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My dad is longtime member of the Poudre Wilderness Volunteers (pwv.org), a group who help with wilderness stewardship in the Rockies of northern Colorado.

I thought of them when I read this article by @blindeke (ht @rationaldoge):
hachyderm.io/@rationaldoge/110

In short: park police harass cyclists about a never-enforced “ride single file” rule by blaring at them over the loudspeaker while tailgating them, for over a mile.

So what does that have to do with wilderness volunteers??

1/

Poudre Wilderness VolunteersPoudre Wilderness VolunteersPoudre Wilderness Volunteers supports the Canyon Lakes Ranger district by doing trail work, Public education and assistance on front and back-country trails.

The PWV do lots of things: trail maintenance, education, reporting trailhead pit toilet problems to the Forest Service. But the biggest activity they do is trail patrols.

Here’s what a patrol looks like: two or more PWV members put on official-looking (but pretty unintimidating) shirts and go for a hike.

Along the way, they note any trail maintenance issues (e.g. downed tree), and…they talk to people. Including people who are breaking the rules.

2/

Designated wilderness is delicate and full of rules. The whole premise of it (complex! controversial! evolving! see here: 99percentinvisible.org/episode) is that we limit human impact, and let nature be nature.

That means dogs on leashes, no motor vehicles, no bicycles even! “Take only pictures, leave only footprints.”

Visitors, of course, do not know all these rules. Nor should we expect them to! And the PWV wants people to follow them.

How do they do that?

3/

99% InvisibleThe Wilderness Tool - 99% InvisibleImagine one of those old-timey lumberjack photos. The kind where two men in plaid are working away at a tree, holding opposite ends of a huge, human-length saw. That is a vintage crosscut saw. Some avid crosscut seekers spend hours mining websites like eBay and Craigslist. But they also search in person on saw hunting

Here’s the thing: PWV patrols emphatically do not •enforce• the rules. They do not coerce. They do not intimidate. They do not escalate.

You know what they do? They •talk to people•.

And it works.

4/

Every year they have a big spring training where they teach people how to walk up and talk to someone who, say, has their dog off leash in wilderness.

They role-play it: you walk up to the person. You talk to them…like danged human being! You help them feel comfortable. You talk to them about •why• they probably don’t want their dog off leash (e.g. mountain lions) and why it’s bad for the wilderness (which they presumably care about, since they’re hiking it).

And it works.

5/

I’ve watched my dad do this. It’s uncanny how effective it is. And I’m pretty sure that most of the time, the person who leashed their unleashed dog didn’t even think of the incident as having rules enforced on them. The usual reaction — yes, really! — is more along the lines of, “Oh, thanks!” “I didn’t know that!” “Oh yeah, I should do that!” Maybe a sulky “well, OK.”

Is it 100% effective? I doubt it! But it’s a hell of a lot more effective than intimidation.

6/

To state the obvious: PWV members do not carry guns. They are not armed.

They also have no enforcement authority. They can’t punish anyone.

They are unarmed in the wilderness, far from help.

And it works.

Once in a while, somebody ignores them or is a jerk — and they drop it. Because what point does escalation serve?! Their goal is not to win some imaginary pissing contest; it’s help people and wilderness. And in the aggregate, conversation is •more effective• than intimidation.

7/

To reiterate: they are very intentional about this whole approach. They have a hands-on training, they nip asshole authoritarianism in the bud — and they do •not• give patrols guns or punishment power “just in case.”

They don’t do that because •it would ruin the whole approach•. You can’t just have a human conversation with somebody who has the power lurking in the wings to threaten your freedom or your life if you step out of their lines. That approach doesn’t work.

Their approach does.

8/

What would it have taken for that Minneapolis park patrol to be unarmed and out of their car, and just •talk• with the cyclists?

It’s so easy to imagine it’s almost embarrassing.

9/

Epilogue shout-out to my dad: he co-founded the National Wilderness Stewardship Alliance (wildernessalliance.org), who support wilderness groups like the PWV.

If there’s a wilderness area near you and you’d like to form a stewardship group like PWV — or if you already have such a group, and would like resources and support, NWSA is there for you. Get in touch with them!

And if you see my dad on the trail, say hi. He’s great.

/end

National Wilderness Stewardship AllianceNational Wilderness Stewardship AllianceBringing together volunteer wilderness stewardship groups across America.

@inthehands He sounds great. And what a great organization.