Outdoor Alliance Joins Ninth World Wilderness Congress (WILD9)

Washington D.C (November 5, 2009) Outdoor Alliance (OA), a coalition of six member-based national outdoor advocacy groups, will share its experience and expertise with wilderness experts from around the world at the Ninth World Wilderness Congress (WILD9) November 6-13 in Merida, Mexico. This is the first World Wilderness Congress held in Latin America and more than one thousand international wilderness experts are expected to attend.

Hosted by the Wilderness Foundation (WILD) and the Mexican government, Wild9 is focused on exploring the strategic importance of wilderness in the global response to climate change. The invitation for OA to share its perspective came at the behest of wilderness organizers and U.S. land management agency leaders with whom OA works closely on conservation initiatives. To address the question of ‘end users’ in wilderness areas WILD and OA have developed a four-part workshop series on recreation and visitor experience in wilderness. The OA workshop will be conducted on November 9th, and will include wilderness and recreation experiences by expert panelists from South Africa and Mexico to balance OA’s point of view.

“The OA message is one that recreation and exploration convey highly visible and exciting uses of wilderness that can capture the attention and interest of mainstream society,” said Dr. Gregory Miller, Outdoor Alliance executive committee member and American Hiking Society president. “Working together with human-powered outdoor recreationists the international wilderness community can raise the visibility and support for wilderness conservation as a means of addressing and monitoring climate change and the deterioration of clean water supplies, improving human-powered recreation opportunities for society, and mitigating massive biodiversity loss.”

Gregory Miller and Rich Cook, Director of Development for the International Mountain Bicycling Association will lead the Outdoor Alliance team. OA will share its partnership approach to enhance: landscape scale conservation and recreation planning; sustainable recreation and demonstration of the economic values of quiet recreation in wilderness settings; grassroots user groups as advocates for backcountry, wilderness areas; and public private partnerships. OA will also showcase some of the outreach tools it uses to reach both policy makers and the general public in the United States.

About Outdoor Alliance
Founded in 2006, Outdoor Alliance is a coalition of six member-based national outdoor advocacy groups including the Access Fund, American Canoe Association, American Hiking Society, American Whitewater, International Mountain Bicycling Association and the Winter Wildlands Alliance, whose mission is to ensure the conservation and stewardship of our nation’s land and waters through the promotion of sustainable, human-powered recreation.

About The World Wilderness Congress (WWC)
The WWC is the longest-running, public international environmental forum. It is a conservation project that creates coalitions, establishes time-lines, sets objectives and achieves practical outcomes. Established in 1977, it has convened on eight occasions in 30 years to review progress, debate issues, announce results and celebrate the importance and vitality of wild nature.

###