The Role of Wilderness Protection and Societal Engagement as Indicators of Well-Being: An Examination of Change at the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

A societal decision to protect over 9 million acres of land and water for its wilderness character in the early 1960s reflected
US wealth in natural resources, pride in the nation’s cultural history and our commitment to the well-being of future generations
to both experience wild nature and enjoy benefits flowing from these natural ecosystems. There is no question that our relationship
with wilderness has changed. Individually it is probably quite easy to examine differences in the role wilderness plays in
the quality of our lives today compared to some previous time. But how the role of wilderness protection has changed for society
is more difficult to describe. In only a few places do we have data across multiple decades that would allow us to even examine
how users or their use may have changed over time. At the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota we are
fortunate to have multiple studies that can give us some 40 years of insight into how some aspects of use have changed there.
For example, an analysis of results of visitor studies at the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in 1969, 1991 and 2007
reveal some big differences in who is out there today, most notably the presence of a much older, more experienced and better
educated user population, almost exclusively white and predominantly male. It is time to decide whether the best thing for
wilderness and or society is to try to restore historic patterns of use (to include younger people, the less wealthy and lower
educated) in greater numbers, to try to identify new markets within growing underrepresented populations, or adapt our perception
of wilderness stewardship to better include planning for emerging social values of a new generation with other indicators
of well-being. A growing population with greater dependence on ecosystem services provided by protected nature could lead
to wilderness protection becoming an important quantitative and qualitative element of quality of life indices in the very
near future.