Registration closes April 3rd
National
Wilderness Workshop
2023
April 17-22nd
Missoula Montana
"The future of wilderness is Indigenous."
The Séliš-QlÌ“ispé Cultural Committee created the following language, "The University of Montana acknowledges that we are in the aboriginal territories of the Salish and Kalispel people. Today, we honor the path they have always shown us in caring for this place for the generations to come."​
Purpose
The purpose of the National Wilderness Workshop (NWW) is to: bring together the wilderness stewardship community to address issues of national import for wilderness. Workshops move around the country, with each workshop focusing on a theme topic, as well as wilderness management, science, and recreation.
NWW23
The 2023 workshop is organized around centering Indigenous people in wilderness, and bringing Indigenous perspectives, traditional caretaking methods, and kincentric relationships into wilderness stewardship. As an organization, the Society for Wilderness Stewardship is committed to seeking out and elevating Indigenous voices and perspectives; being an ally and an advocate for Indigenous partnership, practices and perspectives to be widely adopted in wilderness facilitation and stewardship; empowering Indigenous people to utilize their influence in the wilderness sector; and valuing partnership and collaboration from Tribal members and Indigenous people.
To enact this in the NWW, we have been developing more relationships with Tribes and Indigenous people, and we broadened our planning committee to be much more balanced and representative. Together, we changed how the workshop is planned and implemented - our tracks have moved from singly topical to holistic, our scheduling has changed from solely monochronic to a blend of polychronic and monochronic, our dates moved from the traditional fall timeline to spring, a season much more conducive to gathering; and we are prioritizing relationship building and individual and group reflection throughout the workshop. Our goal in creating this workshop is to change not only the workshop itself, but the wilderness field. We are building a new culture of how we care for, and facilitate, wilderness lands and people that elevates and amplifies the voices, practices and perspectives of Indigenous people and Tribes.
