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America's Wilderness Heritage
Why Wilderness? Over a century ago, conservationists had the foresight to begin setting aside tracts of undeveloped land to ensure that some places remain wild forever. Americans have a tradition of hiking through our forests, scaling mountain peaks, sleeping under the stars and enjoying wilderness as a quiet refuge for the human spirit. Wilderness also provides essential wildlife habitat, a source of clean drinking water for our communities, and a living laboratory for scientific research and environmental education. We protect wilderness for our wildlife, ancient forests, and free-flowing rivers and simply to preserve a remnant of the vast open spaces that once spanned our continent from coast to coast. But most of all, we choose to protect wilderness for our children. What is Wilderness? America's National Wilderness Preservation System was established with the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964 to ensure the permanent protection of some of our publicly owned federal lands. The Wilderness Act defines "wilderness" as wild places where humans are visitors and nature remains pristine and unspoiled. Today the National Wilderness Preservation System encompasses over 100 million acres, from an 8.7-million-acre area in Alaska to a two-acre tract on Wisconsin Islands in Green Bay. Special Protections for Wilderness Areas To ensure the protection of wilderness areas, many activities that would threaten ecosystems are expressly prohibited. These management guidelines distinguish wilderness areas from other public lands where "multiple use" management occurs.
Threats to Wilderness As our wildlands are exploited by the oil, timber and logging industries, gobbled up by urban sprawl, fragmented by new roads and overrun by off-road vehicles, fewer and fewer remote landscapes are eligible for official wilderness designation. Multinational mining companies, corporate livestock operations and irresponsible off-road vehicle use degrade the water, air and wildlife values of our wildlands. After decades of intensive logging operations, only 1 percent of our country's original ancient forests in the lower 48 states remain standing today. Once our last wildlands are paved, logged and polluted, they can never be replaced. The Future of Wilderness Today, as America's last remaining wild places hang in the balance, the need to protect wildlands is more important than ever. Fortunately, citizens are organizing in communities across the country to ensure that the crown jewels of our wild natural heritage are permanently protected as official wilderness. The fragile coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska is home to polar bears, grizzlies and moose, and serves as a calving ground for the 129,000-member Porcupine caribou herd. But some in Congress are determined to transform this magnificent wildlife mosaic into a massive oil field. The awesome towering cliffs, complex mazes of redrock canyons and wild rivers of Utah are threatened with mining, oil and gas drilling, and other industrial development. The Northern Rockies are the source of clear streams and rivers, a repository of America's frontier history, and an inspiration to millions of visitors seeking solitude and incomparable natural splendor. The last hope for the grizzly bear in the lower 48, the vast Northern Rockies ecosystem, is threatened with logging, mining and other development activities. Now more than ever, we need to join together to protect our last remaining wildlands from an ever expanding population, encroaching urban sprawl and multinational corporations hungry for more timber, mining and oil and gas development. If we don't have the foresight to set aside the last of our vanishing wilderness today, it will be gone forever. Photo of Joshua Tree National Park courtesy Philip Greenspun Up to Top HOME | Email Signup | About Us | Contact Us | Terms of Use | © 2008 Sierra Club |
