Wilderness defined:

Wilderness protects the habitat of numerous wildlife species and serves as a biodiversity bank for many species of plants and animals. Wilderness is also a source of clean water. It has long been used for science and education as well as for higher education purposes, providing sites for field trips, study areas for student research, and serving as a source of instructional examples. Recreation is another obvious appeal of wilderness, and wilderness areas are seeing steadily increasing use from people who wish to experience freedom from the Nation’s fast-paced industrialized society.

What is Wilderness?
Wilderness is a legal designation to provide long-term protection and conservation of federal public lands. The 1964 Wilderness Act defined Wilderness 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…Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation.”

Wilderness is protected and managed to preserve its natural conditions which: (1) appear to be affected primarily by the forces of nature - man’s imprint is substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude, and/or a primitive and unconfined recreation; (3) is at least five thousand acres or is of sufficient size 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.  Both Wilderness and WSAs are part of the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS)

What is the Wilderness Act of 1964?
It is the general legal authority for Congress to designate and agencies to manage Wilderness. The Wilderness Act states that Wilderness areas are established, “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.” The 1964 Wilderness Act did the following:

• Established a national policy to preserve Wilderness.
• Established a definition of Wilderness.
• Established a National Wilderness Preservation System.
• Designated the first 9.1 million acres of legally protected Wilderness.
• Established a single, consistent Wilderness management direction.
• Mandated a Wilderness review process.
• Asserted the exclusive power of the Congress to designate Wilderness areas.

Why are Wilderness areas designated?
Wilderness is designated for a variety of benefits including clean water and air, refuge for rare plants and animals as well as primitive recreation. The Wilderness Act asserted the exclusive power of Congress to designate Wilderness. Congress can also un-designate Wilderness or change the boundaries of a Wilderness areas.

What can you do in Wilderness?
Visitors can hunt, fish, hike, cross country ski, snowshoe, travel by wheelchair, canoe, kayak, raft, camp, watch wildlife, explore, take photos, study nature, conduct scientific studies, breathe clean air, swim in clean water, and experience the natural world which our nation emerged from.

What can you not do in Wilderness?
Visitors cannot drive cars, snowmobiles or any other land vehicle in Wilderness areas.  However, firefighters, rescue operations, private property inholders, and occasionally livestock operators may be able to drive or land helicopters in Wilderness areas in special circumstances.  Mountain biking is not allowed because the Wilderness Act prohibits mechanized transportation, excluding wheelchairs.  The act also prohibits new minerals leases, and mining claims, as well as conducting commercial timber operations and other extractive activities.

What else goes on in Wilderness?
Livestock grazing is allowed where it occurred prior to designation.  Mining may occur on valid existing rights that predate designation.

What other agencies manage Wilderness?
The Fish and Wildlife Service, National Forest Service, and National Parks Service all manage wilderness areas, too. 

More Wilderness FAQs                                National Landscape Conservation System