Keeping Wilderness WILD!
Read Wilderness Watch’s blog.
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Forest Service reverses decades-long phase-out policy for cabins in Wilderness in Alaska
In January, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) approved a policy change for the Tongass National Forest that will disproportionately impact Wilderness. Designated Wilderness makes up about one-third of the 17 million-acre Tongass, which spans the coastal panhandle of Alaska.…
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Comradery in defense of wild places: A recap of the Healthy Public Lands Conference
Over the past two years of grad school, I often sat at my desk learning about the way policy lands in our backyards, just over our fences, and across the public lands that draw many to the West. My…
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Gutting of the Forest Service will cause irreparable damage to wilderness character
The U.S. Forest Service is headed for obsolescence due to recent personnel reductions, proposed budget cuts, and re-organization plans. The ability of the Forest Service to meet its legislatively mandated multiple-use mission to the American public is being systematically…
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Wilderness ranger speaks out about February wave of firings, impacts to Wilderness
NOTE: In February, the Trump administration fired approximately 3,400 U.S. Forest Service employees and 1,000 National Park Service employees, including wilderness rangers and trail crew members across the country. Shortly after termination, some wilderness rangers reached out to Wilderness Watch…
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Conflating recreation with conservation is not Wilderness preservation
In the final hours of the 118th Congress, the Senate took up and passed the EXPLORE Act, which former President Biden signed into law on January 6. Some of our members reached out, confused after seeing other conservation nonprofits…
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Wilderness Watch protests BLM’s proposed tree cutting in the Soda Mountain Wilderness
With a long-standing drought throughout the American West, exacerbated by climate change, some wilderness managers have come under pressure to try to prevent future wildfires in Wilderness from burning, or from burning so hotly…
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The next 60 years: Elevating earth’s community of life
This fall, Wilderness Watch and other wilderness advocates gathered at the feet of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, in the trees and away from computer screens, to reflect on the 60th anniversary of the Wilderness Act and talk about where we…
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Wilderness Watch goes to Washington
A week after the Wilderness Act’s 60th Anniversary on September 3, Wilderness Watch was on Capitol Hill educating members of Congress and their staffers about the importance of the Wilderness Act. While the U.S. House passed the Wilderness Act…
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Please, no diamonds for the Wilderness Act’s 60th anniversary
The 1964 Wilderness Act celebrates its 60th anniversary on September 3rd. Diamonds are a gift for a 60th wedding anniversary and presumably represent strength, but from a humanitarian lens diamonds have evolved to represent consumption and exploitation. This duality resonates with…
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Is the National Park Service serious about Wilderness?
When one thinks of wild landscapes in the U.S., national park areas come quickly to mind. Yet, as we celebrate 60 years of the Wilderness Act this year, wild places in too many of even our most iconic parks…
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Mountain bikers push to ride through Wilderness
The goal of the Wilderness Act, now celebrating its 60th birthday, was to set aside a small proportion of public land in America from human intrusion. Some places, the founders said, deserved to be free from motorized, mechanized and other…
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Wilderness at 60: A brief overview
On September 3, 1964, humanity’s unrelenting quest to tame, civilize, industrialize, and obliterate wild nature crashed into the Wilderness Act, signed into law by President Johnson on that momentous day. This visionary legislation—written primarily by the late Howard Zahniser…
Photo: Joseph Battell Wilderness, Vermont by Dawn Serra