By Katie Bilodeau, Wilderness Watch
The Eastern Wilderness Areas Act celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. Like handfuls of statutes that designated multiple Wilderness areas, this statute—which technically declares no statutory title despite being commonly known as the “Eastern Wilderness Act”—designated 15 Wildernesses and 17 Wilderness Study Areas in the eastern states to be managed as Wilderness until the U.S. Forest
Service (USFS) evaluated them for Congress. The statute is remarkable, however, for the story leading
up to its January 1975 passage. It emerged as law despite USFS attempts to severely limit Wilderness on our national forests and effectively end wilderness designation in the East.
The USFS attempted to limit the reach of the new National Wilderness Preservation System on national forests as soon as Congress passed the Wilderness Act. Congress had instructed the USFS in the 1964 Wilderness Act to spend that first decade reviewing and recommending acreage within national forests that Congress could preserve and designate as Wilderness. But the USFS, already entrenched in its get-out-the-cut culture of post-WWII America, had pushed back against the idea of a Wilderness System during congressional deliberation. The Wilderness Act imposed new obligations where the agency previously enjoyed discretion. In 1965, the USFS self-limited what it would recommend as Wilderness. The agency plucked the most restrictive criteria from language in the Wilderness Act, requiring any USFS wilderness recommendations to be areas “untrammeled by man,” to “retain[]its primeval character and influence,” and to be no less than 5,000 acres. Areas previously impacted in just about any way could not clear these hurdles. While that reduced potential wilderness acreage in the West, the USFS admitted these criteria excluded much of the East entirely.
Wilderness advocacy groups responded. They argued that the USFS misinterpreted the Wilderness Act, which was written forward-looking and phrased more broadly. An eligible area “generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature” and “has five thousand acres of land or is of a
sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation…”. The Wilderness Act did not exclude “national forest lands predominantly of wilderness value” that may have been trammeled in the past. In effect, Congress had intended for more than what met the USFS’s “purity” test.
The debate on the USFS’s purity test landed before Congress as competing bills in the early 1970s. On one side—the legislation drafted and promoted by the USFS—was the Wild Areas Act of 1972. It invented alternative designation criteria because the bill explicitly concluded that almost no eastern areas could satisfy the 1964 Wilderness Act’s definition of “Wilderness.” Conservationists criticized this bill as codifying agency misinterpretation. They countered with a competing bill.
The competing bill that proponents referred to as the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act would protect numerous areas in the East under the 1964 Wilderness Act. Proposed areas in this omnibus wilderness bill were delineated by local citizen groups with grassroots support. Proponents of the Eastern Wilderness Areas bill argued that the USFS’s new criteria in the Wild Areas bill was unnecessary for eastern wildlands because the Wilderness Act applied everywhere. The 1964 Wilderness Act had two standards. The first was practical and permissive, allowing areas with prior human impact to be considered for and designated as Wilderness. After Congress designated Wilderness, however, a stricter standard applied—moving forward, agencies must manage Wilderness to maintain an untrammeled (i.e., unmanipulated, uncontrolled) quality.
Idaho Senator Frank Church reinforced this view in a 1973 speech—“The Wilderness Act Applies to the East”—just days after he introduced the bill. Senator Church noted he was “deeply involved in [the Wilderness Act’s] construction and in the full debate it received before passing the Senate by an overwhelming margin,” and expressed concern that “this important law is being misinterpreted by some officials in the very agencies which have the duty and responsibility to apply it.”
Senator Church noted that while the USFS would have everyone “believe that no lands ever subject to past human impact can qualify as wilderness…Nothing could be more contrary to the meaning and intent of the Wilderness Act.” He called out the agency for anti-wilderness maneuvering and trying to divide the Wilderness System into two, refashioning the current nationwide Wilderness System into a western one. Church repeated his previous statements that the Wilderness Act allows for the designation of formerly disturbed areas: “This is one of the great promises of the Wilderness Act. We can dedicate formerly abused areas where the primeval scene can be restored by natural forces. In this way, we can have a truly national wilderness system.”
In rebutting the assertions that no areas in the East can meet the definition of Wilderness, Church highlighted the three eastern Wilderness areas with past land abuse (Great Gulf, NH; Shining Rock, NC; and Linville Gorge, NC) that Congress designated with the original 1964 Wilderness Act. This move, he noted, “was, and is, a standing and intentional precedent to encourage such areas to be found and designated under the act in other eastern locations.”
Ultimately, Congress chose the conservationists’ bill over the Wild Areas Act, rejecting the USFS’s unreasonable purity criteria and reinforcing the 1964 Wilderness Act’s practical guidance for designating Wilderness. Areas with past impact can become Wilderness. Once designated, however, the Wilderness Act protects from further manipulation. Untrammeled means, moving forward, nature
decides. The unequivocal reinforcement of these values to prevent warping the 1964 Wilderness Act is what we—in the East and the West—owe to the “Eastern Wilderness Act.”
Katie is Wilderness Watch’s Legislative Director and Policy Analyst.
Photos: Top—Dolly Sods Wilderness by Ethan Miller; Above—Lye Brook Wilderness by Dawn Serra.
168 Comments
It’s incredible to look back and realize how hard people had to fight just to ensure that eastern wildlands could be recognized as Wilderness. The story of the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act shows that restoration and renewal are possible—not just for the land, but for us too.
The Forest Service’s early pushback reminds me how often institutions resist change, but grassroots voices, citizen groups, and leaders like Senator Frank Church made sure the Wilderness Act was applied as it was intended: nationwide. The idea that once-abused lands can heal and become Wilderness again is so powerful. It reflects the resilience of creation itself and the belief that even damaged places can be restored when we step back and let nature decide.
50 years later, I’m grateful for those who held the line against “purity tests” and ensured we all share in a truly national Wilderness System. It’s a reminder that protecting the land isn’t just about preservation—it’s about faith in renewal, restoration, and the generations yet to come.
Wilderness has never been more important! We must keep it free of exploitation and as pristine as possible!
Please save out wilderness! Our precious animals deserve to have their homes, the children deserve to have this natural treasure!
Leave the wilderness alone!
Public lands should remain public, and wild lands should remain wild!
Preserve Nature!!
We need to protect our planet and its wildernesses now. Once it’s gone, it will never come back.
Leave our beautiful country as it is! We need to protect it and all the animals and people who live here. Our future and our children’s future depend on it!
Wilderness must be preserved!
The USFS misinterpreted the Wilderness Act, which was written forward-looking and phrased more broadly. An eligible area “generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature” and “has five thousand acres of land or is of a sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation…”. The Wilderness Act did not exclude “national forest lands predominantly of wilderness value” that may have been trammeled in the past. In effect, Congress had intended for more than what met the USFS’s “purity” test.
We need nature to live and survive, not the other way around. It is very simple, we depend on nature!
Thank you for all that you do. Our Mother Nature, and I are depending on you…
Protect our wilderness. Once it’s gone, it will never come back.
Eastern wilderness must be protected in accordance with the Wilderness Act. No exceptions to the rules apply.
It’s more important than ever to preserve these wilderness areas as populations expand into the rural areas. We must have areas untouched by roads and human influences.
Leave the wilderness wild! Our beautiful lands deserve our protection.
one planet….stop killing it for MAGA.
Just like the restoration of prairie land in the Midwest, the wilderness act can act, by not interfering with the land. Or do the manual work with humans and not machines to rejuvenate a dedicated wilderness area with clean up and restoration. But follow wilderness rules. Minimal in and out humans and equipment. No planes or helicopters to manage the land. Designate the land and follow the wilderness rules.
thank you.
Wilderness and biodiversity shall be preserved, and we as a collective can ensure so. Planetary equilibrium cannot be sustained without it, and so we must mobilise!
We are losing our biodiversity at a concerning rate. Climate change science is currently being ignored at the federal level. The protection of wild spaces in our nation is imperative and should be a top administrative priority.
BRAVO Allowing our environment to become a garbage dump of pollution, is tantamount to supporting the idea that houses would be just fine without toilets, and neighborhoods would be just fine without garbage removal; and Yes, I do realize we have a president in The White House who’s turning our government into a dirty joke, and a general mess; but the midterms cometh; and this country has had to corrected its screwups many times before this, and has done so. Keep the faith; and get the Hell out and VOTE!
I really appreciate this in-depth reporting. I also love hearing about a time in US history when politics worked for the benefit of the people and the environment. It is difficult for me to comprehend that we can believe that destroying our own habitat will be beneficial to us. We need nature like every other species need their habitats. We need a healthy planet to sustain us.
Please protect our wilderness areas and public lands. Keep the public lands in public hands. Once they are gone, they are gone forever.
We ALL have a responsibility to work together in order to Protect and SAVE our Wilderness, Waterways and Environment from senseless Destruction and Poisoning in the name of Ignorance and Greed.
We have to SAVE OUR National Parks, National Monuments, National Forests, Public Lands and The Endangered Species Act, which protect and save our amazingly beautiful landscapes from poisoning and destruction and Wildlife from senseless harassment and killing from people who care about nothing except their own pocketbook.
We have to oppose any bill that sells out wild animals and wild places.
Keep the Wilderness Act in place as it is. Humans need the Wilderness Act to protect their mental health, calmness, and stability. Humans need wilderness to improve their body and soul, respect for life, being one with nature, and the way the Wilderness Act protects the environmental ecosystem and improves human relationships within our increasingly heated society. Without our preservation of and link to the green coolness of nature, humans become mean, stressed, irrational, and lack respect for life.
So it was the U.S. Forestry Service that was opposed to the designation of forest areas as “wilderness”? It amazes me when government agencies are so corrupted by political and business interests that they end up obstructing the good work they are supposed to do.
We need the wilderness more than ever to restore our planet and humanity.
Continue to add land to Wilderness designation since if permitted Nature will repair damaged caused by humans or overgrazing
I support the Wilderness act, wildlife refuges, a ban on helicopter hunts, cyanide bombs, body grip traps, all trophy hunting, and opening up public lands for private destruction, I mean, “development.”
let wilderness thrive
We are showing such ignorance and greed with how we are “managing” our public lands. Nature is intelligent, we need to leave it alone, learn from it, and do all we can to align with its healthy, balanced rhythms. We are losing our biodiversity at an alarming rate. Trees, forests, and all ecosystems should be number one for protection.
Imagine a Senator from Idaho, Sen. Church, who believed in the Wilderness Act! Today, Idaho seems far from any conservation views of the land or the predator species that are found there but under constant threat by the state and federal legislators. We need pure Wilderness to protect what is left in this nation. We must protect his federal legislation at all costs.
Our American wild spaces are what separates us from other nations and must be cared for and protected if there is an chance of making America great.
We need to preserve as much wilderness as possible because of global warming.
we need to protect the planet and the wildlife on it
Leave our Parks and Animal’s alone they are supposed to be protected not tortured
Mother Nature is at her tipping point just look around heat temperatures rising flooding fires and so on this is not a game
Leave our public lands alone so we and future generations can enjoy their beauty.
Please keep the Wilderness Act in place.
We need to protect as many nature areas as possible now. The current administration is trying to take back some public lands for oil and mineral extraction. We must work hard to stop them.
We need to take better care of what is left of our environment, for wildlife, marine life, plant life, and people.
The Wilderness Act and the Endangered Species Act MUST BE PRESERVED, ENFORCED, AND STRENGTHENED! If they are not, our precious wilderness regions and wildlife will be devastated, never to be the same again.
We have to stand together and brave together to save the animals from extinction and save the habitats into the future forever.
Please don’t destroy public land. Keep it as natural as possible.
Please save the Eastern Wilderness Act!”
Our very lives depend on it along with all flora and fauna.
With a government that is putting cruelty first to its population, that aren’t billionaires, the EWA is close to the last chance to save our world.
I am totally disheartened. I am a born US citizen. I want to be assured that no more wilderness is usurped by those who would ultimately profit from and decimate land which should rightfully be OUR public lands. Once they’re gone, they are gone forever! We must stop the madness
The protections are of top importance.