The George Wright Society (GWS) is a nonprofit association of researchers, managers, administrators, educators, and other professionals who work in, or on behalf of, parks, protected areas, and cultural/historic sites. The GWS focuses on the scientific and heritage values of these areas by promoting professional research and resource stewardship across all the natural and cultural resource disciplines that are required for modern-day park management. The society is named after George Melendez Wright (1904 - 1936), an American biologist.
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History
The GWS was founded in 1980 by Robert M. Linn and Theodore Sudia, both of whom served in the position of chief scientist of the U.S. National Park Service. The society was created in response to a need voiced during the first and second national conferences on science in the U.S. national parks (1976 and 1979, respectively): namely, for an independent nonprofit professional association to exchange and synthesize information useful to natural and cultural resource management.
Membership
Membership in the GWS is open to anyone who shares its objectives. Most members come from the U.S. and Canada, with other individuals scattered across countries outside of North America. As of 2011, the GWS has 980 members. Although named in honor of a scientist, from the beginning the GWS has been interdisciplinary: members come from a wide variety of fields, such as archaeology, biology, history, social science, air and water quality, environmental ethics, etc. The interdisciplinary nature of the GWS distinguishes it from professional societies focused on particular subjects.
Scope and activities
The GWS is concerned with parks, protected areas, and cultural sites anywhere in the world. These three overlapping terms cover a broad array of places, both “cultural” and “natural,” managed by different entities under a variety of designations:
The GWS also encompasses disciplines and activities that link with or otherwise support the work of parks, such as GIS and museum work.
The two main activities of the GWS are both related to the sharing of interdisciplinary information. It organizes the U.S.’s largest professional conference in the field, the George Wright Society Conference on Parks, Protected Areas, and Cultural Sites, held every two years; typically, over 1,000 people attend. Recent conferences have included sessions on inventory and monitoring, remote sensing, wilderness, climate change, and cultural heritage interpretation. It also publishes a thrice-yearly journal, The George Wright Forum, which explores a wide range of issues having to do with parks. Recent issues have focused on topics such as environmental history and U.S. national parks, civic engagement, integrating science and management, and the 100th anniversary of Parks Canada.
The GWS promotes greater diversity in the parks professions through three programs: the George Melendez Wright Student Travel Scholarship aimed at minority students, and a Native Participant Travel Grant Program, aimed at Native people from North America, both of which are given to enable attendance at the GWS's conference; and Park Break, a week-long, in-park seminar where graduate students learn about research and resource management issues in the host park.
Through the GWS Awards Program, the society recognizes achievements in Natural Resources, Cultural Resources, Social Science, and Communications, as well as lifetime accomplishments in any of the park-related professions.
The GWS offers a daily news digest, Parkwire, that provides links to research and resource management news from parks, protected areas, and cultural sites around the world.