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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Victory for Owyhee Wildernesses in Idaho!
Wilderness Watch, joined by Western Watersheds Project, won a significant victory in 2016 for the six Wildernesses in the Owyhee region in Idaho. The victory came in our settlement of an appeal of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM’s)…
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Military Drops Plans to Land Helicopters in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness
In April 2016, the U.S. Army announced its decision to drop its plan to land helicopters on a number of high-altitude sites on the east side of the Cascades in Washington as part of its military combat training exercises.…
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The cure is worse than the disease
Wilderness Watch questioned a proposal to the Forest Service (FS) by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (WGFD) to use rotenone to kill brook and rainbow trout in the Teton Wilderness in Dime Lake, Dime Creek, Mystery Lake, and…
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A Better Plan for Trail Work in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness
The Forest Service (FS) has made a good decision for the Alpine Lakes Wilderness in Washington due to pressure from Wilderness Watch and others. The agency’s original Talapus Lake trail reconstruction project included using helicopters to ferry several dozen…
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WW Urges Forest Service to Protect Nation’s Largest WSA
Wilderness Watch has been urging the Forest Service to protect and improve the wilderness character of the largest Wilderness Study Area (WSA) in the country—the nearly million-acre Nellie Juan-College Fiord WSA in Alaska. The Congressionally-designated Nellie Juan-College Fiord…
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WW Concerned About Sonic Weapons Blasting in Wildernesses
Wilderness Watch has been concerned about a U.S. Navy plan to blast the Olympic Peninsula with sonic weapons, including within five Wildernesses: Olympic (Olympic National Park), Colonel Bob, Washington Islands, Lake Chelan-Sawtooth, and the Pasayten. The Navy’s Environmental Assessment…
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WW Stops Commercial Logging in Red Rock Lakes Wilderness
In August 2015, Wilderness Watch convinced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to cancel plans for a commercial logging operation in the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness in Montana. The project had been planned as part of a larger…
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WW Urges Park Service to Keep Denali Wild
In October 2015, Wilderness Watch submitted scoping comments on a proposed trail planning process for Denali National Park & Preserve in Alaska, most of the which is either designated Wilderness or suitable for designation. We disagree with the Park…
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Los Vidrios—The illegal road
In 2015, a local Wilderness Watch member, Fred Goodsell, sounded the alarm that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) had designated an illegal vehicle route as an “administrative road” through the Cabeza-Prieta Wilderness in southwest Arizona. The route,…
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Another Building Boom in the Olympics
One would be hard-pressed to identify too many things more clearly antithetical to Wilderness than man-made buildings. As defined by the Wilderness Act, “[a] wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape,…
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WW Challenges Unprecedented Helicopter Invasion to Capture and Collar Elk in the River of No Return Wilderness
On January 7, 2016, Wilderness Watch, joined by Friends of the Clearwater and Western Watersheds Project, filed a complaint in federal court to stop the Idaho Dept. of Fish and Game from conducting a major helicopter-supported elk capturing and…
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Wolf killing plan in Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness stopped for now
Due to legal pressure applied by Wilderness Watch and other conservation groups, the State of Idaho has abandoned its plans for contract killing of wolves this winter in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness (FC-RONR) in Idaho. Read…
Photo: Desolation Wilderness, Utah by Bob Wick/BLM