The Wilderness Writings of Howard Zahniser

Excerpts from the Wilderness Act of 1964

209 EXCERPTS FROM THE WILDERNESS ACT OF 1964 Howard Zahniser’s language appears throughout the text of the Wilderness Act of 1964. Along with his numerous other essays and speeches and his vast body of correspondence, the act is his major legacy. The original act placed 9.1 million acres into the initial national wilderness system and set into motion reviews of potential additions to the system by the Forest Service, National Park Service, and Fish and Wildlife Service. Because the law had been modified in the final stages to authorize Congress alone to add to the system, the act compelled The Wilderness Society and its allies to build grassroots coalitions to promote additions to the system. Following the ten-year reviews and beginning during the 1970s, Congress created dozens of new wilderness areas and added millions of acres to the national system. As of 2014, nearly 110 million acres are included. The Wilderness Act of 1964 became a part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society program and helped lay the foundations for the rise of the environmental movement during the 1960s and 1970s. An act to establish a National Wilderness Preservation System for the permanent good of the whole people, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. Section 1. This Act may be cited as the “Wilderness Act.” . . . Wilderness System Established Statement of Policy Section 2.(a) In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States and its possessions, leaving no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition, it is hereby declared to be the policy of the Congress to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness. For this purpose there is hereby 210 | Excerpts from the Wilderness Act of 1964 established a National Wilderness Preservation System to be composed of federally owned areas designated by Congress as “wilderness areas”, and these shall be administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness, and so as to provide for the protection of these areas, the preservation of their wilderness character, and for the gathering and dissemination of information regarding their use and enjoyment as wilderness; and no Federal lands shall be designated as “wilderness areas” except as provided for in this Act or by a subsequent Act. (b) The inclusion of an area in the National Wilderness Preservation System notwithstanding, the area shall continue to be managed by the Department and agency having jurisdiction thereover immediately before its inclusion in the National Wilderness Preservation System unless otherwise provided by Act of Congress. . . . Definition of Wilderness (c) A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value. . . . Use of Wilderness Areas Section 4.(a) The purposes of this Act are hereby declared to be within and supplemental to the purposes for which national forests and units of Excerpts from the Wilderness Act of 1964 | 211 the national park and national wildlife refuge systems are established and administered. . . . . . (b) Except as otherwise provided in this Act, each agency administering any area designated as wilderness shall be responsible for preserving the wilderness character of the area and shall so administer such area for such other purposes for which it may have been established as also to preserve its wilderness character...