The Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center is a federal interagency, which connects wilderness managers from the United States Forest Service, the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management. The Center’s mission is "to preserve the values and benefits of Wilderness for present and future generations by connecting agency employees and the public with their wilderness heritage through training, information and education."
Sue Matthews, former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Representative at the Wilderness Training Center initiated and managed the Wilderness Policy History Project. Joanne Tenney, a University of Montana graduate student, compiled and created the majority of the Project's files. The project’s purpose was to bring together records that could be used by wilderness managers, researchers, policy makers, and interested citizens to gain a "clear" historical understanding of Wilderness Act policy, evolution and language, and use this information to guide resolutions to the complex issues regarding current wilderness policy development and implementation.The project focused on wilderness administration history as opposed to wilderness designation history. Many of the project's files were given to the Wilderness Training Center by Charles R. "Dick" Joy and Jerry Stokes when the Center was located at the Nine Mile Ranger District.
From the guide to the Wilderness Policy History Project Collection, 1922-2003, (University of Montana--Missoula Maureen and Mike Mansfield Library Archives and Special Collections)
