Since Congress enacted the 1964 Wilderness Act, conservationists have worked to protect as designated Wilderness undeveloped public wildlands—generally known as Roadless Areas. National forests, national parks, national wildlife refuges, and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administered lands all include millions of acres of roadless areas that should be designated Wilderness by Congress. In many cases, these wildlands are under attack as never before.

When Congress designates a public wildland as a Wilderness Area, it is generally protected from industrial development as a natural wild landscape. Roadbuilding, logging, resort development, new mining entry, new livestock allotments and motor vehicles are all outlawed in designated Wilderness.

Today, attacks upon the wilderness concept reverberate. Bureaucrats create euphemisms such as "ecosystem management," "forest health," and other buzzwords designed to convince the gullible that roadless areas and related wildlands need more intensive management, not less. Some urban environmentalists and "liberal" scholars whine that wilderness is irrelevant to the more mundane issues of urban pollution and social justice. And the corporate-financed, so-called "wise use" movement is a shrill cry of fear-mongering anti-wilderness activism and propaganda.

With powerful allies in Congress, the vocal anti-wildland forces await a forcible response. Their reactionary fanaticism provides the opportunity for conservationists to respond by building stronger support for wildlands and by better articulating the vital need to save and restore habitat. Now is the time for wildland conservation to renew and redouble its commitment to wilderness!

The America first experienced by Europeans was a teeming wilderness with an unbelievable profusion of life. Over sixty-million bison…a couple hundred-thousand griz… giant elk herds across the plains and from coast to coast…billions of passenger pigeons blackening the eastern sky…billions of spawning salmon… unbroken virgin forests and unplowed prairies… living flood plains and deltas nourished by rich silt-laden floodwaters ....

1. About 9% of U.S. south of Alaska remains in a roadless and wild condition.

2. About 2½% of the lower 48 states is legally protected Wilderness (46 million aces). Including Alaska, about 4½% of the U.S. is protected Wilderness (104 million acres).

3. Over half of the national forest domain is roaded and developed. Less than 1/5 of the 191 million acre system is protected Wilderness (34.7 million acres). There are roughly 55 million acres of unprotected roadless areas up for grabs.

4. Roughly 30 million acres of BLM roadless lands qualify for Wilderness designation in the 48 contiguous states.

5. National Park roadless and unprotected: over 10 million acres in the U.S. south of Alaska.

6. National Wildlife Refuge roadless and unprotected: over 4 million acres, not including Alaska.

7. Public land roadless areas disappear at the rate of about a million acres per year.

Why Wilderness?

For the survival of thousands of species and subspecies worldwide that will become extinct without large areas of protected land.

To assure us of at least some pure, unpolluted water.

To function as clean air reservoirs.

To maintain natural processes, including disturbances like fire and flood, which fuel the embers of evolution.

To maintain opportunities for species to evolve under wild conditions similar to those which shaped their heritage.

To protect unknown gene pools that may render cancer cures, or better yet, the perfect chemical for human contraception.

For the health of the human psyche. As Aldo Leopold once wrote, "There are some who can live without wild things, and some who cannot."

For recreation, including quality hunting and fishing. Idaho is full of elk; Ohio isn't. The reason is obvious.

For scientific research.

To save money. The demise of wild country for resource extraction requires massive government subsidies of billions of dollars each year.

To create jobs. Wildland recovery projects are labor intensive and can create substantial employment for many decades. For example, the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act would create over 2,000 jobs in wildland restoration.

To maintain control areas with natural processes, upon which we can better base intelligent land use decisions for lands outside of wilderness.

To maintain areas of relative freedom from the repressive fallout of governments, rules, and the obnoxious drone of commercial pop culture.

Because land and water are the foundations of all life.

Because all of nature has intrinsic value.

Historic Perspective

In many ways, John Muir was the father of the modern conservation movement, fighting to protect the Sierras, Yosemite, and other wildlands over a century ago.

• 1872 Yellowstone National Park established.
• 1890 Yosemite National Park established.
• 1892 John Muir founds the Sierra Club.
• 1897 "Organic Act" outlaws clearcutting in public forest reserves.
• 1905 Teddy Roosevelt creates U.S. Forest Service, names Gifford Pinchot Chief.
• 1907 Teddy Roosevelt adds 99 million acres to national forest system, just before Congress rescinds such authority.
• 1924 "Weeks" and "Clark-McNary" laws authorize government to acquire national forest lands in eastern U.S.
• 1916 Inception of National Park Service; Stephen Mather is director.
• 1924 Forest Service biologist Aldo Leopold convinces agency to administratively protect the upper Gila River Country in southwest New Mexico as the nation's first Wilderness Area.
• 1930's Forester Bob Marshall convinces the Forest Service to protect additional lands as Wilderness and Primitive Areas.
• 1931-32 Forest Service declassifies corridor and builds "North Star Road" through former Gila Wilderness lands.
• 1935 Bob Marshall, Aldo Leopold, etc. form The Wilderness Society.
• 1936 Bob Marshall publishes historic inventory of big U.S. roadless areas.
• 1945 War ends, lust escalates, baby boom begins, housing demand rises, Forest Service becomes logging organization.
• 1940's Forest Service invites timber companies to build mills throughout rural West.
• 1949 At Sierra Club Wilderness Conference, Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Society lobbies for Congressional Wilderness Act. Foresters oppose idea.
• 1952 Assistant Forest Service Chief Christopher Granger brags that dramatic logging increases are due to "the initiative of Forest Service men going out and getting business."
• 1956 Senator Hubert Humphrey and Congressman John Saylor introduce the Wilderness Act, followed by 66 re-writes. Early bills would have protected all remaining forest roadless areas!
• 1950's and 60's Massive national forest clearcutting and roadbuilding.
• 1961 Forest Service de-classifies 549,215 acres of Selway-Bitterroot Primitive Area for future logging.
• 1964 Wilderness Act, signed by L.B.J. September 3. Fifty-four forest areas (9.1 million acres) immediately protected. Under law, F.S. to study 34 "Primitive Areas" (5.5 million acres) for wilderness potential. National Park and Fish and Wildlife Services mandated to study roadless lands. BLM domain ignored by Wilderness Act. Unfortunately, existing livestock use and mining rights are "grandfathered" into Wildernesses.
• 1968 Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
• 1970 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA); Environmental Impact Statements required for major or controversial Federal actions.
• 1972 Roadless Area Review and Evaluation by Forest Service (RARE).
• 1973 Endangered Species Act.
• 1975 Eastern Wilderness Areas Act enacted by Congress.
• 1976 Federal Lands Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) instructs BLM to study wilderness potential of its domain.
• 1976 National Forest Management Act (NFMA) enacted. After courts invalidated clearcutting in Monongahela National Forest (W. VA) as violation of 1897 Organic Act. NFMA legalizes it.
• 1978-79 RARE II, the grandiose defeat of modern forest conservation recommends most national forest roadless areas for development.
• 1980 Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). Also National Forest road mileage reaches 350,000.
• 1981 James Watt becomes Interior Secretary, declares distaste for bi-pedal locomotion.
• 1989 Dave Foreman and Howie Wolke publish "The Big Outside," an updated inventory of remaining big roadless wilderness areas of the lower 48 states.
• 1992 First Wilderness bill based upon ecosystem conservation introduced into Congress by PA Congressman Peter Kostmayer (The Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act).
• 1997 Earth's human population approaches six-billion.
• 2000 Clinton administration roadless initiative protects 58 million roadless acres in national forests from roadbuilding and most development.
• 2001 Bush administration begins to weaken national forest roadless pro-tection; Forest Service reverts to bulldozer-chainsaw management.
• Update: In 2007 a federal court reinstated the Clinton Roadless Rule.

Until recently, most conservationists viewed wilderness primarily in terms of recreation. For example, in his 1936 roadless area inventory, Bob Marshall's minimum size criteria was 300,000 acres for forested areas and 500,000 acres for desert, because solitude was tougher to attain in open country. Yet Marshall well appreciated wildlife and other wilderness values. Aldo Leopold was a biologist. And in 1956 Lois Crisler, author of Arctic Wild, wrote that "Wilderness without animals is dead—dead scenery." Still, until recently most wilderness advocates emphasized recreation and scenery.

Today conservationists realize that wilderness is essential for maintaining life as we know it on Earth. Other reasons for saving wilderness (see page 2) remain valid. Yet its contribution to saving native biodiversity, the great dance of life played out in natural habitats, subsumes virtually all other considerations.

Conservation Biology is the scientific study of nature conservation, an applied science, born in ecological crisis.

According to conservation biologists, our propensity to split wild habitats into increasingly smaller parcels—via roadbuilding, clearcutting, impounding rivers, urban sprawl, mining, etc.—
isolates various populations. Some species such as many reptiles, amphibians, and some small mammals simply won't cross roads. Others, such as elk and grizzly, avoid areas of high road density. Many songbirds and carnivores such as marten and fisher require interior forest habitats, and disappear when a patch of woods becomes too small. In many ways, habitat fragmentation impoverishes native plant and animal communities. Roadbuilidng is the most obvious cause of habitat fragmentation.

Isolated habitats lose species. Size reduction of habitat and further isolation from similar habitats increase the losses. As a general rule, a 90% size reduction of a habitat island reduces the number of species by 50%. Various mechanisms are responsible. Small isolated populations lose their genetic vigor due to inbreeding depression and the random loss of vital genetic traits as individuals die off. Also, they are vulnerable to natural cataclysms like disease, volcanoes, and floods ("environmental stochasticity"). Healthy populations in big habitats would normally survive these events. Small, isolated populations are also vulnerable to random demographic events, such as too few females born during a particular period ("demographic stochasticity").

Fragmented habitats have lots of edges. "Edge effect" describes the increase in weed species at the expense of those which require relatively undisturbed areas. A clearcut's border is an obvious edge. So is a wheat field-prairie interface. White-tailed deer and brown-headed cowbirds are classic edge species (cowbirds are "nest parasites" of various forest songbirds). In fragmented landscapes, they and other common invaders well adapted to civilization replace forest carnivores, relatively rare songbirds, and other creatures of the deep woods and other undisturbed habitats. Many such species are declining rapidly.

Habitat loss and fragmentation are the major culprits in today's biological meltdown, the Earth's greatest extinction event in at least sixty-million years. Renowned ecologist E.O. Wilson estimates that 20% of the Earth's flora and fauna will become extinct in the next thirty years. In the U.S., about a third of the roughly 120,000 known species are in trouble.

Many conservation biologists now advocate a conservation reserve system based upon numerous large, inviolate core wilderness reserves, representing the broadest possible variety of native ecosystems. Core reserves would be surrounded by buffer zones with fewer land use restrictions than the core areas. The reserves would be connected by linkages of relatively natural habitat to allow for natural patterns of migrating and emigrating wildlife. Scientists tell us that saving roadless areas is the essential starting point, upon which, the long-term work to build such a system can proceed. Think: save, restore, and connect.

Nonetheless, conservation must encompass other strategies, too. Many private lands contain areas of high biodiversity or other important natural values such as endangered or endemic species. Coasts, estuaries, deltas, floodplains, and other wetlands are examples of endangered ecosystems that often don't fit into the big, interconnected wilderness scenario. In the West, most cottonwood floodplain forests are gone because for well over a century, cattle have eaten most of the young trees. Moo. The prairie-parkland biome of the Midwest is essentially extinct. Florida, southern California, southeast Arizona, and Hawaii contain numerous "biodiversity hot spots," habitats characterized by high species diversity or endemism. The challenge to conservation is to develop better mechanisms for protecting all natural habitats, be they roadless wilderness or not. Roadless wilderness is basic and should top the conservation agenda, but it certainly isn't the whole enchilada.

Some species are so closely associated with roadless wildlands that they're often called Wilderness Dependent Species (WDS). Though individuals are sometimes found in semi-wild or populated areas, for various reasons healthy populations of these species are largely restricted to regions where wilderness is a primary landscape feature. For example, bull trout are so sensitive to eroded silt from roads and logging that they thrive only in watersheds that are protected Wilderness or largely roadless. Other examples of WDS's are salmon, grizzly, gray wolf, lynx, wolverine, bison, mountain goat, woodland caribou, and harlequin duck. As one might expect, many populations of these critters are either depleted or declining.

Other species require specific kinds of endangered ecosystems, such as old growth and extensive interior forest habitats, native prairies, cypress swamps, and cottonwood floodplain forests. Hundreds of such species would benefit by restoring such habitats and incorporating them into a system of big, interconnected wilderness reserves.

In retrospect, nearly all species evolved in wilderness, including humans. More than anything else Wilderness shaped the incredible journey of life on Earth.

Section 2(c) of the Wilderness Act defines Wilderness as "an area where the Earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man … retaining its primeval character and influence … and which generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable ...."

The 1964 Wilderness Act is our best law, though imperfect. Loopholes allow mining, livestock grazing, and water diversions, under some circumstances in Wilderness. Furthermore, it offers no blueprint for creating a Wilderness System of big, interconnected Wildernesses designed to protect native ecosystems and biodiversity. Mired in politics, Congress simply designates specific areas as it sees fit.

Nonetheless, Public Law 88-577 remains America's basic mechanism for protecting land. And despite its shortcomings, the future of American Wilderness depends primarily on conservationists' resolve to educate the public, organize groups of committed citizens, and promote the vision of big ecological wilderness.

Wildland Myths

Myth: Wilderness Areas "lock up" valuable resources.

Truth: Most of the country will always be open to resource extraction and development. Only about 3% of the annual timber harvest in the U.S. comes from all national forest lands (private lands produce the bulk). All public lands produce a mere 2-3% of America's red meat. Public lands produce relatively little food and fiber.

Myth: Uninhabited Wilderness promotes a dichotomous "humanity vs. nature" mentality.

Truth: Humans need wilderness; they evolved in wilderness, live at its threshold, and many spend much time within it. Wilderness can teach us how to better incorporate nature into rural, agricultural, and urban areas.

Myth: Protective legislation has seen its day.

Truth: The future belongs to those who educate potential allies; success belongs to those who organize. It's up to us!

Myth: Wilderness proponents are elitists; wilderness is irrelevant to struggling racial minorities and the downtrodden in general.

Truth: It is racist to assume that people of color don't care about or work for wild nature. It is usually affluent whites who promote this myth.

Myth: Wilderness diverts energy from pressing social concerns like peace and social justice.

Truth: All things are interconnected. Social change advocates and wilderness proponents should provide mutual support.

Myth: Wilderness advocates are "anti-people."

Truth: Very few. Really. Most are bona fide bleeding hearts.

Myth: Most Wilderness advocates are urban; most rural folks support wildland resource development.

Truth: Wilderness support permeates the socio-geo-political spectrum. A recent western Montana poll showed that 2/3 of the citizens want roadless areas left wild. The poll was commissioned by the Forest Service, which tried unsuccessfully to hide the results.

Myth: New techniques called "stewardship-forestry" and "ecosystem management" make further Wilderness designations unnecessary.

Truth: New euphemisms, same bulldozer-chainsaw mentality. Resource management means new roads, timber landings, biomass removal, fences, water diversions, etc. Natural ecosystems are so complex that our knowledge of them represents the tip of the iceberg. Resource managers must learn to emulate nature's ways as best they can, but better management is no substitute for wildland reserves.

Myth: American wildlife thrives, proving the success of resource management.

Truth: Huntable ungulate (elk, moose, bighorn, pronghorn, bison) populations rebounded after dramatic late 19th century declines, but never approached former numbers. Many other American species are declining today, some rapidly, due to resource extraction from wildlands, and related forms of habitat destruction and fragmentation. Examples: large carnivores (i.e. wolverine, lynx), various fish (i.e. bull trout, salmon), amphibians, many forest songbird species, some waterfowl, native bees and other insects, various bat species, spotted owls and murrelets, and 4-5 dozen other vertebrates of old growth forests … Sasquatch ....

Myth: Pristine nature no longer exists, so the idea of natural regulation (minimal interference with natural processes) in wilderness and related conservation reserves is bogus.

Truth: Vast areas are still controlled primarily by natural forces. Wildness persists, despite human influence. This myth is an academic argument that holds no water in the real world.

Myth: The "best" most scenic wildlands have already been protected as legal wilderness. So roadless areas are best made available for resource extraction.

Truth: Most Wilderness Areas encompass rugged mountain or desert terrain ("on the rocks"). Scenery is only one reason for saving wilderness (see page 2). According to conservation biologists, even our biggest nature reserves are too small to support viable evolving populations of most large vertebrates. Roadless areas are the bridge to a bigger interconnected system of ecologically viable wildland reserves.

Myth: Roadless area exploitation is good for the economy.

Truth: Only if you love budget deficits. The Forest Service annually loses hundreds of millions on below-cost timber sales. Most logging in erstwhile roadless areas is below cost. Mining companies pay only $5 per acre to patent and mine public lands. Government subsidies sustain the public lands livestock industry with free fences, roads, water projects, habitat restoration and so forth. Ultimately, taxpayers pay to fix off-road vehicle damage and damage from road and clearcut-induced landslides .... And, we might ask, can we put a monetary value on the loss, for example, of a rich trout fishery?

Myth: Invading roadless areas creates lots of jobs.

Truth: Resource extraction jobs are declining due to mechanization and new technologies. By contrast, Wildland restoration can produce more jobs than extraction, for many decades. For example, restoring wild habitat linkages would produce 1,400 good paying jobs, under the Conservation Biology Alternative for grizzly restoration in the Greater Salmon-Selway Ecosystem.

Myth: Wilderness reserves are unfair to the handicapped and elderly because roadless lands are off limits to them.

Truth: Handicapped people rarely argue this. It is presumptuous to assume that these people oppose wilderness. Only 4% of the U.S. is protected Wilderness. Over 90% of the lower 48 states is currently accessible to motorized vehicles. There are now 380,000 constructed road miles, just in our national forests.

The Destruction of Wilderness
To ask "Why do we destroy wilderness?" is to grapple with the essence of 8,000 to 10,000 years of human history. That's when the beginning of agriculture and its attendant crop surpluses, irrigation ditches, and permanent villages began to sever human society from nature's flow of wildness.

Not that agriculture and industrial civilization are bad per se; yet we continue to tame the wilderness, faster than ever, despite knowing the inevitable horrors of continuing on this course. In the U.S. many new roads are annually bulldozed into public wildland habitats, mostly by the Forest Service and the B.L.M. And the Forest Service clearcuts roughly one-half million acres each year. Following is a general synopsis of how we continue to de-wild America:

I. Physical Defacing of Land and/or Vegetation

— Roadbuilding: Generally, the initial step in destroying wilderness. Most of the following activities require roads.

— Logging: Unsustainable cutting levels require continuous entry into new areas. New roads, landings, denuded hillsides, landslides, erosion, weeds, etc. degrade and fragment habitat.

— Livestock: Denudes riparian vegetation; depletes native grasses, promotes weeds; requires roads, fences, dams, water diversions, etc. Cow shit in the water. Also, lots of dead predators, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

— Mining: Gigantic open pits and toxic tailings expanses; acid water pollution; roads, power lines, pipelines, etc.; processing mills ....

— Energy Extraction: Similar to above.

— Dams and Other Water Developments: De-water or obliterate rivers and streams.

— Pipeline and Power Corridors: Habitat fragmentation, death to migrating birds, new roads.

— Off-Road Vehicles: Erosion; spreading noxious weeds, new roadways; crush ground-nesting and dwelling species; squish subterranean critters and tunnels; air and noise pollution; wildlife harassment....

— Industrial Tourism: New ski areas, scenic parkways, resorts, theme parks, more pavement and new roads, reservoir recreation, etc.

— Urban/Suburban Sprawl: Self-evident.

II. Indirect Destruction

— Slob Hunting: Unfair devices such as bear baits, aircraft, motor vehicles, etc.; careless shooting ....

— Poaching: Including black market poaching for animal parts, i.e. bear gall bladders, tiger penises, etc.

— Exotic Species: Such as tamarisk, knapweed, and kudzo, which wreck havoc on native plant communities. Also, exotic game species such as non-native fish, ring-necked pheasant and chukar, so game agencies can sell more hunting and fishing licenses.

— Air Pollution: For example, acid rain kills forests and lakes.

— Ozone Depletion: Life needs protection from U.V. radiation.

— Global Warming: Climate may change faster than species can adapt or emigrate to more suitable areas.

— Wilderness Recreation: Increasing numbers of people squeezed into a diminishing domain create degraded campsites, erosion, water contamination, wildlife harassment, etc.

National Forest Roadless Initiatives

The "Sweet Sixteen"
Remaining Million-Plus Acre Roadless Wildlands of the Contiguous 48 States

(Acreages include designated Wilderness and unprotected Roadless, from The Big Outside, by Foreman and Wolke.)

Note: A 40 x 40 mile square is about a million acres; two million acres is about equal to a 56 x 56 mile square.

 Rank – Wildland – Name – Location - Total Acres

1. River of No Return… ID, w. MT… 3,253,000

2. High Sierra… e. CA… 2,800,000

3. Boundary Waters… n. MN, ONT… 2,752,000

4. Grand Canyon… n. AZ… 2,700,000

5. Bob Marshall… n. MT… 2,536,000

6. South Absaroka… nw. WY… 2,190,000

7. Selway-Bitterroot… n. ID, w. MT… 1,858,000

8. Everglades… s. FL… 1,658,000

9. Cabeza Prieta… AZ, MEX… 1,657,000

10. Glacier Peak… WA …1,607,000

11. Absaroka-Beartooth… MT, WY… 1,249,000

12. Pasayten… n. WA… 1,191,000

13. Wind River Range… w. WY… 1,171,000

14. Panamint Mountains… e. CA… 1,166,000

15. S. Great Salt Lake Desert… UT, NV… 1,144,000

16. Olympic Mountains… nw. WA… 1,060,000

Books for the Wild, Essential Reading

Name of Book, Author(s)

Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey

Let the Mountains Talk, Let the Rivers Run, David Brower

The Population Explosion, Paul & Anne Ehrlich

The Big Outside, Dave Foreman & Howie Wolke

John Muir and His Legacy, Stephen Fox

Battle For the Wilderness, Michael Frome

A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold

Wilderness and the American Mind, Roderick Nash

Saving Nature's Legacy, Reed Noss

The Idea of Wilderness, Max Oelschlaeger

Wilderness On the Rocks, Howie Wolke

What You Can Do
1. Thoughtful Letters to Congress Write your representatives and explain our vital need to save and restore public land wilderness by implementing the Wilderness Act. Express your concern about roadless areas in your region and describe them. Ask your representatives what they're doing to protect this endangered legacy. Contact them periodically, and then . . . keep it up! Also, let them know what you think about protection legislation such as the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act and the National Forest Protection and Restoration Act. Please point out the need to save all endangered roadless areas, old growth forests, free-flowing rivers, and other vital habitats. Be factual, but don't hesitate to speak from your heart.

Senator _________ Representative _________

U.S. Senate U.S. House of Representatives

Washington, D.C. 20510 Washington, D.C. 20515

2. Thoughtful Letters to the Editor
Rally yourself and your cohorts to regularly write local and regional newspapers about wilderness-related issues. These letters get read, and can educate many, including elected officials. Spread the word! Remember, wildland proponents cannot outspend corporate America, and cannot succeed in pressuring public officials without a visible, vocal, knowledgeable, and unyielding presence. Write! Write! Write!

3. Display Pro-Wilderness Bumper Stickers, Signs, Banners, etc. Creating the impression of broadscale support for wildlands is crucial. The opposition is increasingly vocal and visual. Though opinion polls prove that the public supports saving the wilds, that support must become obvious, audible, and undeniable. It is human nature to respond to those with the strongest presence!

4. Spread the Word and Distribute This Publication to friends, associates, clients, relatives, store owners, county commissioners, taxi drivers. . . .

5. Teach the Children about Wilderness at home, school, and through outside activities!

6. Organize get-togethers with friends and neighbors and form local groups to defend local wildlands and to promote the vision
of big, interconnected wilderness. Meet with local agency people.
Publicize threats to and reasons for saving these places. Organize!
Organize! (Be sure to have fun at all meetings and gatherings.)

7. Contact existing local and regional conservations groups for
suggestions, strategic planning, and overall cooperation.

8. Explore the Wilds. It'll keep you sane! The best wildland defenders know firsthand of what they speak.