More than 2 million acres of potential wilderness have been identified in Yellowstone National, but there is not 1 acre of official wilderness in the park/Kurt Repanshek file photo of 'Cascades' along the Bechler River
Last month brought us word that more than three-quarters of the Earth's surface had been impacted by humans, and scientists feared it would not take much longer to alter the remaining 23 percent.
“We’re on a threshold where whole systems could collapse and the consequences of that would be catastrophic,” James R. Allan, one of the study’s authors, told the New York Times.
Is that something that concerns you? Perhaps not, as there are millions of acres of official wilderness and areas managed by wilderness in the National Park System. But those areas that are "managed" as wilderness, but not officially designated, in theory are at risk of being impacted by society. In theory, cell towers could be erected in these lands, roads could be cut through them, forests logged, mining operations opened, lodges built.
The National Park Service has dropped the ball when it comes to seeking permanent wilderness designation for these acres, believes Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
"The agency has failed to forward wilderness recommendations to the President, conduct legally-mandated wilderness assessments, prepare wilderness management plans, revise legally-insufficient wilderness assessments or take a myriad of other steps necessary to protect wilderness resources," claims PEER. "At present, NPS devotes less staff time to managing the national wilderness program than any other federal land management agency, even though NPS administers more wilderness acres than any other agency. In the 1970s, NPS had an entire office devoted to wilderness. Today, NPS lacks a comprehensive overview of its wilderness needs. In its place, inertia and internal obstruction now constitute the agency wilderness posture."
According to PEER, wilderness recommendations covering nearly 5.5 million acres in the park system have been forwarded to Congress since 1974, but Congress has not considered them. Nearly half of that acreage -- 2 million acres -- is in Yellowstone National Park. Millions more acres of park landscapes in Alaska have been studied for wilderness potential, but recommendations were never forwarded to Congress, the group adds. Nearly 200,000 acres in the Lower 48 have wilderness potential, it says.
While The Wilderness Act required the National Park Service to review wilderness potential across the National Park System, surprisingly few parks have done that. And that's despite a Director's Order signed in 1999 requiring parks within 18 months to inventory their wilderness lands. Not all have.
To see what has been done, and not done, in terms of wilderness studies in the parks, check out this list developed by PEER.
So what do you think? Should the Park Service, and Congress (which has the final say), be more proactive on the wilderness front? If you believe some of the park system's potential wilderness deserves to be officially designated as wilderness, what argument would you make to your congressional delegation?
Comments
There's still fully designated wilderness area where there are some of those uses. I looked on a map of Yosemite's designated wilderness. There are little areas that aren't considered wilderness where the High Sierra Camps are, but ranger stations, fire lookouts, and even a large, high-tech outhouse are in designated wilderness that theoretically is managed as wilderness.
There's also the issue of preexisting mining claims. There are supposedly a dozen or so active mining claims in Death Valley, including some in the wilderness area. If a claim owner wanted to restart miniing, it would mean that roads could be built, as the wilderness designation doesn't affect an existing right.
Also, I know it's not in NPS areas, but I've been in wilderness areas where I saw dams built for water districts, such as Lake Aloha in Desolation Wilderness. I saw structures, roads, fences, etc that were preexisting and specifically allowed by the establishing legislation.
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-83/pdf/STATUTE-83-Pg130-2.pdf
I had no idea Yellowstone NP had no wilderness designated within it. That seems crazy to think one of our crown jewel parks has none.
I remember imagining as a kid that primitive areas, as they were sometimes called then, were areas with no trace or very minute traces of man. Doesn't seem to be the case today. My own state wilderness advocacy group SUWA has been trying to get reclaimed wilderness designated for years and some of those areas are full of cherry stemmed old mining roads.
And a northern advocacy group is pushing for a Wasatch Mtn. National Monument but ran into opposition from mountain bikers who were upset the group was pushing for new wilderness in a proposed Wasatch NM because it would exclude them.
As RodF points out, we need to do better at marketing the benefits of wilderness. We need more allies at this time, not fewer.
I should point out too that my state, Utah, has been mired in a deadlock over wilderness for years with little to no movement for years precisely because people think wilderness means little to no economic benefit. While I disagree with that it is a common sentiment.
There have been proposals that have sat around for years because two sides have dug in and won't budge. People wont negotiate so these WSAs just sit and wait...
I can think of a few dozen areas in Utah alone that could qualify as new National Monuments with some attendant wilderness attached. But no one will move on even designating Dinosaur NM as a national park and Celeveland Lloyd dinosaur quarry as a new because both sides won't meet and negotiate a deal.
Tazzman, if you created an account on the Traveler, your comments would post right away, instead of waiting for the staff to approve them. You can do so via the "Join" button in the upper right-hand corner of the site.
y_p_w writes "...ranger stations, fire lookouts, and even a large, high-tech outhouse are in designated wilderness that theoretically is managed as wilderness." Congress has explicitly allowed construction of permanent structures which are necessary for the management of the area as wilderness or protect watersheds (such as privies or vault toilets), and the preservation of historic structures, whether or not they are listed in special provisions of each wilderness area. Congress debated this subject in detail prior to passage of the Endangered American Wilderness Act of 1978, as detailed in House Report 95-540 which accompanied that act. That debate also chastised agencies for excluding areas which had pre-existing nonconforming uses, such as grazing, dams, powerlines, irrigation diversions, mining claims, fire roads, or proximity to roads or airports, from wilderness recommendation, and ordered the agencies to consider them. The act created 10 new and expanded 7 existing wilderness areas which agencies had previously excluded from wilderness recommendation for these reasons. In short, Congress determined that the threat that nonconforming uses were restricting the extent of the wilderness system took precedence over the ideal that wilderness should be absolutely devoid of them. As The Wilderness Act states, the works of man should be "substantially unnoticeable" but that doesn't mean they must be completely absent.