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| Issues of Interest |
| Wilderness |
| America is a world leader in setting
aside lands for preservation, mainly through the 1964 Wilderness
Act. Under this law, Congress is the only entity designated
to establish wilderness areas. By law, wilderness does not allow
for motorized uses and human use is limited to walking or horseback.
Over 663 wilderness areas exist in the US covering almost 106
million acres and are managed by the Bureau of Land Management,
the National Park Service and the Forest Service. Within the
DOI, the National Park Service has oversight of 44 million acres
of wilderness at 44 locations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
has responsibility for nearly 21 million acres in 71 areas.
The Bureau of Land Management oversees more than 6.5 million
acres at 161 sites.
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| Outside of DOI, at the Department
of Agriculture, the U.S. Forest Service oversees nearly 35 million
acres of wilderness areas in 400 areas. Together with DOI wilderness
lands, the total amount of designated wilderness is an area
larger than the state of California, or about the size of Oregon
and Washington put together. In Alaska, there are 58,182,216
acres of wilderness. This represents about 56% of the wilderness
acreage in the United States.
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| In 1996, the State of Utah sued the
Department of the Interior on the BLM's authority to re-inventory
lands for possible wilderness study designations in Utah. A
settlement to the suit was reached in April of 2003. Policies
stemming from the settlement were issued to the BLM Bureau-wide
(not including Alaska) in September, 2003. This wilderness policy
directive allows the BLM to continue to inventory public lands
for resources or other values, including wilderness characteristics,
as a part of managing the public lands through the land use
planning process. However, the policy states that the BLM's
Section 603 authority has expired, which allowed the BLM to
designate lands as wilderness study areas. Therefore, land use
plan decisions may accord special management protection to lands
for special values, and lands can be inventoried for resources
and other values, including wilderness characteristics, but
for the purposes of having those values considered during the
land use management process. The land use planning process allows
for full participation by citizens to have input into how lands
are managed.
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| Citizens are encouraged to contact
their local BLM offices to determine when the Resource Management
Plans are to be renewed for a certain area. It is during this
renewal of the land use plans, that citizens will have opportunities
to comment on how lands should be managed, which uses should
be allowed, where they should be allowed and how the public
can have ongoing participation in the oversight and stewardship
of these lands.
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| For more Information visit: |
 Summary
of DOI's Wilderness Settlement Proposal Wilderness In America |
| Bureau
of Land Management Wilderness Site |
| U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service Wilderness Site |
| National
Park Service Wilderness Site |
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