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.
-
Great news for the Okefenokee Wilderness and National Wildlife Refuge
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has finalized a decision to expand the acquisition boundary of the 407,000-acre Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in Georgia by 22,000 acres. This means the agency can now negotiate to purchase lands…
-
Grizzly bears need Endangered Species Act protection
On January 8, 2025, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rejected petitions from the states of Montana and Wyoming to strip grizzly bears in the Northern Rockies of their important federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections. Unfortunately, on January…
-
Taking steps to protect the Presidential Range-Dry River Wilderness
The U.S. Forest Service is proposing to amend its Forest Plan for the White Mountain National Forest (WMNF) to relocate part of the Webster Cliff Trail in the Presidential Range-Dry River Wilderness in New Hampshire. The WMNF has trailless…
-
Cabinet Mountains Wilderness threatened by one of the world’s largest proposed copper and silver mines
Wilderness Watch is urging the Forest Service to protect the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness in northwest Montana by rejecting the latest mine proposal by HECLA Mining. Conservationists have long worked to protect this Wilderness from one of the world’s largest…
-
Habitat protection on the Flathead can’t wait
Wilderness Watch is urging the Forest Service to strengthen protections for the 219-mile Flathead Wild and Scenic River System as the agency considers new regulations and increased recreation monitoring. In warm months, the Flathead is flooded with anglers and…
-
Burning proposed for the Boundary Waters
Wilderness Watch is urging the U.S. Forest Service to drop its massive manipulation project that would set fire to as many as 84,000 acres of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) in Minnesota. The misguided Fernberg Corridor Landscape…
-
Lusk Creek—Wilderness or ORV playground?
Wilderness Watch and Heartwood are pushing back against a U.S. Forest Service (FS) plan to reconstruct, and in places construct, a road in the Lusk Creek Wilderness in Illinois. At issue is access across Wilderness to 87 acres of…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
Photo: Desolation Wilderness, Utah by Bob Wick/BLM