George Wright Society

The George Wright Society (GWS) is a nonprofit association that promotes conservation of parks, protected areas, and cultural/historic sites worldwide. Founded in 1980, GWS is headquartered in the United States, GWS is named after George Meléndez Wright
GWS members includes researchers, managers, administrators, educators and others who are interested in conservation. 
GWS promotes professional research and resource stewardship across all the natural and cultural resource disciplines that are required for modern-day park management.
The Society.
GWS was founded in 1980 by Robert M. Linn and Theodore Sudia, both chief scientists of the U.S. National Park Service. 
GWS was in response to a need raised during the first and second national conferences on science in the U.S. national parks (1976 and 1979): for a professional association to exchange information useful to natural and cultural resource management.
Membership.
Membership in the GWS is open to anyone. Most members come from the U.S. and Canada. As of 2011, GWS had 980 members. Members come from fields such as archaeology, biology, history, social science, air and water quality, and environmental ethics,
Scope and Activities.
GWS is concerned with the following areas:
Activities.
Every two years, GWS organizes the George Wright Society Conference on Parks, Protected Areas, and Cultural Sites. The typical attendance is over 1,000 people. Recent conferences have included sessions on inventory and monitoring, remote sensing, wilderness, climate change, and cultural heritage interpretation. 
Between 1981 and 2018, GWS published "The George Wright Forum": the society's journal on parks, protected areas, and cultural sites. Issues focused on such topics as environmental history and U.S. national parks, civic engagement, integrating science and management, and the 100th anniversary of Parks Canada. 
In January of 2020, GWS teamed up with the UC Berkeley Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity to found the "Parks Stewardship Forum". The "Parks Stewardship Forum", "explores innovative thinking and offers enduring perspectives on critical issues across the whole spectrum of place-based heritage management and stewardship. It is the only professional conservation journal with an interdisciplinary focus, publishing insights from all fields related to parks, protected areas, cultural sites, and other forms of place-based conservation."
GWS has also sponsored the George Melendez Wright Student Travel Scholarship aimed at minority students, and a Native Participant Travel Grant Program, aimed at native people in the Americas. Both programs send recipients to the GWS conference; and to Park Break, a week-long, in-park seminar where graduate students learn about research and resource management issues in the host park.
GWS publishes "Parkwire", a daily news digest with links to research and resource management news from parks, protected areas, and cultural sites worldwide.