Wilderness Act

THE LAW: U.S. federal legislation concerning the preservation of designated lands in their most natural condition

DATE: Enacted on September 3, 1964

The US Congress has designated almost 5 percent of the total U.S land area as wilderness under the provisions of the Wilderness Act, which created the National Wilderness Preservation System. Designated wilderness areas are protected from development and from environmentally disruptive activities.

The 1964 Wilderness Act established the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS), gave the US Congress authority to designate wilderness areas, and directed the secretaries of the interior and agriculture to review lands for possible wilderness designation. The act initially set aside 54 areas—a total of 3.6 million hectares (9 million acres) of federal Forest Service land—for wilderness classification. In 1968 Congress began adding wilderness areas. By 2023 there were 806 wilderness areas in forty-four states and Puerto Rico, totaling nearly 111 million acres (45 million hectares). Wilderness areas are located within national forests, wildlife refuges, and parks and are managed by a host of agencies, including the US Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the National Park Service, and the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The land area of the United States totals 2.3 billion acres (914 million hectares); by 2023 approximately 5 percent of that had been designated wilderness, an area slightly larger than the state of California. Half of this land is in Alaska. The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) of 1980 more than tripled the NWPS by establishing 35 new wilderness areas totaling more than 22.7 million hectares (56 million acres). Excluding Alaska, less than 3 percent of land in the United States is classified as wilderness or has been recommended for such designation.

The Wilderness Act defines wilderness as federal land “where the earth and its of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Although numerous exceptions are made, the act generally prohibits commercial activities, motorized and mechanical access, permanent roads, and human-made structures and facilities within wilderness areas. An area may be determined to be suitable for wilderness designation if it is

an area of undeveloped land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the impact of man’s works substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historic value.

Congress has the authority to designate areas as wilderness and uses its power to do so under the act. Designation is permanent, and new lands are added as Congress sees fit.

Permitted and Prohibited Uses

Although wilderness areas are protected to preserve their natural conditions, a number of non-motorized activities—such as horseback riding, hiking, camping, fishing, and hunting—are allowed in them. Preexisting and valid extractive uses are also allowed to continue until the permits granted for such activities expire, are abandoned, or are purchased by the government. Preexisting grazing is allowed to continue as long as it is consistent with sound resource management practices. In addition, the Wilderness Act honors all federal-state relationships with regard to state water laws and state fish and wildlife responsibilities. Activities that are generally not allowed in these areas include mining, timber harvesting, water development, mountain biking, and use of any motorized equipment such as snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles. Allowances for some of these activities made in the act can be seen as a compromise between preservationists and those resource interests concerned with grazing, mining, timber harvesting, and water development.

Given the definition of wilderness and the amount of federally owned land in the western United States, congressionally classified wilderness is a particularly western phenomenon. Whereas states such as Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, and Washington have more than 1.6 million hectares (4 million acres) of wilderness each within their borders, the non-western states Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, and Rhode Island have none.

Although Congress makes the final decision as to the suitability of additional areas for wilderness designation, land management agencies such as the Forest Service and the BLM are often responsible for making official recommendations. For example, the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 directed the BLM to review land it administers for possible wilderness designation, and the Forest Service has gone through two Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE) plans and the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule to determine suitable wilderness areas. Such plans have often been criticized for not designating enough land area and for refusing to designate land with great economic potential, thus leaving “rocks and ice” for wilderness classification and those lands with economic value under multiple-use management.

Bibliography

Campaign for America’s Wilderness. People Protecting Wilderness for People: Celebrating 40 Years of the Wilderness Act. Washington, D.C.: Author, 2004.

Dawson, Chad P., and John C. Hendee. Wilderness Management: Stewardship and Protection of Resources and Values. 4th ed. Boulder, Colo.: WILD Foundation, 2009.

Frome, Michael. Battle for the Wilderness. Rev. ed. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1997.

Harvey, Mark. “Loving the Wild in Postwar America.” In American Wilderness: A New History, edited by Michael Lewis. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.

Hays, Samuel P. Wars in the Woods: The Rise of Ecological Forestry in America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007.

Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. 4th ed. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001.

Scott, Doug. The Enduring Wilderness: Protecting Our Natural Heritage Through the Wilderness Act. Golden, Colo.: Fulcrum, 2004.

"Wilderness." National Park Service (NPS), 6 May 2024, www.nps.gov/subjects/wilderness/law-and-policy.htm. Accessed 24 July 2024.