Free webinar: Guardians and gardeners: Managing wilderness for the 21st century

Guardians and gardeners: Managing wilderness for the twenty-first century

Click RSVP for free registration link. Zoom link will be emailed to you. Not hosted in Meetup app

January 22, 2026
2:00 – 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time

Please join us for a presentation and discussion on wilderness in the 21st century. The 1964 Wilderness Act provides robust protections to landscapes designated as federal wilderness. The National Wilderness Preservation System, which includes 806 wilderness areas and 111 million acres, represents the world’s largest highly protected conservation network. However, a long-standing ethos of nonmanagement—exemplified by the philosophy that managers should be guardians but not gardeners—obscures long legacies of Indigenous stewardship and may not sustain essential wilderness values in a time of unprecedented ecological stressors. Many wildernesses are increasingly subject to complex and compounding unintentional (as well as intentional) human influences.

In this webinar, Dr. Boerigter will present how a guardians and gardeners approach would acknowledge Indigenous influence, recognize contemporary and future environmental challenges, and provide managers the necessary rationale to respond to these complex realities. In the twenty-first century, it may be necessary to carefully, thoughtfully, and compassionately reimagine the dominant wilderness philosophy. Read the full paper: https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biaf141

Also, recordings of webinars already completed are available if you missed them, or want to revisit:

The Guild's YouTube Channel

If you have questions about these events please contact:

Zander Evans

Executive Director

505-983-8992 ext 705

zander@forestguild.org