Charon's Garden Wilderness Area within the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma is a landscape that is granted federal protection through the Wilderness Act of 1964. The discourse of wilderness management is influenced by governmental policies and practice which organize knowledge surrounding the natural landscape, like with the formation and semantics of the Wilderness Act. The Wilderness Act establishes characteristics that are designed to monitor and control the landscape and serve as a baseline and criterion for further wilderness preservation. These characteristics render the wilderness space as governable. Conservation management alternatives are identified which bypass the duality of nature from western society suggested by the discourse of environmental policy. These alternatives are understood under two notions of behaviors and perceptions. The project's goal is to uncover wilderness users' recreation behaviors and perceptions of wilderness as a designated space. Through understanding and assessing user's behaviors and perception of wilderness, alternative policies and practices that offer sustainable management practices and recreation opportunities can be developed.

Access Points explores the different relationships that humans have to land, focusing on the various ways that the area known as the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge is used, appreciated, and preserved by disparate groups. The natural beauty of this Wildlife Refuge and its striking appearance amidst encircling plains makes it a popular destination for many groups of people, including the local rock-climbing community and generations of indigenous peoples whose connection with this land is as deep as it is longstanding. While climbing organizations have long had to negotiate access and rules regarding climbing within the park, members of the Kiowa community negotiate a much different relationship to a natural area that is now managed by the United States government. These disparate voices, identities, and ways of thinking about land all impact the modern-day Wildlife Refuge in terms of its appearance, individuals' access to the land, and the conservation efforts happening there.

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