A very personal note from WILD’s President Vance Martin, remembering Sir Laurens van der Post closes this issue of the IJW. Vance retells when he first read “Heart of the Hunter,” and the mesmerizing way in which van der Post was able to capture in a story the “sense and texture of wilderness.” Vance continues on to tell of when he first met van der Post, at the 2nd World Wilderness Congress (Australia 1980), and lead to a 20 year working and learning relationship.
WILD’s President Vance Martin again closes the IJW honoring the passing of pioneers in the international wilderness movement. Nick Steele (South Africa) and Wally O’Grady (Australia) were “like emergent trees in the rainforest canopy, they were guardians over the rest of the forest.” There is also a funny section “Wilderness Lovers Say the Darndest Things,” highlighting comments left on the US Forest Service registration sheets and comment cards
George Wallace and Jim Wurz present the Management of Wildlands and Protected Areas short course at Colorado State University. Each year this program provides 21 Latin American managers with a month long intensive field-based course. Conducted fully in Spanish, this course is for most, their first exposure to the US concept of wilderness. Wayne Freimund and Bill Borrie address the question: “Will IMAX theaters and virtual wilderness of tomorrow reduce our desire for self-sufficiency, or will we have targeted a new way to meet such a need?”
This issue of the IJW offers an article by Kim Crumbo on management of the natural American icon, the Grand Canyon, and the political red-tape involved with its wilderness designation. Wayne Freimund and Lloyd Queen contribute a very interesting article on the “new” technology and widespread use of the internet as a tool for advancing wilderness interests.”
Mamphela Ramhele provides a study of how wilderness in used for healing in South Africa, with an emphasis on WILD’s partner organization The Wilderness Leadership School. He writes, “From time immemorial, the wilderness has been associated with the search for meaning and the need for restoration of interior balance…” This issue includes three great book reviews for “Guardians of the Parks, A History of the National Parks and Conservation Association,” by John C. Miles, “Wild Ideas” by David Rothenberg (ed), and “Troubled Waters: The Fights for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness,” by Kevin Proescholdt.
Roderick Nash, author of “Wilderness and the American Mind,” contributed an article for this IJW, on the implications of the internet on the soul of wilderness. Stating an case much before it was mainstream, Nash encourages readers to step away from technology to experience wilderness. Greg Aplet and Jerry Greenberg provide a written history of The Wilderness Society (US), and an insight into new and changing goals for the organization.