ALWRI welcomes Clare Boerigter

Clare Boerigter is joining ALWRI through the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) as a Wilderness Fire Research Fellow. Clare is a science writer who specializes in wildland fire. Between 2012 and 2015, she served as a wildland firefighter for the U.S. Forest Service for several years. Since then, Clare has written about fire, forestry, environmental research and more for the...

Young woman dressed in outdoor gear, wearing a backpack, stands on a rocky outcrop amidst alpine peaks.

ALWRI welcomes Social Scientist, Jaclyn Rushing

Jaclyn is a social scientist who focuses on outdoor recreation, parks, and protected area management with a specific interest in relevance, diversity, equity, and inclusion. She is energized by relationships with practitioners, stakeholders, and fellow scientists. Jaclyn has worked for municipal, state, and national parks and has a background in basic and applied mixed-methods and...

Late afternoon sunlight illuminates a cliff face in Glacier National Park.

New General Technical Report explores benefits of Wilderness

Over the past six decades, since the Wilderness Act was signed into law, the U.S. population increased significantly, as did its diversity. During that same time, federally designated wilderness also increased—an order of magnitude—from 9 to roughly 112 million acres. Today, more people than ever before are spending time outside. A new General Technical Report, “A Perpetual Flow of Benefits:...

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The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, part of U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS), is an interagency, national research facility located on campus at the University of Montana. The Leopold Institute is the only federal research group in the United States dedicated to development and dissemination of knowledge needed to steward the roughly 112-million acre, U.S. National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS), and similarly protected wild lands. We have a long a long history of conducting and sharing science in support of the NWPS, as well as collaborating with academic, NGO, tribal, community, and other partners within the U.S. and internationally.

In addition to being administered by the RMRS, the Institute’s work is responsive to an Interagency Wilderness Policy Council. This collaboration, defined by an interagency agreement among the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Park Service, and U.S. Geological Survey, and facilitated through an Interagency Wilderness Steering Committee, helps to ensure the institute’s work is relevant to federal wilderness managers.

The Leopold Institute recognizes that wilderness means different things to different people. Our research and research application programs address the breadth of these meanings.

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ALWRI welcomes Clare Boerigter

ALWRI welcomes Social Scientist, Jaclyn Rushing

New General Technical Report explores benefits of Wilderness

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