Wilderness Skills Institute

© 2025 · All Rights Reserved.

a modern interagency training platform for those charged with the stewardship of our nation’s
Wilderness and Wild & Scenic Rivers. 

June 3-4, 2025

THANK YOU
to our presenters, panelists, moderators, and Zoom hosts!!!!

Recordings coming soon!

We will be posting the recordings once we have had a chance to polish them up and remove those technical difficulties for a much more enjoyable viewing experience

2025 Session Descriptions


At the start of the field season, wilderness and river managers, field rangers, and partner organizations come together in each region to learn new skills, share experiences, and connect with one another as they work together to preserve wilderness character or the outstandingly remarkable values of wild & scenic rivers. These gatherings have various names – wilderness ranger academies, river ranger rendezvous, or the most common, wilderness skills institutes (WSIs).

With limitations on in-person gatherings in many areas due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, many of these events have been cancelled since Spring 2020.

Determined to continue on the annual training and networking gatherings in spring 2022, agency personnel and partners have been working together once again to plan and organize another National Wilderness Skills Institute. Similar to the 2021 NWSI, the event will take place online through various webinars, interactive sessions, and virtual social gatherings.

This event will bring wilderness and wild & scenic river stewards together from across the nation to participate in learning sessions as well as opportunities for region-specific discussions and collaboration.


Federal, state, and local agency staff, partners and volunteers are invited to participate in this opportunity, which has been planned and implemented through the collaborative efforts of individuals from land management agencies and partner organizations.


The Wilderness Skills Institute (WSI) approach to training provides an opportunity to access high quality skill building and professional development opportunities for those who engage in wilderness and wild & scenic rivers work.  The WSI model offers excellent opportunities for connecting stewards – agency, partnership staff, and volunteers across regions and nationally, both inside and outside of the classroom.  Courses are designed to provide skills based training at all levels of experience.

  • A National WSI virtual model adapts to the current challenges that the ongoing pandemic presents to those needing access to training. This approach provides an opportunity for a broader set of individuals to access the training than in past years and builds the skills and tools needed for future virtual sessions as needed.
  • Integrates proven course content with new experiences in virtual training techniques.  The virtual tools which have become both readily available and accepted as training mediums encourage greater access to diverse subject matter experts as well as a more diverse audience.
  • Promotes the skills and best management practices to host WSI’s or similar trainings in locations where access to training may currently be lacking.
  • Develops resources for site-based teaching of physical skills.
  • The National WSI provides opportunities for broader and more diverse connections promoting inclusivity, community, and comradery for participants.

The long-term objective is to provide an evolving, integrative model for learning and practicing virtual and field-based wilderness and wild & scenic rivers stewardship-related skills which address training needs and networking interests with experienced subject matter experts.


The National Wilderness Skills Institute is a grassroots effort made up of people from a variety of agencies and organizations as well as individuals volunteering their time. There is no one single leader or owner of NWSI, but rather co-leadership of a continually evolving event meeting the needs of our rapidly changing community. Everyone on the planning team cares about wilderness, wild & scenic rivers, public lands, global protected areas, and the connections we can build around these special places. NWSI continues to evolve each year as we learn new ways to reach out and support a broader audience, affirming our original mission to offer training and connection to a community that is welcoming and available to all.

Anytime people gather as a group we form both a community and a culture. At NWSI, we seek a community and culture that is respectful, solution-driven, open, curious, and considerate. You may hear ideas, perspectives, and world views that are new to you. Some may run counter to your own working beliefs while others may directly align. If something makes you uncomfortable, we ask that you sit with the emotion, remain respectful, then ask clarifying questions.

Accordingly, we ask all of our community members to:

  • Be open, curious, and kind – The basic principles we learned in kindergarten apply here.
  • Listen and seek understanding – Speak your truth and seek understanding of truths that differ from yours.
  • Make space, take space – Let the person speaking have their time and speak when it is your time. Be mindful of taking too much or too little space.
  • We are all learning, we are all wise – No one knows everything, but together we know a lot.
  • Stories stay, lessons leave – We hold personal stories in confidence, but lessons can be shared.


For 2025, the federal land management agencies, Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards, River Management Society, Wild Alabama, and the Society for Wilderness Stewardship hosted the fifth National Wilderness Skills Institute, a two-day virtual training for wilderness stewards from across the country and internationally.

Review the sessions and their descriptions and then register to participate today!

The 2025 virtual event took place on June 3-4. There were 4 different learning “streams” with a combined total of 28 sessions– Wilderness, and Wild & Scenic Rivers, and Backcountry Skills as well as combined sessions. Participants included federal land management agency employees, volunteers, and interagency and nongovernmental partners from across the United States, joined by international participants around the world.


For 2024, the federal land management agencies, Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards, River Management Society, Wild Alabama, National Wilderness Stewardship Alliance and the Society for Wilderness Stewardship hosted the fourth National Wilderness Skills Institute, a two-day virtual training for wilderness stewards from across the country and internationally.

The 2024 virtual event took place on June 5-6. There were 4 different learning “streams” with a combined total of 22 sessions– Wilderness, and Wild & Scenic Rivers, and Backcountry Skills as well as combined sessions. Participants included federal land management agency employees, volunteers, and interagency and nongovernmental partners from across the United States, joined by international participants around the world.

Click here to view the recorded sessions from  2021-2024, including a brief description, list of presenters, and available recordings.


For 2023, the federal land management agencies, Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards, River Management Society, and the Society for Wilderness Stewardship worked collaboratively to once again host the third National Wilderness Skills Institute, a two-day virtual training for wilderness stewards from across the country and internationally.

The 2023 virtual event took place on May 23-24. There were 4 different learning “streams” with a combined total of 20 sessions– Wilderness, and Wild & Scenic Rivers, Cohort Creation, and Climate Change as well as combined sessions. Participants included federal land management agency employees, volunteers, and interagency and nongovernmental partners from across the United States, joined by international participants around the world.

Click here to view the recorded sessions from  2021-2024, including a brief description, list of presenters, and available recordings.


In 2022, the federal land management agencies, Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards, River Management Society, and the Society for Wilderness Stewardship hosted the second National Wilderness Skills Institute, a week-long virtual training for wilderness stewards from across the country and internationally.

The 2022 virtual event occurred May 24-26. There were 5 different learning tracks with a combined total of 35 sessions– Traditional Skills, Visitor Use Management, Wilderness 1 and 2, and Wild & Scenic Rivers. Participants included over 600 Forest Service employees, volunteers, and interagency and nongovernmental partners from across the United States, joined by international participants from India, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.

Click here to view the recorded sessions from  2021-2024, including a brief description, list of presenters, and available recordings.


In 2021, the federal land management agencies, Southern Appalachian Wilderness Stewards, Bob Marshall Wilderness Foundation, River Management Society, Selway Bitterroot-Frank Church Foundation, and the Society for Wilderness Stewardship hosted a week-long virtual training for wilderness stewards from across the country and internationally.

The 2021 virtual event occurred May 24-28. There were 5 different learning tracks with a combined total of 70 sessions– Traditional Skills, Visitor Use Management, Wilderness 1 and 2, and Wild & Scenic Rivers. Participants included over 900 Forest Service employees, volunteers, and interagency and nongovernmental partners from across the United States, joined by international participants from Austria, Canada, Ecuador, and Jordan.

Click here to view the recorded sessions from  2021-2024, including a brief description, list of presenters, and available recordings.

The Core Team’s efforts were recognized with a 2021 USDA Forest Service Chief’s Honor Award under the “Apply Knowledge Globally” category.


The 2025 National Wilderness Skills Institute Core Team is made up of federal land management agency and partner representatives from across the country:

Questions? Contact Dusty Vaughn at gary.vaughn@usda.gov