Meryl Harrell & Lisa Ronald: The future of stewarding our shared wild spaces
Wilderness visitation surged 75% during the pandemic and hasn't come back down. Federal staffing hasn't kept pace. Meryl Harrell of Friends of the Forest Service and Lisa Ronald of American Rivers joined The Wild Idea at the National Wilderness Skills Institute to talk honestly about what that gap looks like on the ground, and where the stewardship community is actually filling it.
They cover the federal capacity crunch, American Rivers' 2025 National Protected Rivers Assessment (which found that over 80% of U.S. rivers lack adequate protection), the management pressure building on the…
The skinny
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