Dedicated to the preservation and management of parks, protected areas and cultural sites.
By connecting knowledge and management, we support leaders on the frontlines of conservation.
COMMUNITY
CONNECTION
CONSERVATION
The George Wright Society (GWS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit founded in 1980 to promote professional research and resource stewardship. As a bridge between scholarly knowledge and management, the GWS brings together hundreds of leaders across disciplines in natural and cultural resource management. With members in all 50 U.S. states and numerous countries around the world, the GWS unites a community of resource managers and park staff, researchers, professors, emerging leaders, educators, government agencies, Indigenous peoples, nonprofits, and park enthusiasts.
Through impactful events and trainings, publications, communication platforms and student summits, the George Wright Society connects community with conservation.
The George Wright Society is dedicated to building the knowledge needed to protect, manage, and understand
parks, protected areas and cultural sites around the globe.
Just published! The inaugural issue of
Parks Stewardship Forum
The Interdisciplinary Journal
of Place-Based Conservation
GWS is co-organizing two important training workshops in the first half of 2020: “Fire Management 24/7/365,” focused on reducing wildfire risk California, and UNESCOkarst 2020, “Conservation of Fragile Karst Resources,” an international event. For more information, click the logos above.
Today’s Top Parkwire Story
17 February 2020
Many Western US forests hit hard by bark beetle infestations now recovering: study
Just a few years after simultaneous bark beetle outbreaks decimated trees in the Rocky Mountains, scientists have found that large portions of these high-elevation forests are already showing signs of recovery, according to a new study of 14,000 trees published in the journal Ecology.
From 2005 to 2017, a severe outbreak of spruce bark beetles killed more than 90 percent of the Engelmann spruce trees across 800,000 acres in the southern Rocky Mountains. During the same period, an outbreak of western balsam bark beetles decimated subalpine fir across 116,000 of those acres.
George Meléndez Wright was born in San Francisco, CA and in 1930 became the first chief of the wildlife division of the U.S. National Park Service. Under his vision and leadership, each park started to survey and evaluate the status of wildlife and to identify urgent problems. As one of the first and only latino staff for the Park Service, he was a true pioneer in celebrating diversity and working together across disciplines for our wildlife and wild places.
The George Wright Society was founded in 1980 in his honor, to continue the legacy of forward thinking and applied solutions in an ever changing environment.