Wilderness areas

DEFINITION: Natural, undeveloped areas in the United States that are protected under the Wilderness Act of 1964

The designation of large areas of land as protected wilderness areas is the subject of ongoing debate in the United States, with preservationists asserting that more areas need to be protected and critics arguing that the natural resources found in these areas should be available for use.

Preserving areas of unspoiled nature is a relatively new idea, and in the United States, this idea began to make sense to many Americans only when the seemingly inexhaustible wilderness of North America had been, in fact, nearly exhausted. In 1924, at the urging of US Forest Service (USFS) employee and influential conservationist Aldo Leopold, 305,500 hectares (755,000 acres) of the Gila National Forest in New Mexico were set aside as the first federally protected wilderness, the Gila Wilderness Area.

As the system of wilderness areas (sometimes known as primitive areas) grew, environmentalists became concerned about inconsistent management and about the fact that these areas were protected only by agency policy and not by law. They began lobbying for federal legislation that would designate and protect wilderness areas throughout the United States. The concept of preserving wilderness was strongly opposed, however, by many of those who made their livings by using natural resources; these included people involved in ranching and those in the timber and mining industries. They saw protected wilderness lands, which often had great economic value, as being "locked up" for the pleasure of a few.

Legislation

On September 3, 1964, after eight years of debate and compromise, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act, creating the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS), which consisted of fifty-four areas totaling 3.6 million hectares (9 million acres). The act states:

A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.

The act defines the mechanism for adding more areas to the system in the future. To be considered, an area must be at least 2,023 hectares (5,000 acres) "or of manageable size." This is a far cry from the early days of wilderness advocacy, when the minimum size was thought to be 202,000 hectares (500,000 acres), or, as Aldo Leopold put it, "large enough to absorb a two-week pack trip." Designated wildernesses become part of the NWPS. All roads, structures, and other installations are prohibited in designated wilderness, as is the use of motorized equipment or any mechanical transport. These areas of wild nature have been, and continue to be, the focus of intense controversy regarding their designation and management.

A significant addition to the NWPS came in 1975 with the passage of the Eastern Wilderness Act. The lack of pure, untouched wilderness in the eastern states led to the loosening of the strict standards of the original act to allow the inclusion of ecologically significant areas that show more impact from human activities than would originally have been permitted. In this way, sixteen areas totaling 83,770 hectares (207,000 acres), from 8,900-hectare (22,000-acre) Bradwell Bay in Florida to the 5,670-hectare (14,000-acre) Lye Brook Wilderness in Vermont, were added to the system. By the late 1990s, the wilderness system encompassed more than 650 areas, ranging in size from the 2-hectare (5-acre) Oregon Islands Wilderness to the 3.6 million hectares (9 million acres) of the Wrangell-St. Elias Wilderness in Alaska, for a total of more than 40 million hectares (100 million acres). By 2018, in part as a result of the passage of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, the number of wilderness areas had grown to 765, with a total of more than 44 million hectares (109 million acres). By 2023, this number had grown to 801 wilderness areas, which encompassed 45 million hectares (112 million acres). Of this total, approximately 52 percent was in the state of Alaska.

Debates and Controversies

Although the amount of protected land may seem quite large, preservationists point out that only about 5 percent of the landscape of the United States is protected in its natural state. Some large areas continue to be fought over, such as the fragile Arctic coastal plain of Alaska, home of vast caribou herds and underlain by large oil deposits. Idaho, which is among the top three states in the lower forty-eight in terms of wilderness land area (exceeded only by California and Arizona), still has millions of hectares of undeveloped roadless land that many believe should be protected. Wilderness advocates also point out that many wilderness areas, as well as national parks and other protected lands, have illogical political boundaries, unrecognized by grizzly bears and other important wildlife species. They argue that areas between and adjacent to designated wilderness areas should often be protected as well, to create units based on natural, ecological boundaries.

After a wilderness area is designated, the focus shifts to the maintenance of its desired qualities, leading to the paradox of "wilderness management." Although recreation is only one of the stated uses of wilderness—the others being scenic, scientific, educational, conservation, and historic—agency efforts and budgets are based primarily on the need to manage the often vast numbers of human visitors. One of the stated purposes of preserving wilderness areas is to provide for "primitive and unconfined recreation," but another consideration is the protection of the resource itself. At what point do the camping and trail restrictions, quotas, and permits needed to protect the resource impinge on the unconfined recreation of the visitor?

Another issue related to wilderness areas is that of wildfire suppression. It is now understood that fire is an important component of most ecosystems, but past policies of fire suppression have left unnatural fuel conditions in many areas. Should managers allow wildfires to burn, even though these fires are likely to be larger and more destructive than natural, periodic fires of the past? Other major controversies center on the reintroduction of wildlife species (especially predators such as the wolf and the grizzly bear) to wilderness areas, the disposition of long-standing mining and drilling claims, and the flying of aircraft over, or even into, remote wilderness areas.

Bibliography

Allin, Craig W. The Politics of Wilderness Preservation. 1982. Reprint. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press, 2008.

Aycrigg, Jocelyn, et al. "Wilderness Areas in Changing Landscape: Changes in Land Use, Land Cover, and Climate." Ecological Applications, vol. 32, no. 1, Jan. 2021, doi.org/10.1002/eap.2471. Accessed 24 July 2024.

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.

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.