Wilderness stewardship in America today and what we can do to improve it

The authors of this article are recently retired wilderness professionals from universities or federal agencies. We were asked to share our observations about how wilderness stewardship is being managed in America today. We based our observations on our many years of combined professional wilderness career experience as managers, trainers, scientists, educators, and other careers. Combined, the authors have worked 308 years generally in natural resources and 236 years in wilderness specifically. All of us have had challenging management or research duties related to wilderness stewardship.