President Lyndon Johnson signs the Wilderness Act of 1964 in the White House Rose Garden. Also pictured are Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, Senator Frank Church, and Representative Wayne Aspinall, among others.

The Wilderness Act of 1964 (Public Law 88-577) created the legal definition of wilderness in the United States, and protected some 9 million acres (36,000 km²) of federal land. The result of a long effort to protect federal wilderness, the Wilderness Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 3, 1964. Image File history File links Sept_04_wilderness. ... Image File history File links Sept_04_wilderness. ... The southern side of the White House The White House is the official residence and principal workplace of the President of the United States of America. ... The White House Rose Garden is a garden in the West Wing area of the White House. ... The United States Secretary of the Interior is the head of the United States Department of the Interior, concerned with such matters as national parks and The Secretary is a member of the Presidents Cabinet. ... Stewart Udall Stewart Lee Udall (born January 31, 1920) was an American politician. ... The United States Senate is the upper house of the U.S. Congress, smaller than the United States House of Representatives. ... Frank Forrester Church III (July 25, 1924 – April 7, 1984) was a four-term U.S. Senator representing Idaho as a Democrat (1957-1981). ... The chamber of the United States House of Representatives is located in the south wing of the Capitol building, in Washington, D.C.. This photograph shows a rare glimpse of the four vote tallying boards (the blackish squares across the top), which display each members name and vote as... Wayne Norviel Aspinall (April 3, 1896-October 9, 1983) was as a lawyer and politician from Colorado. ... The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view. ... The Wilderness Act protects exceptional undisturbed natural areas and scenery, such as in the Ansel Adams Wilderness On federal lands in the United States, Congress may designate a wilderness area under the provisions of the Wilderness Act of 1964. ... For the pop band, see Presidents of the United States of America. ... LBJ redirects here. ... September 3 is the 246th day of the year (247th in leap years). ... 1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1964 calendar). ...

The Wilderness Act is well known for its succinct and poetic definition of wilderness:

...an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.

When Congress passed and President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act on September 3, 1964, it created our National Wilderness Preservation System. The initial statutory wilderness areas, designated in the Act, comprised 9.1 million acres (37,000 km²) of national forest wilderness areas previously protected by administrative orders.

Statistics

Today, the Wilderness System comprises over 106 million acres (429,000 km²) involving federal lands administered by four agencies, as shown on this table.

Legal framework

The most important thing about the Wilderness Act is that when Congress designates each wilderness area, it includes a very specific boundary line—in statutory law. Once a wilderness area has been added to the System, its protection and boundary can only be altered by another act of Congress. That places a heavy burden on anyone who, all through the future, may propose some change.

The basics of the program set out in the Wilderness Act are straightforward:

• The lands protected as wilderness are areas of our public lands.
• Wilderness designation is a protective overlay Congress applies to selected portions of national forests, parks, wildlife refuges, and other public lands.
• Within wilderness areas, we strive to restrain human influences so that ecosystems can change over time in their own way, free, as much as possible, from human manipulation. In these areas, as the Wilderness Act puts it, “the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man”—untrammeled meaning the forces of nature operate unrestrained and unaltered.
• Wilderness areas serve multiple uses. But the law limits uses to those consistent with the Wilderness Act mandate that each wilderness area be administered to preserve the “wilderness character of the area.” For example, these areas protect watersheds and clean-water supplies vital to downstream municipalities and agriculture, as well as habitats supporting diverse wildlife, including endangered species, while logging and oil and gas drilling are prohibited.
• Along with many other uses and values for the American people, wilderness areas are popular for diverse kinds of outdoor recreation—but without motorized or mechanical vehicles or equipment. Wilderness is the haven of quiet beyond the end of the road, the wild sanctuary we meet on its own terms by leaving the machinery of twenty-first-century life behind. The wild popularity of wilderness recreation shows how hungry Americans are for just such sanctuaries.

Future legislation

This is not all the wilderness that Americans will choose to preserve on their public lands. Congress considers additional proposals every year, some recommended by federal agencies and many proposed by grassroots conservation and sportsmen’s organizations.

This fall Congress is actively working on bipartisan bills to designate new wilderness areas in Washington State, California, Virginia, Idaho, and New Hampshire. Grassroots coalitions are working with local congressional delegations on legislative proposals for additional wilderness areas in many other states, including Vermont, southern Arizona, national grasslands in South Dakota, Rocky Mountain peaks of Montana, Colorado and Wyoming. To its credit, the U.S. Forest Service has recommended new wilderness designations (which citizen groups may propose to expand) in some of these places and others.

Wherever there are public lands with fragile wilderness qualities, local citizen groups are working to secure the strongest protection we can give such lands, which is wilderness protection by act of Congress. These grassroots efforts are backed by national organizations, including the Campaign for America’s Wilderness, the Wilderness Support Center (part of The Wilderness Society), the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, and state organizations such as the California Wild Heritage Campaign [1] among many others.

Source

• This article is adapted from The Enduring Wilderness: Protecting Our Natural Heritage through the Wilderness Act, a Campaign for America's Wilderness book by Doug Scott published in August 2004 by Fulcrum Publishing.

See also

• U.S. Wilderness Area
• List of U.S. Wilderness Areas

The Wilderness Act protects exceptional undisturbed natural areas and scenery, such as in the Ansel Adams Wilderness On federal lands in the United States, Congress may designate a wilderness area under the provisions of the Wilderness Act of 1964. ... Four federal agencies of the United States government administer the U.S. Wilderness Areas, which includes 680 wilderness areas and 105,695,176 acres (427,733 km²). These agencies are: United States Forest Service United States National Park Service United States Bureau of Land Management United States Fish and Wildlife...

External links

• Campaign for America's Wilderness (political advocacy)
• Full text of the Wilderness Act
• Protect California's Remaining Wilderness