How was wilderness established?
In 1964, the United States Congress passed the hallmark Wilderness Act. The idea of designating areas as Wilderness had overwhelming support – of the 474 Senators and Representatives at the time, only 13 voted against it. Since 1964, more than 100 million acres have been added to the National Wilderness Preservation System. Wilderness is designated from America ‘s public lands — land already set aside as national parks, national wildlife refuges, national forests, and lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). It is created by specific acts of Congress designating particular areas as wilderness. Today, there are more than 105 million acres of wilderness protected in national forests, wildlife refuges, parks, and BLM lands. Nearly two-thirds of this designated wilderness is in Alaska . > Read more about wilderness history.
Related Questions
- Is it fair to say that, as a human, you enjoy the chaos and beauty of wilderness and nature, but not enough to prefer it over right angles, sterilized order, pathological security and rigorous predictability?
- How is wilderness different from other federal public lands?
- How does wilderness designation in a park affect people?
