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.
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.
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.
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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