Wilderness Act's 45^th Anniversary: The Wilderness Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 3, 1964 and originally designated nine million acres of federal Wilderness. The Act states, "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 community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." This historic legislation authorized Congress to designate additional acres of Wilderness, which it has done over the past 45 years. Now totaling 110 million acres, the National Wilderness Preservation System is one of our nation's greatest achievements. The Senate recently passed a resolution commemorating its passage.
Wilderness Watch file photo

A Growing Problem: A 90,000-acre fire burning in the San Rafael Wilderness in California is suspected to have been started by a cooking fire at an illegal marijuana farm that is reportedly the operation of Mexican drug cartels. These operations are a growing problem on public lands, especially in CA, where enormous damage is being done to wilderness. According to an article in the Daily sound, "Stricter border laws are likely fueling the increase in the number of marijuana grows popping up in the rugged areas of California and other states...as cartels are no longer trying to smuggle drugs in from Mexico."

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In a Haze: Minnesota's 810,000-acre Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, known for its many lakes, islands and rocky cliffs, suffers from haze largely caused by power plants and taconite mines, with visibility sometimes reduced by 75%. Congress has directed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to have Minnesota create a plan to address this problem, and for the last 10 years, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has been developing a draft plan. Environmental groups, including the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA), Friends of the Boundary Waters Wilderness, Voyageurs National Park Association, and the National Park Conservation Association, are pushing for a stronger plan. According to MCEA, "The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency is not requiring these industrial sources to install the best available technology under the agency's proposed plan."

Click here to view the draft plan. Comments should be sent to: Catherine Neuschler, 651-757-2607, catherine.neuschler@state.mn.us - Regional Haze SIP
Photo by Kevin Proescholdt

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Wilderness and the American Mind Author to Speak in Montana: Roderick Nash, Ph.D., author of Wilderness and the American Mind, will speak at the Civic Auditorium in Hamilton at 7 p.m. September 19. The title of his speech is "The Meaning of Wilderness and the Rights of Nature." Wilderness Watch is sponsoring Nash's talk in honor of our 20th Anniversary and the 45th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act.

Wilderness and the American Mind is Yale University Press's all-time bestseller. MacMillian Publishing has called it the sixth most important book on the environment and Outside Magazine named it one of the "Ten Books That Changed Our World."

Nash's book chronicles the 180-degree shift in America's perceptions of nature, from the first settlers' determination to "break the will" of all wildlands, to the first stirrings of appreciation of wilderness by mid-19th century landscape painters and writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, to the great charismatic conservationists such as John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Bob Marshall, whose activism culminated in the Wilderness Act. Click here to read more...

What Were They Thinking?!  The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) recently started constructing a road into the Steens Mountain Wilderness in Oregon and widened and constructed additional roads on dozens of miles of primitive or non-existent routes including in the Blitzen River Wilderness Study Area. The BLM's activity broke the law as Wilderness is protected from any type of road building and the improvements to primitive routes in WSA's are prohibited under the Steens Mountain Travel Plan. The BLM's activity destroyed hundreds of juniper trees in this area, which is important habitat for Greater sage grouse (being considered for Endangered Species Act listing). The BLM also failed to prepare an Environmental Analysis and collect public comments.

The Oregon Natural Desert Association has filed a lawsuit against the BLM. According to the Bend Bulletin, "The lawsuit asks the federal court to rule that the decision to expand the roads is unlawful, reverse and remand the decision, stop the BLM from doing more work until an environmental study has been completed, fix damage to natural resources and pay reasonable attorney's fees.

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A Fire Gets Away: Wildfires, while natural, yearly events, are unpredictable in their behavior. Let's hope this one doesn't lead to more reluctance to let fires burn in Wilderness.

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  Just for fun: Moose drool...

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