Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
WILDLANDS STUDIES
save the earth!
CAZADERO, CALIFORNIA
We love our wildlands. We believe that to know its beauty and feel its in-
ner music is a human need, a need important to our hearts as well as our
heritage.
—Wildlands Studies website
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The buzz about the environment is everywhere: SUVs are polluting the air, accelerating
glacial melt is threatening the sea level, species are dying out faster than you can say “Save
the environment.” Rather than standing by and wondering whether it's all hype or not, there's
a unique opportunity to actually
do
something with Wildlands Studies.
Sponsored by the University of California, Santa Barbara, this organization has been con-
ducting unbiased environmental research since 1980, research that addresses critical issues fa-
cing our wildlands and our wildlife. And, like Uncle Sam, they want you. This prestigious
outfit invites interested citizens to join their backcountry field projects to help them “search
for answers to important environmental problems.”
Although many of the “field associates,” as team members are called, are environmental
studies students getting college credit, each of Wildlands Studies projects is open to any vo-
lunteer interested in environmental research. In fact, the only criterion for joining one of the
ten or so yearly projects in the United States (they also conduct field research in several for-
eign countries) is submitting a statement of health.
If you can do that, you can help research scientists conduct field research on endangered
species in Yellowstone National Park, on glaciers in Alaska's Wrangell Mountains, or on the
changes in Hawaii's island ecosystems, to name just a few of Wildlands Studies ongoing pro-
jects. You can choose from more than 30 wildlife, wildland, and wildwater projects examining
wildlife preservation, resource management, conservation ecology, and cultural sustainability
issues.
