Wild Issues
For over 35 years, Wilderness Watch has been the leading national organization whose sole focus is the preservation and proper stewardship of lands and rivers included in the National Wilderness Preservation System. Learn more about current Wilderness issues we’re working on.
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Izembek Wilderness threatened yet again
A few days after the November 2024 elections, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland proposed a land exchange to facilitate the construction of an 11-mile road through the protected tundra and wetlands of the world-renowned Izembek Wilderness and National Wildlife Refuge…
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Expand Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a good proposal that would expand the 438,000-acre Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia by 22,000 acres. The proposed expansion includes lands currently held by Twin Pines Minerals. Twin Pines Minerals…
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Wildernesses across two national forests threatened with burning and cutting
The U.S. Forest Service has announced a massive burning project for the Sequoia and Sierra National Forests in California that covers 2.4 million acres—including all Wildernesses on these two national forests—over 842,000 acres total. some of America’s most loved…
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Stop government killing of native predators in Wilderness
Housed within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service is a taxpayer-funded program called “Wildlife Services,” which, in spite of its name, does not serve wildlife. Instead, it’s the federal government’s multimillion-dollar program that kills…
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Let nature shape the Soda Mountain Wilderness
Wilderness Watch is urging the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to drop its plan for cutting and thinning trees in the Soda Mountain Wilderness in Oregon and instead protect the area’s wilderness character. The BLM’s Draft Resource Management Plan…
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No land exchanges on Cumberland Island
Wilderness Watch is opposing four land exchanges the National Park Service proposes for Cumberland Island in southern Georgia. While the proposal lacks a lot of necessary information, it’s clear the exchanges would benefit private interests far more than the…
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Keep jet noise out of Wilderness
Wilderness Watch is opposing a U.S. Air Force proposal for a massive increase in low-level jet training flights in more than 1.2 million acres of Wilderness in Arizona and New Mexico. The activity detailed in a Draft Environmental Impact Statement…
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Support federal buy-out of state school trust lands in the Boundary Waters
Wilderness Watch is supporting a good agreement between the U.S. Forest Service and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) for a federal purchase of about 80,000 acres of state-owned school trust lands and 3,200 acres of county tax-forfeited…
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Help reclaim the wild in the Mount Timpanogos Wilderness
The U.S. Forest Service claims its Emerald Lake Shelter Reconstruction Project would improve the wilderness character of the Mount Timpanogos Wilderness along the Wasatch Front in Utah. In reality, the agency’s proposal would seriously degrade this rugged, high elevation…
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Protect the Desolation Canyon Wilderness and the wild Green River
In 2019, Congress designated the Desolation Canyon Wilderness and two Wild and Scenic segments on the Green River in Desolation/Gray Canyons. The Desolation Canyon and Turtle Canyon Wildernesses, surrounding Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs), and other adjoining roadless public and…
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Protect the Anaconda Pintler and Lee Metcalf Wildernesses
The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to renew existing outfitter permits in the entire 3.4 million-acre Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest without any environmental analysis, maps indicating where many of the camps are, or disclosure of the impacts from these commercial…
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Grizzly bear killed over bait, legal action initiated
On June 10, the same day the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals thought it was too far-fetched that a grizzly bear could be killed over a black bear bait station, news broke that a hunter had just killed a threatened…
Photo: Desolation Wilderness, Utah by Bob Wick/BLM