Wilderness Act

Wilderness Act, U.S. environmental protection legislation (1964) that created the National Wilderness Preservation System, setting 9 million acres (3.6 billion hectares) aside from development and providing a mechanism for additional acreage to be preserved. The Wilderness Act was a landmark victory for the environmental movement. Since 1964 more than 100 million acres (40 million hectares) have been made part of the wilderness system.

The legal protection of wilderness areas has always been controversial in the United States. On one side of the debate stand those who believe that wilderness serves as a much-needed psychological counterbalance to industrial civilization. On the other side stand those who understand American greatness in economic terms and consider it foolish to lock up valuable resources. Those two groups came into confrontation in the early 1950s as the federal government considered a plan to develop water and power resources in the West (the Colorado River Storage Project), including the proposed Echo Park Dam in Dinosaur National Monument. The Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, and other environmental groups opposed the development on the grounds that the land should remain protected for its unique natural qualities and should not be developed. Environmentalists waged an aggressive and effective grassroots campaign to protect the national monument. In 1955 the Echo Park Dam was removed from the plan for the Colorado River Storage Project.

After the battle over Echo Park, Howard Zahniser—an officer of the Wilderness Society who worked to convince Congress to pass federal wilderness legislation—proposed that environmentalists take the offensive and offer a legislative plan to permanently protect wilderness. Zahniser was convinced that public opinion favoured the cause of the environmentalists. He drew up a bill that would place all wildlands and primitive areas (a primarily historical designation for unspoiled land without roads or public accommodations) in a special wilderness system protected from development and provide a means to add land from national parks, monuments, and other federally protected lands and Indian reservations. The initial bill would have placed many millions of acres into the wilderness system. He solicited opinions from numerous individuals both in and out of government. Zahniser envisioned that additions to the system would be suggested and approved by a board made up of environmental organizations and government agencies.

In 1956 Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey, a Democrat from Minnesota, and Rep. John Saylor, a Republican from Pennsylvania, introduced the Wilderness Bill. By May 1964 the bill had been rewritten 66 times, and more than 6,000 pages of testimony had been collected in congressional committees. The strongest opposition had come from western mining, grazing, and timber interests. It took Pres. Lyndon Johnson’s open support and a great many compromises to get the final bill enacted into law. Under the final provisions, far less acreage was included in the system, some exceptions were made for use, and an act of Congress was required to add more land to the wilderness system. While pleased that they were able to gain protection for wilderness, environmentalists were somewhat disappointed with how much compromise they had to make in their quest to get the landmark bill through Congress.