NPS Director Leads North American Wilderness Group

WASHINGTON – National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis has taken over as chairman of the North American Wilderness Committee, a network of seven U.S., Canadian, and Mexican federal land management agencies focused on increased cooperation for wilderness conservation.

The committee was established to foster collaboration to ensure conservation, management and recovery of North American wilderness and other protected land- and seascapes; contribute to conserving the ecosystem integrity of wilderness in North America; help stakeholders achieve effective, efficient, and mutually beneficial wilderness conservation in North America; and foster communication regarding the management, conservation, and sustainable use of wilderness.

“This is an opportunity for the National Park Service to continue its leadership role in worldwide conservation and preservation,” Jarvis said. “National parks were America’s best idea, and that idea is one of our finest exports. We share habitats and species with our neighbors in Canada and Mexico and we face common challenges. This North American Wilderness Committee will help us face those challenges together.”

Organized in late 2009, Jarvis said the first 18 months of the Committee’s work involved transboundary cooperation, training, networking, ecosystem services, marine wilderness and monitoring. In the year ahead, agency staff will cooperate and collaborate around issues of climate change, connectivity and monitoring, and the values of protected areas.

Jarvis is the committee’s second chairman.

The other American committee members are Bob Abbey, Director of the Bureau of Land Management, Greg Siekaniec, Assistant Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Joel Holtrop, Deputy Chief of the USDA Forest Service.

The Mexican and Canadian committee members are Mariana Bellot Rojas, Director General, Comision Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidas (CONANP), Mexico; and Alan Latourelle, Chief Executive Officer, Parks Canada Agency.