A few Wilderness Resources for Academics

In addition to reading the International Journal of Wilderness - which:

"...links wilderness professionals, scientists, educators, environmentalists, and interested citizens worldwide with a forum for reporting and discussing wilderness ideas and events; inspirational ideas; planning, management, and allocation strategies; education; research and policy aspects of wilderness stewardship."

Select articles available courtesy of the Wilderness Task Force including:

• Support Is Building for Global Wilderness Conservation
• An Overview of the World Wilderness Congress
• Strengthening Wilderness in South Africa

You may also want to check out the Wilderness Research page (US focused) compiled by the Wilderness Institute at The University of Montana's College of Forestry and Conservation, the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center, and the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute.

They have a handy index of Graduate Research related to Wilderness and here are some highlights of articles that can be found on just one subject close to our hearts:

• Wilderness Education for Youth at Risk: An Interpretive Case Study
• Set outs lessons learnt elsewhere that we are also drawing on for our Turn Around programme.
• Theoretical basis, process, and reported outcomes of Wilderness therapy as an intervention and treatment for problem behaviour in adolescents
  
• "The social importance of wilderness therapy and its emergence as an accepted treatment for more seriously troubled adolescents poses challenges and opportunities for wilderness conservation. Wilderness is being valued for more than just protected biodiversity and recreational opportunity, but also as a healing source for adolescents who are not being reached by traditional therapeutic techniques."
• Youth at Risk in Wilderness
• This paper concludes that when using Wilderness as part of an intervention programme for youth at risk, it is essential that the participants don't feel that they're mandated to take part as it leads to what the study calls 'adverse incidents' - This is of course makes complete sense - put differently, Wilderness only works on the willing and we take that into account in the core design of our Turn Around programme.

The search stretches much further - there are articles about Wilderness in Fine Arts, Folklore, Environmental Sciences, Anthropology, Archaeology, Biology and Botany. You name it.






Here in the UK we are working closely with the University of Essex, as regular readers will know. - You can still watch Jo Peacock (as more than a thousand people have done already) the lead researcher on the project talk about the conclusions reached so far:
- Get out into wilderness and boost your self esteem!: On YouTube / TeacherTube.