11:06:27 changes and those are use levels or issues with ecological integrity. 11:06:34 But what but we're seeing those things happen very quickly. And, you know, we're thinking from the sense that we're seeing critical impacts across both the visitor experiences, but also across ecological resources at the same time so we think of the mandates 11:07:02 We also can see you know through the pandemic and even leading up into the pandemic that we're having exponential changes in use, and in many places, that's in the day use situation so we're seeing many places that have been found, whether that's through 11:07:17 geo tagging and Instagram or whether that's just from individuals, you know, coming from different population centers and urban areas to utilize resources in a different way. 11:07:29 And as I kind of mentioned before, you know we have issues that come with, you know, global climate change and you see on the slide here that I use the word destabilization instead of change. 11:07:41 I've seen an author use that in the last several years and I've taken a bit of a preference to it in the sense that the things we're seeing with with with climate are destabilizing events, their challenges that while change might be good or bad in either 11:07:54 direction, but we're thinking of climate change much more in these days stabilizing significant changes that are having dramatic impacts that are there. 11:08:05 So as I'm seeing to in the chat Yeah absolutely. I'm happy to share the PowerPoint hard copy or digitally, along with the recording afterwards. 11:08:15 So, you know, why do we think triage may be needed. You know, some of this is coming from our thinking as we look at our traditional planning approaches. 11:08:25 And some of you might have a familiarity or very, very big familiarity with the interagency visitor use management framework so when we look at planning frameworks for for visitor use or any other kind of, you know, systematic public participation planning 11:08:41 process. We're, we're seeing these cycles of how things work. So, you know, on the symbol graphic here from, you know, building a foundation and step one to defining your direction, your goals or objectives and stage two, and identifying strategies to 11:08:58 going out and implementing and monitoring and evaluating that over time it's, it's been a process that's, that's very rigorous that systematic. That is a lot opportunities for public engagement and and we've seen it utilized. 11:09:13 You know, across agencies and across a lot of different settings, a fairly effectively. 11:09:18 But you know what Chris and I are, are pondering and what's kind of came up as we thought about you know how to address some of these critical issues is, is that how does that system work when there's shifts taking place, you know that might be rapid 11:09:33 change over time. That might be a shifting baselines. 11:09:39 And it kind of raises the question of, you know what what point are we in the process, when we're doing some of these things so for example if you, if you think about your typical master planning process or whether it's creating your foundation document 11:09:53 for your park or a general management plan you know when, when we build that foundation in step one, that that's based on the information at that time, and it might be based on a baseline information that we've collected decades before you know if we're 11:10:21 at wilderness designation, and we're looking at the information that takes place. It could be a 1980s baseline it could be a 1990s baseline. And he raises the question of by the by the time we get back to step one and this inner of process this circular 11:10:27 process. 11:10:29 It is it still relevant is, is that foundation the same foundation, by the time we return to it. 11:10:37 And is that still relevant when we've had changes in a emphasis when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion, when it comes to changes in visitation. 11:10:49 So even if managers if we're required to manage for that baseline if our doesn't any legislation or policy directives are still having us do that. 11:11:00 We're kind of trying to pose the question of, well, what happens if that's different. So you can see here on the, on the right. It's my rudimentary but maybe Winter Olympics appropriate graphic of, you know, think of that circle. 11:11:17 You know we're following that green circle, but by the time we get back to, to stage one are we now in the blue circle, or are we now in the red circle, because the baseline, or the foundations have shifted that we, we were in a different place than we 11:11:32 were when these processes began because they take so much more time over that over that time period. 11:11:40 And are they still relevant or the other strategies that we developed in stage three and try to implement in stage four. 11:11:48 Are they still relevant for whatever the new reality is, as we kind of get through there. 11:11:58 Chris, anything you wanted to add on that one. 11:12:01 Yeah Thanks Bob, I was just gonna say. 11:12:04 I think you covered it just this change in the baseline we're not only talking about, or really, you know not only talking about maybe you're not meeting your standards if you, you know, for example, one of the things to protect opportunities for solitude 11:12:16 is is encounters and maybe those standards of just being blown away and now we're back to, to looking at that foundation again we're not only talking about maybe those changes but some of these broader broad scale changes that we've covered at the beginning 11:12:30 and, you know, an increased emphasis on diversity inclusion for example or, or more scholarship around our understanding of some of these concepts like you know opportunities for solid and primitive on confined recreation, for example, and, and, and our 11:12:46 views of those as we start to learn more and more about the visitors or learn more and more about the resource. 11:12:52 We may have to rethink those foundations and perhaps in it, you know, time of rapid change we may be rethinking those more often I mean this pandemic nobody saw coming of course but just what that has done and a lot of these places, particularly those 11:13:07 that are near big population centers. 11:13:11 You know trends were there in terms of increased visitation but they've just been exacerbated so how do you kind of think about those changes and react to them and. 11:13:23 And there may be multiple ways and triage is kind of one of them so that's I think we're going next. 11:13:30 Yeah, Chris so we we kind of wanted to make sure that we were being as clear as we could have, where do we think this concept of triage fits. So we recognize a couple different situations. 11:13:42 There might be additional dimensions to this you know but a very kind of, I think, primary assessment. If we think about some of the situations or actions we might take you know in a wilderness context or natural resource context. 11:13:56 You know that first situation is emergencies we know we recognize that if there's a search and rescue or there's a wildland fire. 11:14:06 Ignition that that we have processes when we need to deal with that fairly quickly. You know, we need to make an assessment and we need to go out. 11:14:15 You know, we have the minimum requirements decision guide in the process for some of these things but in those emergency settings. It's very much an administrative response that they might be very quick. 11:14:27 On the other end of that I'll kind of jump ahead you know you can think of it kind of on, you know the upper and lower bounds, is we have those long term collaborative planning efforts, which we both agree are extremely important. 11:14:41 They're ones that were able to get the best when it comes to participation from our stakeholders and are able to represent the diversity of values and experiences that we want to cross the places that were responsible for. 11:14:57 But we want to acknowledge those those efforts can take a significant amount of time, you know, we're talking in your cycles versus a shorter time periods. 11:15:07 So, what we want to kind of situate triage our way what we would call short term actions and these would be situations where there's critical impacts occurring to the resource or to the visitor experience. 11:15:23 And we need to take action, maybe in as little as a 12 month timeframe, you know we we have a little bit of time for consideration, a little bit of time for execution, but but not a substantial amount of time, you know maybe 1218 months is, is the, the 11:15:40 place we have to operate to maybe address, you know some of these actions so that's really as we start moving into some conversations today and moving into your feedback and your points of view. 11:15:54 That's where we really want to be situated is, you know, what are what would these triage things be, how are we going to handle them when they're, they're not an immediate emergency and they're not something that can take three or five years to address 11:16:07 when we need to have it happen in a much closer timeframe. 11:16:14 Yeah. 11:16:16 Thanks Bob I'll jump in, before I say this slide but bill you mentioned. 11:16:21 And this is kind of informal I think it's a webinar so we can maybe answer some questions as they come but you know they'll have said you can't rethink though, the law though correct the courts have upheld defending wilderness character as a mandate, 11:16:32 and that includes solitude, or primitive and unconfined in the case of recreation and I agree with that i do think that's true you can't rethink the law but I guess we do continue to learn more and more about, you know, in this case the specific concepts 11:16:46 and if we talk around other qualities of wilderness character character are changing perception of those two but you know we're always learning about solitude, or primitive and unconfined. 11:16:58 There's a great IJW article by Egger Batson and hall that talks about whether those are distinct ideas. So that's kind of a fun discussion but also for example solitude is is always evolving and there's a good article in the IJW recently by Lang and Borini 11:17:14 that speaks a bit to that solitude concept and construct and how multi dimensional, and complex it is so I think as we learn more and more about that. 11:17:33 Maybe our disease decision space around protecting that aspect of wilderness character changes, shouts out to IJWA Jaffa, and just back to this slide, I think, the importance of understanding these situations, you know, one of the goals here today and 11:17:46 this is kind of, you know, almost a workshop in some ways thinking through with with wilderness of fuzziness and managers on the call, but kind of figuring out where these boundaries are for number two and, and certainly the, the emergencies may be may 11:18:02 be fairly clear where you're as a line officer for somebody in charge of administering wellness you might not really talk to many people about that decision you might get that call or, or get that issue come across your desk and you act fairly quickly, 11:18:16 whereas these long term collaborative planning efforts. I think there's more and more consideration about undertaking them, and of course they're, they're really long and arduous and if you take a collaborative approach where you're bringing in a lot 11:18:30 of, you know, NGOs and non governmental partners and maybe a shared stewardship approach, trying to understand when that's most appropriate. 11:18:42 And, you know, when you can get away with or when you feel the need to just manage what's in front of you. That's part of what I think we're trying to do here today. 11:18:51 Not only to help managers make that decision but also to help in that communication with the public. I think that's really important. 11:18:57 They might ask, Hey, why are you doing that some, you know, right now, why aren't we being, you know, kind of engaged, about this decision and so some of what we want to do is kind of try to parse the those may be bigger long term planning decisions from 11:19:11 from some shorter term actions when you're just trying to deal with the issues in front of you on a day to day. 11:19:20 I think you know dad dress one the other question Steve you know yet. Steve as a really good question about the know is this being reactive and or how does it fit with there being a proactive part of it. 11:19:31 I think as we continue to have the dialogue today. Chris and I definitely believe that, you know, triage actions versus long term planning aren't going to be separate. 11:19:41 You know that they're going to be things that are going to work in tandem to one another. 11:19:45 But we've, I think we've felt like we really wanted to dive into this. 11:19:52 In the things that you would haven't been able to be proactive about the things, you know, a pandemic or day us that changed because of something you weren't predicting it one of the things I talked about one of my classes as we discussed some of the 11:20:07 different natural areas in the United States where the minute, it becomes popular on Instagram, and everyone has the geospatial location of it. You know you got places that had a small dirt trail that now have to have facilities and toilets and things 11:20:22 and, and the planning process to to work from that point forward. I think yes can be very proactive and can be very beneficial. But are we giving everybody enough tools in the short term to quickly react and again, We'll talk more also is are those bad 11:20:39 dads are those status quo things or are they things that can be a little more visionary in what we want to do. 11:20:47 So, again, that's the, that's what we're hoping we're going to be able to get through today in kind of the discussion. 11:20:55 So, what we'd like to do now is put everyone into some groups here, and we want to think about, you know, in this part of the of the session really, when these short term actions or triage might be needed. 11:21:12 We'll, we'll talk a little bit about what those actions are, and I'll get a little bit, or start defining some of the options that might be there. But at this point in the discussion, we really want to focus on on the timing aspect of it of Can Can you 11:21:26 think of scenarios where can you think of examples of of when a short term action might be needed when we when we need to go act and what it needs to, to be thinking of those types of things. 11:21:40 So, um, when we do put you into a group, you know, organizational wise, if somebody is willing to kind of, you know, help facilitate that discussion a little bit, and maybe have a recorder who takes a little bit of notes. 11:21:57 Well, we'll come back, and then revisit as a whole group and kind of share some of those dialogue that was there to make sure we can kind of get it on the recording as those things happen. 11:22:09 So I'll stop sharing here quick and assign some groups I see a few folks will be leaving shortly so don't want to be in a group so we can keep you in the main group with us, and we'll give you probably about I'd say seven minutes or so, just to kind of 11:22:23 get that discussion going. As as much as possible. 11:22:40 So we'll open the rooms, you should get sent to those, and we'll come back at about. 11:22:46 Let's say 230 or so to talk to the whole group. 11:31:05 That, that I don't know of, when it comes to view 11:31:05 it. 11:30:59 Park Service and Forest Service tend to get a lot of us. I know Fish and Wildlife tried a lot more lately. Yeah. 11:31:03 Well she may bring it up. Okay. 11:31:08 I'll just say it everywhere. 11:31:14 Go ahead, Judy. 11:31:16 Thanks, I'll just say it's a clickable. I put a link to a report that to a commissioned in the comments, and it's about impacts and management of outdoor recreation is focused on the Colorado Plateau, but it's really applicable everywhere, it's, you know, 11:31:38 the Colorado Plateau has been very sensitive resources that may be. 11:31:43 We were in a group with some folks from back east maybe not quite the same sensitivity levels there but different. 11:31:51 But I think it's very applicable everywhere and it really talks talks about the impacts as well as the some management recommendations particularly protecting back country areas for a wilderness values back country values wildlife, and then focusing development 11:32:13 in front country areas, and how, which actually surprised me that the initial the initial impact of building trails like building infrastructure and trails and trail heads is where you're going to see the most impact where you have a front country area, 11:32:28 and maybe it's overcrowded expanding that area hardening that area is actually going to have much less of an impact overall than when I call what the agencies are doing here is a game of whack a mole right they're like trying to like hit everything over 11:32:44 the head and make it go away but it's not working and they're trying to. It's a dispersal approach versus a confined approach. 11:32:54 And so, this report really focuses on that, that the dispersal approach is really not working, it's going to impact that country and wilderness values. 11:33:05 So, the link is there it's on our website. Anyone wants it. 11:33:10 Yeah, Gee, thanks for thanks for sharing that appreciate that and I think that matches a lot with, you know, we were, we were talking a little bit about wreck ecology earlier and the stuff that Jeff Marion's done and Jeremy wimpy and David Cole I think 11:33:22 a lot of that's all feeding into the. 11:33:26 This. 11:33:26 This deliberateness and what we have to maybe do in these circumstances in its kind of the things that are happening in that sense. 11:33:34 Alright so now that we're all back you know thank you everyone for jumping into that and and engaging. Is there any one of the recorders or nominated representatives from one of the breakout groups that would like to share a little bit of what their group 11:33:49 was discussing. 11:33:55 Well I was asked to so I will. 11:33:59 I was in group for. 11:34:03 And, I mean I started out the discussion with just sharing that the triage approach to me applies in this section of time that's between anecdotal and measurable. 11:34:18 And I gave an example Biggie if I'd be curious if anybody from Colorado was actually on here could maybe tell tell whether the examples, bad or not but one example we talked about was like conundrum hot springs like in Maroon bells you go from the anecdotal 11:34:33 of man, it seems like every time I go there there's just a ton of people in the hot springs to the measurable which is elevated to dangerous levels fecal coliform in the hot spring itself. 11:34:44 So there was that's a triage moment right like you've almost instantly gone from anecdotal to a measurable impact. 11:34:53 And then there was a great example I'm sad to hear that. The Sleeping Bear dunes that Mr. Cooley adult has shown up in Michigan, much like it has up and down the eastern seaboard of that. 11:35:04 In that moment of triage where we could have saved some of the hemlocks in the southeast but any delay led to the loss of you know 300 400 year old trees. 11:35:15 But any rough to treat would have been stepping on the wilderness acts. 11:35:20 Right. So, just sort of I think that's sort of what we were exploring is the triage approach of lives in that space when we start to go from anecdotal to measurable. 11:35:34 And please anybody else from group for add anything I missed. 11:35:56 I'm not from group form from group to, and I took notes so keep me honest on it, fellow group to people. But 11:35:55 the question I believe was when is it appropriate to implement triage, and the first example that we had was one of wildland fire cutting off access to a good chunk of your trail network. 11:36:14 And therefore, all of a sudden concentrating visit visitors into a smaller area, and along that that same line. 11:36:27 Another example was sharing are collecting data on Solitude by using Canada visitor intercept approach, and it's indicating really really high use. 11:36:44 But now what. 11:36:47 And what do you do, and how do you translate that data into a management action, which then took us off task a little bit and we talked about solutions and some ideas about trail heads stewards I believe they were called almost like greeters at the at 11:37:07 trailhead that provide information about wilderness and leave no trace to people as they enter the wilderness. 11:37:17 And I believe it's Dolly sides that's implementing that and kind of redirecting people who are overwhelmingly naive about what wilderness means in terms of an experience, away from wilderness into more appropriate recreational settings for their expectations. 11:37:37 I think that's all we talked about other group to folks. 11:37:44 Thanks for that eight hours the note taker for broad group group one and I guess Kate, you didn't really veer off topic because that's where we're going next. 11:37:54 So, I'll be excited to kind of hear you know yeah what do we, what are some actions that might be suitable in these triage contexts and and Bill I really, I was really interested that that idea from anecdotal the measurable that I think that's really 11:38:08 neat because it really does make you think to me anyway that what I thought about was, As you gave that hemlock example like something that came up in our group was this idea of, you know, getting shifting the cultural view that we actually don't do this 11:38:26 triage you know how do we get to a point where we accept this Anthropocene is a reality. And that, you know, maybe we need a cultural shift in thinking about some of these changes but managing hemlock for example or something like species management or 11:38:42 or assisted migration which of course is, you know, those are very controversial topics in the context of of traveling and controlling nature but the fact that it is happening so quickly, is you know initially I was thinking well that's a long term but 11:38:57 the long term planning problem the species migration for example would be a long term planning discussion and problem but we do find ourselves in this place where we might not have that. 11:39:07 That time, which is pretty shocking and just kind of get you thinking about it a little bit differently. 11:39:14 But our group, kind of talked about. 11:39:18 We didn't get too many examples I think we talked more about 11:39:23 kind of the fact that we are experiencing these changes so quickly, climate change, experiencing visitor use change, which, you know, you can't ignore either And so getting to this acceptance I guess that you can't save everything. 11:39:40 And so there's this active management, versus a adaptation discussion and, and there was a good point them towards the end about social change is happening just as fast, a lot of times we'll go to this ecological change whether that's, you know, for example, 11:39:56 species or, or the impacts from use, whereas there's other social changes happening very quickly and one of the examples was, was a, you know, push to refocus on indigenous issues. 11:40:07 I think we've you know seen a lot of that discussion lately and, and that may have us rethinking how we do both short and long term planning processes so that's just a quick overview and again we didn't get into kind of very specific examples but group 11:40:23 one, let me know. 11:40:26 I represented that incorrectly or, or if there's anyone at. 11:40:30 Yeah, well I'll just volunteer yeah I think you did and I just want to emphasize that we really need to recognize that the social our, our minds and bodies will be evolving at the same rate as the environment and so the question is, and we it's not too 11:40:45 early to begin thinking of this. 11:40:48 early to begin thinking of this, but how might our computer brain inner integrated cyber descendants be different in their recreational interests, and as well as our environmental ethics and we ought to be thinking about this because it's not that we're 11:41:01 just talking about a few generations ahead, should we be developing scenarios for what the future is predict. And for many it's an ever more regimented managed society and world and, therefore, maybe we should be thinking about wildness being increasingly 11:41:20 important and rare. And we ought to have scenarios that focus on perpetuating that. 11:41:31 Thank you, Roger yeah appreciate those are, you know, great thoughts, I saw the chat Kevin you have the notes for group three. 11:41:40 Yes. 11:41:42 We were understanding we were trying to make a list of scenarios where you might have this compressed time frame decision cycles, which is what we understood triage to be aiming at the way you're using the word, and we had similar ones you'd already suggested 11:41:57 forest fires pandemic storm events. Also, all kinds of things that can come out of that. 11:42:07 Then Then Emergency Management status search and rescue stuff. Social media blitzes that happened when somebody shares a picture of a bunch of flowers. 11:42:16 But then we started getting into some new stuff, talked about examples with parking, like if there's some sort of parking crisis where there's not enough room and people are all over the place, trying to find access and then maybe the land managers are 11:42:29 trying to put fixes in place or not. 11:42:34 We mentioned urban proximity as being just a generic backdrop for who knows what, there's just so much energy right there waiting to get involved in the wild space on a whim. 11:42:47 And then we started getting into more subtle things. One of them was. 11:42:54 We've talked in here so far in the call about the difference between proactive and reactive. 11:43:00 But we talked about that, that knowledge gap and that happens there in that moment where perhaps in a search and rescue scenario, where a proactive policies in place around the measures to be used, where they're not machines can come into to be involved 11:43:17 there, but in that moment the person that made up policy is not there. You know, there's just the folks on the ground, there's a kind of a knowledge gap that creates this. 11:43:28 these these short term reactionary decision cycles. 11:43:32 That was our seven minutes. 11:43:36 Great. Thank you, Kevin. Thank you, everybody. i think that's some great thoughts and information in because some of the things that that we want to think about so I'm going to keep us moving forward. 11:43:50 I'm going to turn it over here to Chris he's going to kind of take us to the next spot of of where we want to go with things. 11:43:56 Okay. Thanks, Bob, and as I kind of alluded to earlier and I think some of the groups maybe started going there as kind of this next step of deciding okay what can you do in in triage scenarios and we, and some other conversations I've been having kind 11:44:13 of thinking of this as kind of a little D decision space if you will and so trying to understand where are the opportunities and barriers to making changes on the ground, within the context of of some tree is setting and so we're going to get to an example 11:44:31 here in a minute that, that we're going to think about. But then, or that I'll explain and then as a group breakout maybe we can go back into just kind of brainstorming broadly about various triage actions that may be suitable. 11:44:43 But I kind of want to return this idea of when triage is, you know, something that is relevant, the short term, kind of management, maybe reaction to some issue and, and we heard you know some of these changes in Reese critical resource impacts to the 11:45:03 ecosystem or to the social experience. 11:45:07 The example just given now about parking, you know, I think that's another one like those limiting attributes if you think about them that way within the visitor use capacity idea or kind of busting at the seams might be another example. 11:45:20 But I think there's also an opportunity there right like there's clearly we. 11:45:28 It's not always a bad thing that there's increased visitation or that people are using the spaces where that's part of the Act is, is to support recreation and people's enjoyment of those spaces, to an extent of course. 11:45:43 And so I just, you know, to give an example, we're going to think about Alpine lakes a little bit in this lightning talk and then we'll do some breakout discussion which is outside of Seattle, depending which side you go to it's a couple hours away. 11:45:56 And they're seeing over the last many years exploding use, and a lot of resource impacts and one will focus in on a minute as human waste but we're talking about. 11:46:09 Lots of instances of human waste maybe 1500 barrels of human waste or toilet paper florets a year. 11:46:18 A lot of degradation of, You know a lot of social trails, a lot of trampling have little vegetation particularly once you get up into the higher area. 11:46:29 Thanks Bob of kind of the corn champions area if you will. 11:46:34 And so those are, you know, there's a variety of ways you can can kind of manage for those in some of the ways is tried to add some kind of died hikers to stay on the trail for example you know those are kind of like, take away some of that self reliance 11:46:50 maybe they're kind of like little whether their confidence sticks or Karen's those types of things to try to keep people off the off the turf and off the delicate plants doesn't always work that well. 11:47:02 But one triage action you know as we think about visitor use exploding and it creates all of these impacts, and you can start to pull that apart and that could be again like I was just talking about trampling upon lakes to seeing, you know maybe trampling 11:47:17 of, of the, of the badge. 11:47:20 They've got mountain goats up there that are increasingly seems habituated, they follow hikers around, to, to, to lick their p, for example of assault from that those, you know, we can talk about whether or not that's a triage situation and you start 11:47:34 thinking about what could you actually do with those that issue in the goats. 11:47:38 about what could you actually do with those that issue in the goats. But when they're dealing with two is human waste and the encampments and like I said there's kind of 1500 a year almost at this stage burials, and that's leading the other issues like it's pulling you know Rangers away from their other 11:47:53 duties, leading to, you know, burn out I think can kind of low morale. 11:47:59 And it you know some of it may be the result of of that use there's a lot of new users out there, people who are maybe new to back country travel and wilderness hiking and camping and and that's where I want to get back I kind of this opportunity right 11:48:14 there's these new users Alpine lakes, is experiencing some of these issues but it's also among the most diverse population of users I've ever experienced just anecdotally, we can measure that bill for sure but like when you're out there. 11:48:29 You see all ages from kids to, you know, pretty older folks wiser folks who are out there and their way out in the back country. 11:48:38 People from clearly from different cultural backgrounds and and ethnic backgrounds and so there is an opportunity there to get new and different people out into our public lands and so if you think really hard on that. 11:48:54 But as we come back to this human waste idea. 11:49:06 Part of what I'd like to think about I guess in this breakout group is not Maybe, maybe not just this example if others have better examples that they're more familiar with and can we can think about those. 11:49:08 But those are toilet boxes and so those cases this is one way that this has been dealt with. 11:49:15 Although the the use of toilets in the Champions I think it's been there for a pretty long time. 11:49:21 But even with these toilets and so there is someone, correct me on the numbers whose. I think it's about 30 toilet stops on the corn Chapman's area which is about a 30 mile or even last 20 mile loop. 11:49:37 And so, You know you're getting toilet potential. 11:49:42 less than every mile. 11:49:44 You can find a toilet. And, you know, they're overflowing they often kinds of kind of fly in and get them out of there. They're running out of places to dig pits. 11:49:54 For example, and so they use these vault toilets as you're looking at here. 11:49:58 And oftentimes they're burying human waste that's within you know walking distance near these toilets so it's not like people don't know they're there they know they're there, there may be uncomfortable using them, or they you know yet. 11:50:13 uncomfortable because they maybe aren't experienced or, or they just think it's grocer or whatever. 11:50:19 But that's an example of kind of how you can start to manage it but despite even having these opportunities to concentrate where human race goes, they're still bearing 1500 a year for example and so how do we, in this case, think of triage exact you know 11:50:38 how can maybe a long term planning process, leveraging other funds and getting, I don't know, some other technological solutions, maybe, which can be very expensive and maybe the environment here and now Pilates doesn't really allow for it. 11:50:55 How do you kind of react maybe in the next couple use seasons is use, they use continues to increase. 11:51:04 To address this issue. And so this was one thing I was thinking we could think about in our breakout groups but we could also, again, not, not rigid there. 11:51:13 So if people have another example they'd like to talk about that's cool too but really, in this breakout Bob if there's anything you want to add to what I just said. 11:51:24 Hop on in but I guess our, our main goal here is what country what tree as actions can you think about so taking these situations. Now what do you do about it, and the kind of prime that pump what are the barriers are authority that exists right there 11:51:36 might be here this idea that like managing hemlocks or managing, you know, large scale wildlife issues might be a long term planning thing that you have to go back to a plan, it's, you know, there's the actor rubbing up against so you may be can't do 11:51:51 anything in your eyes. 11:51:54 Costs are obviously potential barrier to acting in the short term, but that's kind of what we're interested in talking about potential actions and then I guess it's almost like what's the decision space and then what's the feasibility of that decision 11:52:08 space based on these, you know barriers or authority. 11:52:14 Anything that but yeah i think that's that's spot on Chris just those you know the kind of game that list of what tools do you already have in the toolkit and maybe it's using them more effectively are using them more deliberately but try to get a list 11:52:27 of those of those actions is kind of what we're getting at. 11:52:30 With this session so we'll probably go right to three o'clock here. We'll shoot you up to the breakout rooms again and I think it's going to put you in the same groups. 11:52:41 One more time, so we'll send you off and we'll talk to you all in about eight minutes. 11:54:55 Do we need to move folks that aren't that haven't moved themselves 11:55:04 ready I think I got anyone who was not assigned to came in after the first session, they all got allocated. Okay. 11:55:12 I'm guessing the remaining folks here by just be away from their computer right now so the the notification to join their group they must have just missed it. 11:55:23 Yeah, I've got. 11:55:25 I've got to repair man here he's making a lot of noise in the background so I'm not going to disrupt the group with all that going on. 11:55:32 No worries. Yeah, there's times like that where I wish I had a completely like soundproof room in the building here at the offices because usually they'll be someone that working on our building or outside right in the middle of the call. 11:55:48 Yeah, yeah. 11:55:48 Okay. So originally it said 90 minutes for the session but I heard you mentioned three o'clock so do you need two hours you think, I think, I think 90 still going to be great. 11:56:00 When we come back, you know, we'll probably talk for 510 minutes with the group's Chris and I only have, you know, two more slides and then we can kind of use the remaining 10 minutes for discussion so I think we're on pace for, you know, being at the 11:56:13 bottom of the hour or great so another half hour we should be in good shape I think people want to stick on if we go a little long, that's great, but we want to yeah won't be missing anything if they gotta jump off. 11:56:25 That sounds fine. 11:56:29 That's totally fine. 11:56:32 I hope you'll get some good trail Ambassador information day from full webinar. Thanks, thanks for the link to sue and their site that's great. 11:56:43 And then Lauren, just wrote to me on the side, and we'll talk about it he's left lnt and is now in a private consulting. So, yes, to know that I think is what our SG know his name. 11:56:58 No. 11:57:12 I thought it was his own own consulting firm but I'm not hundred percent sure I've started my own consultancy and he gives he gives a website and an email, had a great 21 year run with l&t, 11:57:16 sir. 11:57:19 I was noticing also the very interesting question from what will Rubens who is going to have to leave or may have left. But triage thinking in terms of wilderness character, as opposed to thinking about triage in terms of areas is intriguing. 11:57:46 Yeah definitely thinks you know some of the things that he's saying to her it's very interesting in the sense of, it's, you know, we used to maybe have natural versus untrammeled as our character qualities that are always kind of butting heads, but the 11:57:59 the recreation question of the amount of emphasis and energy into managing recreation and, you know, and again the unconfined part of it i think is going to continue to be the elephant in the room, you know Is it is it taking so much space to deal with 11:58:16 that now compared to those other types of things. 11:58:25 And as always, it seems as though the Broadwater has communities unnecessarily speaking out of both sides of its mouth on this welcoming everyone and trying to reduce the numbers. 11:58:41 Me, I think you have diminishing or not diminishing but competing competing values you know the the. 11:58:50 You want to have as many advocates and as many champions as you can in the room, and how, how do you do that and and May when maintain I guess consensus on with those shared values are at the same time. 11:59:04 And as a volunteer I was thinking about education first, but that's only a small part of the answer. 11:59:11 Exactly, yeah. 11:59:16 We'll hit the claws Breakout Room button here and get them coming back here in a minute. 12:00:29 Welcome back everybody and thanks again for the time and the and the discussions and the groups. 12:00:36 Again will kind of open up if any of the representatives of groups one through four want to share some of the actions. Some of these potential maybe triage actions that they were discussing in their group. 12:00:54 I can go for group one. 12:00:58 Um, you know we talked a lot about messaging, I guess as being as being kind of a short term transaction and one of the, you know, among the barriers, my notes here that we really don't know what most effectively motivates appropriate behavior and, and 12:01:21 this isn't a representative group all of these folks here on this call, are more educated on the topic than others, obviously. And so, maybe not being effective and the best messaging and dealing with these problems so the you know that's a barrier. 12:01:29 And another barrier was how people don't really take the time to stop and read a board you know if it's on a kiosk message board. 12:01:35 So how do we get the message out to the public before they show up. And so really it's about that technique that the messaging and what the messages to be on there's a lot of barriers to both of those. 12:01:46 And there's a lot of barriers to both of those. But an interesting messaging idea was having trail ambassadors be available on video chat, that's not something that's been applied but it was an idea, and something that's being a thought of that you could do maybe ahead of time while you're planning 12:01:59 your trip. 12:02:01 Getting in touch with somebody and having a virtual session about you know what you need to know and how to prepare. Another idea is just, you know, blue bag options swag bag type options that are sitting there right next to the dog poop bags for example. 12:02:17 And then another one that would be seemingly doable would be requiring of watching the video so back to the messaging, watching a video before you get your permit to go into the wilderness. 12:02:29 And those are just a few ideas we had. 12:02:36 Now, I'll speak for group for, you know, we talked about in a triage scenario, the decision was to bring in these vault toilets. 12:02:54 But in a longer term scenario. 12:02:50 Actually preserving natural conditions by reducing primitive and unconfined by actually putting in a permit process to limit the number of humans, so the transaction was okay let's deal with human waste, but the long term action is going to be how are 12:03:04 we going to deal with the volume of humans and its impact on natural function. 12:03:10 And, you know, sort of that tension that I think is what's beautiful about the act is the tension between the characters makes us think all the time right in this case you'd have to make that you'd have to do the transaction, which is a little bit of 12:03:24 a no brainer. But then, but even the nuance within that Kate brought up that you know in the minimum requirements analysis because I think you guys said that they're flying those canisters out, you know, was stock use considered for for the removal of 12:03:39 those canisters every fall and for packing them in every spring. So that's some of the stuff we talked about 12:03:50 our group. 12:03:54 And also talked a lot about education and kind of that. 12:03:58 Very similar to what Chris was saying messaging being targeted and very specific to the wilderness so not just generally about, you know, here's an appropriate way to recreate, but more specifically here's exactly what's going on in this wilderness that 12:04:18 requires us to behave in this way, and go in these places. 12:04:24 And then the other thing was just permitting and as a reaction to something that might come up in a, in a triage situation and of course there are barriers to getting that put in place. 12:04:42 And another another barrier is kind of jurisdictional authority so when you're working on behalf of an agency as a, as a stewardship group, and you don't really have the authority to follow up on what you're saying, that can be a barrier. 12:05:02 If your agency doesn't have the same motivation maybe that you do, or see the problem as important, or maybe just doesn't have the funding. 12:05:13 And then sometimes these problems that are acute 12:05:19 can prompt cool clever solutions and because they're sort of almost energizing. 12:05:26 But once they, in, tell me if I'm getting this wrong, but when they keep happening and become a more chronic one one emergency after another, can almost. 12:05:47 This is Dave Johnston to just to amplify one of those points is that a lot of times A, not an NGO storage organizations such as us and I think many of you are may identify needs and identify that they, they do need timely action, but the agency that you're 12:06:09 working with it that actually has the authority to implement those things or needs to at minimum sign off on them either doesn't have the motivation or probably more commonly they don't have the resources to implement those whether they be you know funding 12:06:26 the resources or the ability to go through the, the column bureaucratic steps needed to authorize and and develop prescriptions to for particular problems that come up so there's a one of the barriers is that gap between what we see on the ground, and 12:06:49 the ability of those who have the authority to respond appropriately and in a timely manner. 12:07:08 Because group three Are you the only one we didn't hear from. 12:07:27 And if it doesn't have anything additional that's, that's okay. I think as we kind of, you know, keep things moving for I think there's a lot of interesting things there we just heard you know, and looking in the chat to you know ben, talking about permits 12:07:41 having their place and definitely the situations that create, you know, different issues with with access and equity. 12:07:51 One of those one of those things I think of that, you know, we've seen maybe on the National Park side of things, recently there's been changes to the shuttle system in Zion National Park, or I personally as a family got to experience the time entry permit 12:08:06 permit system for Rocky Mountain National Park you know this August, and you know what it's like to be sitting at baggage claim trying to refresh your phone to get a day entry permit the next day, when you weren't in didn't have the ability to plan ahead 12:08:22 ahead to make some of those things. So, I think we are seeing some of those, those challenges that are that are kind of occurring with that as we as we look at these difficult issues. 12:08:34 You know where we kind of want to wrap up with and just have a couple ideas and then have the remaining you know 20 minutes to further have kind of an open conversation. 12:08:45 Chris and I want to acknowledge that definitely there is this tension between long term and short term strategies that we recognize that there there is going to be difficulties there, and we've used also the terminology of little D or Big D decisions, 12:09:02 you know, implementing a day use permit system is a big decision and comes with a large amount of discourse and administrative discussions policy public participation all those things are going to come in that in that context. 12:09:19 But, you know, we think that we if we can find a way to to create that foundation of long term collaborative planning that those foundations that do give us those proactive opportunities that some of these little decisions are the short term triage actions 12:09:37 might bridge those gaps, they might be those things where, when we when we do need to make something happen really quickly. Maybe we do have the authority to foreclosure or for changing a permit system, or changing requirements for entry and access. 12:09:57 If those are appropriate if those match with the values of the location and the place and and some of those things that are happening there. 12:10:06 Christie anything you want to add before we go, the last one. 12:10:10 No, no, I think you captured it yeah I think it's, it's, you know, doing doing this triage in the short term while while not spending good you know your goodwill or damaging relationships that you that you need for for that long term collaborative planning 12:10:28 process and and being able to clearly articulate, you know, where the little diverse The Big D, at least your perception right we did that because we see that as a little, little decision, the decision. 12:10:41 And we understand we need a more long term process to get at these bigger decisions, I think is really important and, and the again the opportunities I think yeah Ben you got at it it says permits can be, you know, potentially have issues with equity 12:10:58 and access and. 12:11:01 And that was kind of what I was trying to get to specifically without pine lakes meeting there's just so so many different types of folks out there, and and that's a really neat thing going on. 12:11:12 And so how do you kind of, you know, balance those two things like David Alexander's idea about the give a hoot campaign that's good moral suasion. 12:11:25 Hey guys can ask a quick question. 12:11:28 or share a thought. And Tom court. 12:11:31 Well, I'm just one thing I'm thinking about, because there's just so many such great topic and so it's awesome to see such great turnout to this. 12:11:41 But Bob would you brought up, collaboration, we I think we tend to think about collaborative processes at a local level, but I have felt lately that what we need as a collaborative process for the basketball is preservation system at a national level 12:11:54 to tackle these issues, there's a whole, there's a whole lot of conversations going on like. 12:11:59 We certainly have conversations about the bob Marshall wilderness complex within the, you know, the group that manages the bob Marshall wilderness complex three national forests and five districts and us as an NGO partner. 12:12:12 And there's certainly the regional program managers for the Forest Service meet weekly in the sort of topics come up. 12:12:18 But it seems like there should almost be a collaborative process at a national level to think about all of these things the explosion of views and the human impacts and then the global system change and climate and how it's impacting wilderness systems. 12:12:36 And, and the rectifying the wilderness idea, and therefore the wilderness preservation system and a 21st century context when we think about access and equity and those sort of things and it feels like we need them. 12:12:51 I hate to use the term blue ribbon panel. 12:12:53 But like this conversation should be going on on a regular if not weekly, monthly, and you can bring in the local and acute specific examples, but just the overall pressures that this hundred and 13 million acres system is facing that I'm afraid if we 12:13:21 all these pressures we're just going to let it either deteriorate, or somebody to finally say the idea, somebody is going to get the righty or the say the idea is no longer valid idea which of course I'll go to my grave fighting but just something to 12:13:24 think about the, the, this collaborative process on the system so you can like it needs to step up to national scale. 12:13:32 Yeah. If I could just respond real quick I think that's a, the two really good points. The first one, just kind of touched on the end there is that these acute examples really are. 12:13:42 We kind of picked it, you know, our representative of the issues facing areas across the country like this isn't, certainly not unique to the Alpine lakes. 12:13:53 It just happened to be one that we've been thinking about a little bit lately. And so these ideas apply across I think and I really do like the idea of a national scale collaborative process and I think, you know, and another project I'm working on within 12:14:05 the public you setting is like these, this distinction between. 12:14:09 Excuse me. Communities of place versus communities of interest you know we have these communities of place which may be around a specific area. But more and more we're seeing communities of interest are growing in terms, you know, and they may be affinity 12:14:25 groups, you know like, outdoor Afro for example and they may have a seat at the table, across, you know, the whole kind of country they're less place focused and maybe more issue oriented and so that's just kind of a, a thought how we could somehow get 12:14:39 those various communities of interest. 12:14:43 You know to coalesce can be pretty cool. I don't know what that. 12:14:49 Thanks for responding Chris. 12:14:54 Yeah, thanks Billy, I think, you know, probably too We don't maybe we'll just kind of leave this last slide up here for a few moments and then, you know, we'll go back to everyone and chatting as a whole, you know, I think that was, if we look at the 12:15:07 evolution of where this talk was going from when we were discussing about doing it at the National builders workshop to where Chris and I got now, you know, I'll admit I was probably naively optimistic. 12:15:20 Six months ago where the idea of an urban proximate wilderness toolkit will figure out the way to to address, urban proximate use and how to best protect wilderness interview approximate areas, was it was a bit of a grand idea, and I think that's always 12:15:35 the goal. 12:15:37 But, but without that long larger dialogue. Are we just kind of, you know, shooting in the dark, or are we just trying to kind of again like we've said playing whack a mole or just putting out the small little fires, without having a larger strategy of 12:15:52 what we need to do, and that's I think what what really evolved in this idea of triage of, you know, can we can we as a community acknowledge that we've seen these problems we've experienced problems like this in different decades and in different contexts. 12:16:08 But have we reached a new era where there's different ways we maybe need to go approach it maybe it is some of the same techniques we've used. It's just being more efficient or, or more effective, whether that's through indirect action like education 12:16:23 and outreach and community engagement. But, you know, other places where we're seeing a larger need for those direct kind of actions that are going to take place, and knowing that if we're going to take those actions. 12:16:39 It's going to have long term effects, it's going to have a difference in our relationship with our partners and the larger community, and maybe a national global community. 12:16:49 But, you know, those are things that we all continue to value over time so you know trying to find the best way forward is partly You know what, we kind of hoped to talk about today as we kind of went through things. 12:17:03 So Chris any other things before we open it up for other comments and discussion. 12:17:11 No, I think that's it. That's a good time to wrap up. Bye bye. There's some comments in the chat that same to see some discussion about a feasibility of pack stock in this one example we were talking about, and Judy I I'm interested maybe to hear a little 12:17:27 more about your comment about equitable access I think that's an interesting comment there, if there's any follow up but, no nothing. 12:17:37 Sorry What did you want What did I just I thought I appreciate your comment in the chat I thought it was interesting and wasn't sure if there was any other, 12:17:49 you know, the idea of opening these areas to development, you mean beyond something the Act allows or within the purview of the Act. 12:18:00 There just seems to be a lot of focus not only at the agency level but at the congressional level, this idea of equitable access and don't get me wrong equitable access is incredibly, incredibly important, but a lot there's a number of bills that are 12:18:17 floating around out there, federal legislation that I think use the equitable access as kind of an excuse to get into wilderness areas get into backcountry areas build more, you know, do the dispersal versus the consolidated development of public lands. 12:18:39 So, there are definitely some things to watch out for their innocently enough I just got a email from one of my senators yesterday, arguing that point. 12:18:51 And it reminds me of people using good legislation like ADA, as, as an open door to try to undo the Wilderness Act that I feel like all of our collective desire to make wilderness a more equitable accessible concept and places, can, can be turned into 12:19:11 a weapon just like something as positive as ADA. So, 12:19:19 yeah, Jay, I think you know in the past five six years of into them entitled like the heritage act or those other types of things we've seen that kind of legislation that it's it's putting a priority maybe on hunting and fishing access or even motorized 12:19:34 access, you know with with the guise of benefits for inclusion and economic development. 12:19:42 And then those kind of items that are that are there as well. So I think it's definitely something you know that we're seeing. And I think to the. There's probably probably many of us are all kind of wondering, know it. 12:19:57 Is there going to be a new normal. you know as as we kind of look at the last you know 24 months. 12:20:03 You know we're trying to ask ourselves what what is it going to look like is us going to be the same, is, is patterns going to be the same. I was having a conversation with someone, last week as we were looking at visitation across the National Park Service 12:20:18 and the percentage changes of records you've seen most of those records have happened with a lack of international visitors which usually represent some proportion of that visitation I I'd have to check the most recent statistics prior to the pandemic. 12:20:35 That was 15% or 10% of your visitation but when you add that back in addition to the increase that's taken place. What does that look like in 2023 or 2024. 12:20:47 So, I think, you know, those are some of those questions we're kind of grappling with and that, you know, even if you find a best practices for triage is the status quo realistic still or do we need to find a way to keep moving past that in a way to make 12:21:05 some of those things happen. 12:21:12 And I would also add in, especially here in Utah where I am. 12:21:17 You know with the increase in in visitors to national parks even without the overseas visitors we're seeing, you know, we've seen significant increases to national parks and also seeing agents adjacent agency adjacent land management agencies like the 12:21:35 BLM saying, Oh, we have to provide increased access for the overflow from the National Parks, so you're seeing a lot is particularly dispersed camping and people who really don't understand maybe like crypto biotic soils or sensitive soils, creating known 12:21:59 new places to camp. And then, the agency saying, Oh well, people are camping here anyway so we'll just let them and make this actually like a dispersed camping area so the impacts on the national parks is really spreading out across the landscape. 12:22:16 And it's a big problem out here. 12:22:33 You mentioned hunting earlier, which is that so the Dingle act which was passed in 2019 and did a lot of really great things particularly here in Utah created wilderness and recreation areas and all kinds of cool stuff across the country. 12:22:50 Another thing it did is actually effectively limit the agency's ability to limit hunting on public lands. 12:22:59 I was and I can, I have that information somewhere I was actually doing a legal memo on it for something else and found that that act had a pretty significant impact on federal agencies ability to limit access to hunting on public lands, which I was really 12:23:22 disturbed about not that I'm not anti hunting at all but it really limited the agency's ability to close areas to hunting for other resource concerns. 12:23:45 That's interesting. 12:23:46 Thanks for that Judy. I hadn't heard of that. I'm sure we have seven minutes left. And so any other. Any other comments or questions I think we caught all the questions in the chat I was just trying to go through to see if we missed anything but we've 12:24:00 kind of touched on most of the things in there. 12:24:06 Just, I would say, Thanks for the comment Judy and it strikes me as an example of have a lot of issues are. 12:24:17 That. 12:24:19 So hunters, for example, if you, if you project them there if you talk about them in that way. Our special interest group, just as river rafters might be or just as family campers that want certain things or as horse people do or wherever they're all 12:24:38 special interests. If you, if you label in that way. And the problem I think with where we have over use of the resource is that when you have individuals who are coming sort of with the idea that this is who I am, I'm a hunter I'm a fisher I'm a horseman 12:24:55 I'm a this I know that, instead of saying that, yeah but we're managing this for everybody and for everything, including for the habitat that's here So, and the health of the place so how do you get that across to people who say we want to include your 12:25:11 special interest We absolutely do it's really important, but can you and your special interest group. Help us preserve the resource. 12:25:25 Thanks Dave, That I see you have your hand up. 12:25:30 Yeah, I just wanted to mention that, to your point, Bob, about is this the new normal. What are we seeing what are we likely to see just in my experience working with parks in protected areas across the country not just wilderness but, including wilderness. 12:25:44 Most of the managers that I have talked to from municipal to state the federal are saying we saw a big spikes in 2020 and in 2021, in some cases those leveled out in 21. 12:25:56 So far this year manager reporting that things are not as visitations not as high as it had them but there's sort of this new plateau. 12:26:06 And so it's something to be aware of, I think, some myself some colleagues from Penn State and University of Montana, just published a paper, where we looked at a national sample of individuals who indicated they were new to the outdoor since the declaration, 12:26:21 of the pandemic. And there's some pretty interesting things that came out of that research just in terms of why people found the outdoors, why are they likely to stay, what are the barriers they overcame to, to substitute the outdoors for other, you know 12:26:48 and whether those people flock to front country and local municipal parks, or they decide to venture into wilderness. 12:26:55 I think a lot of people found the outdoors and at least our results indicate that a lot of those people are here to stay. 12:27:03 Thanks for that Ben Yeah, I was gonna ask you for the link so thanks for volunteering to throw that in there. That'd be great. 12:27:09 And Steve I guess I would just quickly respond to your comment about his interest groups, I think that is in theory anyway right through the practice of these collaborative groups and maybe a national scale collaborative, but if you can get people invested 12:27:27 in you know that collaborative kind of approach to a problem then they start to adopt again theory, you know, they might start to adopt that group is being really a part of their identity so instead of just coming in as an interest group, you know they 12:27:41 can kind of help span. 12:27:43 What that collaborative group feels and wants and what there may be more kind of specific focus where they're coming from spans and wants and so that is what I guess one of the pitches for maintaining that foundation for collaborative planning, I guess, 12:27:58 I'm sure. 12:28:10 Bob and Chris any final closing comments that you'd like to make. 12:28:23 Thanks Randy I think just, you know, want to thank all of you for, you know, sharing your time with us I know we're all working hard on many things wearing lots of hats plates that are full so to take 90 minutes out of your day to have a conversation 12:28:30 with us we really do appreciate that and appreciate you know Dave and Randy and the opportunity from nws a to get this kind of conversation out to everyone, you know, again, we, we really wanted to be the beginning of a some dialogue in the beginning 12:28:45 where we can maybe go with with some of these issues with the goal of protecting wilderness and again to keep thinking about these things you know Chris and I are very much happy to have more conversations or think of different ways about doing this so 12:29:00 the thing we're both passionate and excited about. And, you know, really appreciate the time with all of you today. 12:29:12 Yeah. Thanks Bob was that. Thank you. All right, well thanks everybody for joining us today for a very thoughtful and provoking conversation about what to do for future wilderness management of the lessons learned, will carry forward and just to note