On Feb. 19-20, Wilderness Workshop and the Aspen Center for Environmental Studies (ACES) hosted the fourth of five speakers for the annual Naturalist Nights free lecture series. Dr. Christopher Monz is a professor at Utah State University, and teaches classes in recreation ecology and management. He presented to the audience remotely, offering insights on the impacts that backcountry recreation can have on our sensitive, arid western state ecosystems.
Dr. Monz’ research aims to study the balance between fostering love for and stewardship of the wildland environments where we live, and using mindful restraint to keep from damaging those beautiful spaces. Dr. Monz works with a number of Roaring Fork Valley organizations, including Roaring Fork Outdoor Coalition, Pitkin County Open Space & Trails and Wilderness Workshop.
To open, Dr. Monz shared about his background as an outdoor enthusiast and as a scientist. He shared about his active childhood in New York state and his early ecology studies at the University of Maine. He earned a Ph.D. at Colorado State University, studying anthropogenic disturbances in Great Plains ecosystems. All the while, he found time to go on climbing and paddling expeditions around the world, from Alaska to Patagonia. He has explored a broad spectrum of wildland ecology through both the academic and the outdoorsman lenses.
Dr. Monz shared the following definition for the term recreation ecology: “how wildland recreation activities act as disturbance agents to soil, vegetation, wildlife, water and air; the importance of nature experiences to people; knowledge to inform sustainable conservation strategies as a social-ecological system.” He calls this type of ecology an applied field, where the science is practiced by academics and recreation stewards.
Dr. Monz has participated in this applied science as a representative of multiple western universities, the National Outdoor Leadership School and as a Fulbright Scholar in Norway at the Arctic University of Norway and in six other countries. He finds his experiences essential in informing his perspective.
He overviewed recreation ecology theory to the audience, displaying several diagrams charting use disturbance curves in ecosystems. He prefers the term disturbance to “impact” based on assumptions around each word. The main diagram displayed demonstrated that initial human disturbance in an ecosystem rapidly affects the space, but that the ecosystem then stabilizes to less dramatic changes over time so long as use is managed. Dr. Monz shared that part of this curve is a result of human changes in behavior, as they see changes to the environment from their own actions. He distinguished between dispersal, unregulated and confinement use strategies of wildlands. Dr. Monz shared several examples of these strategies and the implications for the landscapes on which they are applied.
After overviewing basic concepts, Dr. Monz shared data showing how recreational use has more than doubled in many Colorado wildlands in recent decades. This level of use has notable impacts on the ecosystems, and Dr. Monz emphasized that thoughtful management is essential to prevent this level of use from destroying the very places that are so appealing to the public. Practices he mentioned as important include seasonal land closures during breeding and birthing seasons for wildlife. He also pointed out that expansion of recreation areas can be more disruptive to the ecosystem than managed increases of traffic in already established spaces.
Following the scientific overviews, he shared about projects he has collaborated on in the Roaring Fork Valley with local organizations.
The final Naturalist Nights events of the winter occurred this week, at the Third Street Center in Carbondale on Wednesday, March 5, and at the Pitkin County Library in Aspen on Thursday, March 6. Fellow Clare Boerigter of the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute and Professor Jonathan Coop of Western Colorado University spoke about changing fire practices in Western North America. The presentations explored how strategic, human-ignited fires can help restore ecosystems and improve regional fire adaptations.
All Naturalist Night events are recorded, and videos uploaded to the Wilderness Workshop and ACES YouTube channels within two weeks of each presentation. Thanks to generous local sponsors, these events are always free to the public. More information is available at www.wildernessworkshop.org/naturalist-nights-2025 and www.aspennature.org/activities/naturalist-nights