector sets fortha set of “ethical and practical principles” forguidance. The IUCN program for the peri-od 2005–2008 also does a laudable job ofidentifying some of the most important ofthese criteria (although it does not namethem as “ethical”) in its discussion of rulesof governance. Although there is substantialoverlap, I find the latter to be the most com-prehensive and relevant to our discussionhere. To quote: “IUCN believes that gover-nance should be based on the principles of:

• Transparency—openness in decision-making

• Access to information and justice—accurate, effective and open communi-cation

• Public participation—genuine involve-ment in decision-making

• Coherence—a consistent approach• Subsidiarity—decisions taken at the

lowest level appropriate• Respect for human rights—interwoven

with ‘good’ environmental governance• Accountability—for economic, social

and environmental performance• Rule of law—fair, transparent and con-

sistent enforcement of legal provisions atall levels.”

This is an excellent set of ethical stan-dards for serious engagement and dialoguebetween business, the community, and con-servation advocates. I would not removeone from the list. Let me, however, re-phrase, unpack, or otherwise expand a fewso that their ethical aspect is a bit moreprominent.

Transparency. There is openness indecision-making so that all interested par-ties, including the public at large, are awareof the course of discussion; the economicand other interests of the parties are fullydisclosed; it is made explicit what each isagreeing to, and therefore pledging tohonor; there is no hidden pressure to reachany particular outcome.

Coherence. Each participant in thedialogue makes proposals and offers justifi-cations in terms others can understand andmight reasonably accept; ethical principles,e.g., equity in the climate change debate, areviewed as ends or standards of action aswell as means to facilitate agreement oncourses of action.

Public participation. Each personenters the conversation on a basis of moralequality; there is no privileged position (nogreater virtue, or power, resides with anyparty); each is assumed to have equal capac-ities for ethical reflection and judgment; themembership of the dialogue is truly inclu-sive, not only conservationists and businessleaders, but representatives of the commu-nities affected, labor as well as management;protesting and dissenting voices are notonly tolerated (assuming civility prevails)but sought out for the important moral per-spectives they can offer.

Accountability. Independent (third-


party) ways of measuring performance andoutcomes are built into the process from thebeginning.

It is one thing to outline abstract cri-teria of this sort, and quite another to do thespade work required to ensure they areimplemented. But without the spade work,we risk trafficking in moral platitudes.Ethical seriousness requires that the neces-sary conditions be provided for the criteriato be meaningfully employed and recogni-tion of this fact should also be an importantethical term of reference for our engage-ments.

Let us take participation as an example.Because of distrust, language and culturalbarriers, and other factors, the parties mostaffected by a particular business operationare often not at the table. How would wesecure participation of the villagers whogathered to protest the Thai–Malaysian gaspipeline project because of its impact ontheir beach in Songkhla Chana? DoesIUCN have sufficient contact with the mostmorally energized grassroots movementsand alternative development organizationstrying to address the problems of economicglobalization? One of the principal ingredi-ents in the success of the trisectoral partner-ship at Kelian Mine (described above) wasthat the community and labor participantswere remunerated for the time they devotedto the steering committee meetings. Howcan we bring to the table the particular busi-ness interests that most need to be there? AsAshok Khosla also noted at this Congress, ifwe publicly named and engaged the 120companies responsible for 80% of globalcarbon dioxide emissions in the world, asidentified by the U.N. Framework Conven-tion on Climate Change in 2000, we mightbegin to find effective solutions!

The subjective conditions for success-

ful dialogue and engagement are as impor-tant as the objective ones. These have to dowith the personal moral values and charac-ter of the parties to the dialogue. Althoughsuch matters are typically treated as strictlyprivate affairs, in fact they are not. Our per-sonal values have as much a place as moreutilitarian considerations in policy deci-sions. As reported in the journal Environ-mental Values, when researchers inter-viewed senior policy advisers active in glob-al climate change negotiations, the majorityarticulated deeply held personal environ-mental values, but kept these values sepa-rate from their professional environmentaland policy activities. As one official said,“Personally I’m willing to sacrifice quite alot of my material well being in order to pro-tect the environment ... but as a governmentofficial, of course I’d have a much more bal-anced view....” An important ethical term ofreference will be making sure that partici-pants are encouraged, and have structuredopportunities, to share their personal expe-rience and values, and that they sincerelytry to understand the experience and valuesof others.

Successful dialogue also depends uponthe moral maturity of each of the partici-pants. Such qualities as compassion for thesituation of others; willingness to admiterror, deceit, or wrong-doing; ability tokeep one’s word; or perhaps most difficultof all, what the Buddhists call non-attach-ment to material things, are determiningfactors in the quality of discussion. One ofthe most difficult moral truths to accept isthat, while win–win solutions are always tobe preferred, on most occasions there willbe losses involved, sometimes serious lossesthat might be most accurately named “sacri-fices.” One or more of the parties will needto give up important advantages for the sake


of the common good. We will need to findways to help participants in our engage-ments prepare for the morally difficultchoices they will sometimes need to make.

The agenda for deliberationFinally, I believe there is a set of critical

economic, social, and environmental issuesthat all parties must agree to place on theagenda for explicit and deliberate ethicalreflection and decision. As the list belowwill show, I believe our ethical terms of ref-erence should include good-faith delibera-tions on both the ways in which particulareconomic policies can be improved andhow the system itself should be trans-formed.

Reform of business and market prac-tice. The first set of agenda items are thosewhich we have concentrated upon in thisGlobal Synthesis Workshop, and which ad-vocates of green commerce have sought topromote in a variety of programs and publi-cations.

It is essential that we continue in ourengagement with business to show whyconservation of biodiversity is both goodbusiness and good ethical practice, tostrengthen corporate social responsibility(CSR), pursue investments with the“triple” bottom line of financial return andsocial and environmental results, promotetax and other economic incentives for envi-ronmentally positive investing, encouragesocially responsible investing, build publicmoral support for more effective regulatorymechanisms, create honest markets byincorporating indirect (external) costs ofproviding goods or services into prices,make sure company standards and codes ofconduct respect sustainable thresholds ofnatural systems, and construct new ethical-ly informed indices of economic progress. It

also is essential that we continue to defineand press the crucial ethical principles per-tinent to each economic sector, such asprior informed consent, and legacy obliga-tions in the mining industries.

Ethical analysis of major environ-mental economic issues. A second set ofagenda items has to do with the leading glo-bal environmental issues with significanteconomic components and the ways inwhich ethics can contribute to their resolu-tion. I do not need to tell you that this list islong, and many—including biotechnology;the rights of indigenous peoples; sustain-able use of wild species; health, humanrights and the environment; the definitionof “sustainable development” and its keycomponents such as the precautionaryprinciple—are of direct concern to mem-bers of our IUCN Ethics Specialist Group(ESG). Let us look more closely at two illus-trative examples.

Global climate change is negativelyimpacting the intrinsic, instrumental, andsystemic values of biodiversity throughoutthe planet, and sabotaging attempts to liftthe world’s poorest out of poverty. ESGmember Don Brown will be convening ameeting at the Intergovernmental Panel onClimate Change in Buenos Aires on the eth-ical dimensions of the climate change nego-tiations, pointing out that the figure set forthe absolute ceiling on carbon dioxideemissions is ultimately an ethical judgment,and that questions of equity and the respec-tive responsibilities of wealthy and develop-ing nations hold a vital key to lasting agree-ments.

Security has emerged on the globalagenda as an increasingly urgent geopoliti-cal issue and one that the conservation com-munity quite rightly seeks to show has envi-ronmental as well as economic, social, and


military aspects. No doubt the most neg-lected dimension of the issue, however, isethical. The root causes of violence in theworld are to be found in conflicting world-views and values. Other important con-tributing factors, such as endemic poverty,the spread of deadly armaments, large-scalepopulation movements, ecosystem break-down, new and resurgent communicablediseases, and rising competition over landand other natural resources can often beshown to be due to personal, corporate,national, and international moral failings.To try to address these problems withoutacknowledging moral culpability, or apartfrom ethically inspired efforts at peace-keeping, equalization of living standards,democratic governance, and ecosystemconservation, is futile. The greed and tri-umphalism that dominate American societyat present are primary causes of its failure tocollaborate in the multilateral efforts neces-sary for true international security and thiswill only change when the moral conscienceof the nation, including its business com-munity, is re-awakened.

Economism. If there is to be progresson restructuring the global economy, wemust distinguish between ethically justifiedeconomic development—sustainable devel-opment in the best sense of the term—andwhat is called by Herman Daly the ideologyof “economism”—the belief in unlimitedeconomic growth, unregulated markets,limited government, and the positive bene-fits of consumer culture.

I sometimes have the impression inthese meetings that there is an elephant inthe room and no one is talking about it. Asa citizen of the United States, I can assureyou the elephant is real and quite large. Theideology of economism, and the petroleum-based economy that underwrites it, has

such a tight grip on our society that it is ineffect our secular religion. But not only thatof the United States. As Sulak Sivaraksa,Thailand’s leading spokesperson for en-gaged Buddhism, has said: “Western con-sumerism is the dominant ethic in the worldtoday.”

We must convince our responsiblebusiness partners that this phenomenondeserves a high place on our agenda for dis-cussion. All the CSR, market incentives, sci-entific studies, and dialogues between con-servationists and business representativeswill be of little avail if the ideology ofeconomism remains intact, and if the aggre-gate economic demands on the ecosystemsof the planet continue to accelerate.

This ideology operates at three inter-dependent levels, each of which needs spe-cial analysis. We briefly treated the first inour discussion of the moral ontologyassumed by the discipline of economics, theworld view that dominates most public pol-icy today, and rationalizes the present pat-tern of economic globalization. To showyou just how alive and well this ideology isin the United States, one of the members ofthe University of Chicago “school of eco-nomics” recently argued that if we are toobtain the “marvelous material benefits ofcapitalism” we must submit to competitivemarkets that are “relentless, ruthless,unruly, and irreligious.” This helps explainthe widespread fatalism that economicglobalization in its current form is inevit-able, and that if we are to receive its allegedeconomic benefits we must be willing tomake substantial environmental and socialsacrifices.

The second level is that of corporatepower and influence. The mainstream cor-porate sector broadcasts the ideology ofeconomism and benefits from it. As one


academic analysis of journalism notes, newstoday must “fit” within the “info-tainment”strategy and profit-seeking guidelines of thecorporations which own most major newsmedia. A principal component in the ideol-ogy is that government control of the econ-omy through regulatory law is inefficientand oppressive. When we speak of govern-ments as being too weak to deal with envi-ronmental and social problems we are see-ing a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The third level is that of popular con-sumer culture, based on the widespreadand largely unconscious assumption thatwe have unlimited wants, that the good lifeconsists in the acquisition of ever moremanufactured products and experiences.Can we expect biodiversity to be valued andpreserved when our public spaces are filledwith advertising images that pander to thecrudest material appetites, and that glorify alifestyle of excessive material affluence? Inthe United States today the metaphor ofmarketing pervades and corrupts virtuallyevery facet of public, business and personallife, including attitudes toward the land,defined as investment “real estate.”

We must face this destructive reality inwhich we are all caught up—citizens, con-servationists, politicians, businesses alike—and place it squarely on the agenda for dis-cussion. In Vaclav Havel’s words, “the sys-tem of consumer culture and development”is the “lie” which most of us live, and yet weact as though it were reality; whereas “livingin the truth” is to call it a lie and tackle theimmense cultural challenges and realign-ments of economic and political power nec-essary to change it.

Global corporate governance. I donot see how this can be done unless conser-vationists and enlightened business inter-ests together examine the ethical justifica-

tion for the reigning form of economicorganization, the corporation, especially inregard to the question of internal and exter-nal democratic political governance.

In a very short period of time corpora-tions have grown from small organizationslegally chartered for clear and precise pur-poses and operating under clear stipula-tions, with full shareholder liability, to aglobal economic hegemony, with the samerights and protections as those of individualpersons, plus limited liability, and the legalresponsibility to earn a profit for their own-ers. The corporation is an artificial humancreation and there is no reason to believethat it is the most morally justified form ofeconomic organization that it is possible tocontrive. It is now a very hierarchicallyordered organization, with gross disparitiesbetween levels of remuneration and oppor-tunities for meaningful participation—theopposite of the kind of responsible mutual-ity and equality we try to nurture in a dem-ocratic social order. In what specific ways isit therefore legitimate and justified? Whatother forms of economic organization couldbe more ethically defensible instruments forensuring the well-being of nature andhuman life?

A closely related question, one that isbeing increasingly asked throughout inter-national civil society, is what new forms ofglobal political governance can make eco-nomic organizations—whether corporate orotherwise—more directly accountable tothe citizens of the world. The immenseimpact of transnational corporations makesthis question both urgent and inevitable.

Hope for IUCNI have argued throughout this paper

that reconstructing the global economicsystem will be the primary test of the capac-


ity of the World Conservation Union formoral leadership in the 21st century. Myhope is that IUCN will take this challengeseriously and continue to work to buildconsensus on the ethical terms of referencefor a transformative engagement betweenconservationists, civil society, government,and business.

Fortunately, we are not alone. We canand should link arms with the many per-sons throughout international civil society,in the United Nations and other interna-tional institutions, and most especially

within the progressive business community,who are as desirous as we to find an alterna-tive development path based on ethicalcommerce, just and sustainable communi-ties, and new ways of measuring humanprogress.

To do so would mean keeping faithwith all those who have gone before us inthis organization, and the many millionsmore, who have hoped against hope thatour species would rise to the challenge ofgoverning its economic affairs in such a wayas to honor the gift of life.


Ron Engel, Ethics Specialist Group, IUCN Commission on Environmental Law, and Centerfor Humans and Nature, P.O. Box 717, Beverly Shores, Indiana 46301-0717;[email protected]

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