The Enduring Wilderness: Protecting Our Natural Heritage through the Wilderness Act

by Doug Scott

Overview

A look at protecting America's wilderness and an explanation of the Wilderness Act.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781555915278
Publisher:	Fulcrum Publishing
Publication date:	08/01/2004
Series:	Speaker's Corner (Paperback)
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Doug Scott is policy director of The Campaign for America's Wilderness and has been at the forefront of many of the important wilderness preservation campaigns as a strategist and lobbyist. In the 1980s, Scott was conservation director and, later, associate executive director of the Sierra Club. In 1996 he received the club's highest honor, the John Muir Award.

Table of Contents

	Foreword	ix
	Preface	xi
	Introduction	1
	People Saving Wilderness ... for People	1
	The Impulse to Preserve Wildness	3
	The Wilderness Act: A People's Law	4
	Challenges Ahead	6
Chapter 1	Wilderness in Our Lives	9
	The Wilderness We Have Saved	9
	What Preserving Wilderness Requires	13
Chapter 2	Wilderness: From Concept to Action	19
Part 1	The Wilderness Idea	19
	The Need for Wilderness	19
	John Muir	21
	Wilderness Vanishing	23
	National Parks and Wilderness	24
Part 2	The Beginnings of a Wilderness Preservation Policy	27
	Aldo Leopold	27
	The First Wilderness Area and the "L-20" Regulation	29
	Bob Marshall	30
	The Wilderness Society	31
	Forest Wilderness or National Parks?	32
	"Wilderness" and "Wild Areas"--The "U" Regulations	35
Chapter 3	Wilderness: "There Ought to be a Law"	37
	How Permanent?	37
	"Not by Law"	39
	The Idea of a Comprehensive Wilderness Program	40
	Howard Zahniser	40
	Imagining a Wilderness Law	41
	Building Consensus	43
	Echo Park	44
	The "Wilderness Bill"	47
	The Eight-Year Legislative Odyssey	50
Chapter 4	Putting the New Wilderness Act to Work	57
	The Law Changed Everything	57
	The Ten-Year Wilderness Review Process	59
	Stewart Brandborg	61
	The "Great Liberating Force"	62
	Grassroots Organizing and Citizen Wilderness Proposals	63
	Congress Expands Agency Wilderness Proposals	65
	Eastern Wilderness and the "Purity Theory"	66
	The Eastern Wilderness Areas Act	68
	National Park Service Resistance to Wilderness Designation	72
	Wilderness in National Wildlife Refuges	73
Chapter 5	Expanding the Scope of Wilderness Preservation	75
	The "60 Million-Acre Myth"	75
Part 1	National Forest "Roadless Areas"	77
	Scapegoat: The First Citizen-Initiated Wilderness Area	79
	NEPA, Roadless Areas, and "RARE"	79
	The Endangered American Wilderness Act and "RARE-II"	81
	Release Language and the Post-RARE-II Wilderness Laws	82
Part 2	The Bureau of Land Management Joins The Wilderness Program	84
	The Federal Land Policy and Management Act	85
	The Loss of Big Wilderness	86
	The National Forest Roadless Area Conservation Rule	88
Part 3	Wilderness on a Scale to Match Alaska	89
	The Alaska Coalition and "D-2"	90
	The Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act	91
Chapter 6	Wilderness Yet to Save	95
	Our Unprotected Wilderness	95
	How Much Unprotected Wilderness?	96
	Giving Roadless Areas a Fair Shake	97
	Giving Roadless Areas the Brush-off	99
	Anything but Statutory Wilderness	100
	The Majority of Americans Are "Not at the Table" as the Fate of Wilderness Is Decided by Agencies	104
Chapter 7	Wilderness Politics	107
	The Power of Public Opinion for Wilderness	107
	Wilderness Opponents	108
	What the Polls Say about Public Attitudes	111
	The Realities of Legislative Politics	114
	Wilderness and Compromise	117
	The Geography of Wilderness Politics	120
	Connecting Wilderness with People	122
	The Wilderness System of the Future	122
Chapter 8	The Challenges of Wilderness Stewardship	125
	"Guardians not Gardeners"	125
	The Wilderness Act's Stewardship Mandate	126
	The Nondegradation Principle	129
	Dealing with Nonconforming Issues	130
	Wilderness Stewardship in Practice	131
	Seeing Wilderness Areas in a Larger Context	134
	"Inholdings" and The Wilderness Land Trust	136
Chapter 9	Wilderness in Other Realms	139
	Tribal Wilderness	139
	State Wilderness	140
	The Scale of State-Designated Wilderness	142
	Wilderness around the World	142
	People Saving Wilderness around the World	144
Chapter 10	An Enduring Resource of Wilderness	145
	Afterword	153
Appendix	The Wilderness Act	155
	Endnotes	163
	Suggested Reading	177
	Author's Note and Acknowledgments	181
	About the Author	184