Rocky Mountain National Park Lyceum Series Continues April 17

Date: April 13, 2010
Contact: Larry Frederick, 970-586-1220

2010 Lyceum Series “Wilderness: Of What Avail Are Forty Freedoms Without A Blank Spot On The Map?”

Saturday, April 17, 2010, 7:00 p.m. -- “Our Wilderness: America’s Common Ground”

Rocky Mountain National Park will feature Doug Scott speaking on “Our Wilderness: America’s Common Ground,” at 7:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 17, in the Beaver Meadows Visitor Center auditorium. The program is free and open to the public.

Mr. Scott is the Manager of Policy and Research for the Pew Environmental Group’s Campaign for America’s Wilderness. He is a historian, wilderness advocate, and author.  He formerly managed an environmental group in the San Juan Islands of Washington State, worked for The Wilderness Society, and for the Sierra Club for 17 years, including serving as Conservation Director and Associate Executive Director.  Scott was involved in enactment of the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act (1975), The Endangered American Wilderness Act (1978), the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness (Idaho, 1980), The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (1980), and the California Desert Protection Act (California, 1994), among others.

The Pew Environmental Group’s environmental activities have grown steadily over the past two decades, as has their staff of attorneys, scientists, economists, media professionals and campaign advocates. The Pew Group comprises more than 115 staff—with a presence throughout the United States as well as in Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean—making it one of the nation’s largest scientific and environmental advocacy organizations.

The Campaign for America's Wilderness is a cornerstone of the Pew Group’s commitment to protect public lands in the United States, Canada and Australia, and works to protect the nation's remaining wild lands to ensure an enduring legacy of wilderness for future generations.  The Campaign joins with state and local partners to raise public awareness of our special wild lands and to secure dependable, permanent protection for wild lands administered by the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies. Since the Campaign was launched by Pew in 2002, Congress has added 158 new or expanded wilderness areas totaling nearly 5 million acres across 14 states and Puerto Rico. Their work includes campaign planning and implementation, strategically placed resources for opinion research, communications and public education initiatives, grassroots organizing, electronic outreach, leadership training, and advocacy. The Campaigns staff is a highly skilled group of 14 professionals, with decades of leadership experience in every aspect of wilderness preservation. Members of the team have played key roles in the passage of every major piece of wilderness legislation in the last 35 years. They work to help Americans become involved and effective in our nation's democratic process — helping citizens successfully win preservation of the special wilderness areas they know and love.

The theme of the 2010 Rocky Mountain National Park Lyceum Series is “Wilderness: Of What Avail Are Forty Freedoms Without A Blank Spot On The Map?” the famous quote from Aldo Leopold. This year’s series is focusing on how wilderness influences what we do as stewards of this incredible national park. Speakers are highlighting what wilderness means spiritually, physically, as part of naturally functioning systems, as part of our psyche as a nation, and how it guides decisions on management at Rocky Mountain National Park.

In March, 2009, President Obama signed legislation providing additional protection to Rocky Mountain National Park by designating most of the park’s backcountry as wilderness, which encompasses roughly 95 percent of the park. Park staff joined the gateway communities of Grand Lake and Estes Park in welcoming the passage by the Congress of the wilderness designation for the park’s backcountry. This was the culmination of an effort that began in 1974 by President Richard Nixon and was jump started in recent years through the efforts of many.

The Lyceum schedule runs every Saturday night through May 22. Financial support for the lyceum series is provided by the park’s nonprofit partner, the Rocky Mountain Nature Association.

For more information about Rocky Mountain National Park please call [phone].