{"id":397,"date":"2004-09-03T11:47:21","date_gmt":"2004-09-03T18:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/wp2\/uncategorized\/happy-birthday-wilderness-act\/"},"modified":"2004-09-03T11:47:21","modified_gmt":"2004-09-03T18:47:21","slug":"happy-birthday-wilderness-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/theirs\/happy-birthday-wilderness-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday, Wilderness Act!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wilderness Act’s birthday worth celebrating – <\/p>\n

greatfallstribune.com<\/a><\/p>\n

On this date 40 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed S.4013 “to establish on public lands of the <\/p>\n

United States a National Wilderness Preservation System for the permanent good of the whole people. …”<\/p>\n

Said the president:<\/p>\n

“If <\/p>\n

future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. We <\/p>\n

must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.”<\/p>\n

One hundred and thirteen <\/p>\n

times since then, eight presidents — including, on four occasions, George W. Bush — have signed laws designating additional wilderness, <\/p>\n

from the five-acre Pelican Island in Florida to the more than 9 million-acre Wrangell-St. Elias Wilderness in Alaska.<\/p>\n

Today, thanks to <\/p>\n

this pathfinding, grassroots and bipartisan legislation, 106 million acres of American public land in 44 states is protected from <\/p>\n

development.<\/p>\n

But there’s more to be done.<\/p>\n

For one thing, eight times as much public land, mostly in the West, remains roadless and <\/p>\n

undeveloped, but it isn’t protected by wilderness designation. Some of it should be.<\/p>\n

Despite the economic, aesthetic and even <\/p>\n

theological value of leaving some places alone, the pressure to develop those last unprotected areas is intense, and it has not decreased <\/p>\n

during the Bush administration.<\/p>\n

Wilderness Act turns 40, and people are still <\/p>\n

arguing about it<\/a><\/p>\n

The federal act designated 9.1 million acres as wilderness, described by the bill’s framers as land “where the <\/p>\n

earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”<\/p>\n

More than anything else, <\/p>\n

the 1964 bill planted the concept in the American consciousness that wilderness has innate public value, that it contributes to the <\/p>\n

common good.<\/p>\n

40th Anniversary of Wilderness <\/p>\n

Protection Act \/ Our great American wilderness needs better protection<\/a><\/p>\n

Wilderness Facts<\/p>\n

Under the 1964 Wilderness Act:<\/p>\n

— <\/p>\n

There are now 106 million acres protected as wilderness. Alaska accounts for more than half of them, 58 million acres, which is 16 <\/p>\n

percent of the state. California has 14 million acres, or 14 percent of the state. Other states with more than 4 million acres of <\/p>\n

wilderness are Arizona, Washington and Idaho.<\/p>\n

— President Bush so far has signed four wilderness bills by Congress adding 529,604 <\/p>\n

acres, nearly all in Nevada. The most acreage was added by President Carter, who signed 14 wilderness bills covering a total of 66.3 <\/p>\n

million acres, mostly in Alaska. Ronald Reagan signed 43 bills adding 10.6 million acres. Bill Clinton signed 13 bills adding 9.5 million <\/p>\n

acres. George H. W. Bush signed 10 bills adding 4 million acres.<\/p>\n

— California has the most wilderness areas, 130, followed by <\/p>\n

Arizona, 90; Alaska, 48; Nevada, 42; Colorado, 41; Oregon, 40; and Washington, 30. [663 areas nationwide]<\/p>\n

Sources: The Interior <\/p>\n

Department; The Wilderness Society; Wilderness.net<\/p>\n

Wilderness protection’s enduring <\/p>\n

U.S. legacy<\/a><\/p>\n

These days, with the nation divided over so many things, it is easy to forget that once, not so long ago, wilderness <\/p>\n

protection was not seen as predominantly a Republican or a Democratic issue, but as a valuable legacy for both parties. In fact, while <\/p>\n

Jimmy Carter can claim the largest amount of wilderness (66 million acres) signed into law by any administration, Ronald Reagan signed <\/p>\n

more wilderness bills (43) than any other president.<\/p>\n

Venerable Wilderness Act stands test of time<\/a><\/p>\n

Only <\/p>\n

Congress can designate wilderness, although the president has to sign laws doing it. The acreage added so far in Bush’s tenure is the <\/p>\n

least of any president since Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act on Sept. 3, 1964.<\/p>\n

Motorized vehicles and equipment, such as <\/p>\n

chain saws, are prohibited in wilderness areas. Camping, hiking, climbing, fishing, hunting, canoeing and horseback riding are allowed; <\/p>\n

grazing livestock is generally allowed. Off-limits are mountain biking, commercial logging, road-building, oil and gas leasing and <\/p>\n

mining, except for pre-existing claims. …<\/p>\n

Last year the Bush administration directed the Interior Department to quit barring oil and <\/p>\n

gas drilling on land proposed for wilderness but not yet designated by Congress. Since then, the department has issued oil and gas leases <\/p>\n

on tens of thousands of these acres, mainly in Utah, Colorado and Wyoming. …<\/p>\n

Few of the 114 bills signed by Johnson and successive <\/p>\n

presidents creating 663 wilderness areas around the nation have been tinkered with, and there never has been an attempt to undo a <\/p>\n

wilderness designation.<\/p>\n

“The magic is it requires Congress, which in turn requires the citizenry, to be engaged. That’s where it gets <\/p>\n

its power,” said William Meadows, president of The Wilderness Society.<\/p>\n

His group believes another 200 million acres, much of it in <\/p>\n

Alaska, should be considered for wilderness protections. …<\/p>\n

Utah author and naturalist Terry Tempest Williams sees poetry in a law <\/p>\n

that defines wilderness as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who <\/p>\n

does not remain.”<\/p>\n

“Those who wrote this legislation into being understood the crucial and subtle relationship between language and <\/p>\n

landscape,” Williams said. “How we speak about wild, open country is closely aligned with how we treat it. Open lands open minds.”<\/p>\n

THE <\/p>\n

Wilderness Society<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wilderness Act’s birthday worth celebrating – greatfallstribune.com On this date 40 years ago, President Lyndon Johnson signed S.4013 “to establish on public lands of the United States a National Wilderness Preservation System for the permanent good of the whole people. …” Said the president: “If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than … Continue reading Happy Birthday, Wilderness Act!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theirs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}