COLORADO – Stewarding the National Wilderness Preservation System, and our broader public lands, is as much about understanding the connections people have with the land as it is about understanding natural and cultural resources.

I’m Chris Armatas, a research social scientist at the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute. The institute is a national, interagency program administered by the Rocky Mountain Research Station focused on advancing wilderness stewardship through transformational science. I joined this group in March of 2020, and despite working virtually (due to COVID), I’ve developed what I hope are lasting relationships with a broad range of people who are committed to prudent, scientifically informed and inclusive stewardship of our public lands. Working as a scientist for the Forest Service is my dream job, as it provides opportunities to meet, learn about and collaborate with a diversity of people, to be creative and explore interesting topics, to provide science that can improve decision-making and make a difference, and to contribute to a legacy of public lands and wild spaces that benefit all Americans.

My work is centered around the relationship that people have with public lands. More specifically, this work focuses on understanding the way people benefit from, experience and view wild places, recognizing how various changes threaten or enhance human-nature relationships and integrating ways to better incorporate diverse viewpoints into planning and management processes.

One important area of my work right now involves developing approaches to facilitate public engagement in land management and planning processes. That includes supporting agency employees on the ground with understanding, working with, and potentially co-developing approaches to stewarding public lands. Often, public engagement takes place within the context of public meetings, and it can be challenging to capture all that is said or to ensure that people have a chance to express themselves. Many don’t want to speak up in a room full of people.  

My research involves providing agency practitioners with a tool to help engage people public settings: The social vulnerability protocol. This tool includes a hands-on activity where participants can provide public input by prioritizing the public land benefits most important to them, as well drivers of change influential to the flow of these benefits. This work provides a clear and transparent process for gathering public input. Explicitly recognizing diverse viewpoints can provide confidence to those who participated that their viewpoints were heard.  Additionally, it allows those who may be interested in the planning process but unable to attend public meetings to know if their viewpoint was represented in the discussions. The social vulnerability protocol has been applied in multiple planning contexts, including forest plan revision, comprehensive river management planning and project-level planning.

Fundamentally, being a research social scientist for the Forest Service provides the chance to investigate issues connected to diverse landscapes that are important to diverse people and to create processes to ensure that all voices are heard. The job is never complete and the needs are always changing, which can be difficult, but provides endless opportunities to make a difference.