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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Fish and Wildlife Service rule could help end carnivore killing on wildlife refuges
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has released a new rule on “biological integrity, diversity, and environmental health” for America’s national wildlife refuge system. The rule could have a far-reaching impact on the refuge system, which includes nearly 21…
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Don’t blame beavers for human folly
Wilderness Watch is opposing a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) plan to manipulate habitat in the Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in southwestern Montana, 32,350 acres of which is the Red Rock Lakes Wilderness. The USFWS released…
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Wildernesses in Washington targeted for military jet training
The U.S. Navy has proposed the creation of new military airspaces for jet training exercises in Washington State. Unfortunately, the airspaces would overlap with two Wildernesses—the Pasayten and Lake Chelan-Sawtooth Wildernesses—and threaten to destroy the solitude and silence found…
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Massive strip mine threatens one of the East’s largest Wildernesses
The Okefenokee Wilderness, part of one of the world’s largest still intact blackwater swamp ecosystems and important habitat for native wildlife such as black bears, American alligators, and red-cockaded woodpeckers, is once again threatened by a titanium and zirconium…
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Legal action initiated to protect wolves
On February 2, 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that it would not re-list gray wolves in the northern Rockies under the Endangered Species Act, finding them “not warranted” for federal protection.
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The “Protecting America’s Rock Climbing Act” will weaken the Wilderness Act
Wilderness and wildlife are under relentless pressures at this moment in history, including from exploding demand for outdoor recreation. Unfortunately, right now some members of Congress are pushing a bill to allow permanent “fixed anchor” rock climbing in America’s National…
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Protect the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex from outfitter impacts
Wilderness Watch is concerned with a Forest Service proposal to renew existing outfitter permits in the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat, and Great Bear Wildernesses in Northwestern Montana—which collectively comprise the Bob Marshall Wilderness Complex—without disclosing which permits, their locations, or any…
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Defending Wilderness and wildlife in Nevada
Wilderness Watch started the new year by filing an amicus brief at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on January 2, 2024 to rein in Wildlife Services’ wanton killing of native wildlife in Nevada, including the potential for killing…
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Ambler Road Threatens Gates of the Arctic Wilderness
In Fall 2023, the Biden administration released a Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for the proposed 211-mile Ambler Road through Alaska’s Brooks Range and some of the wildest country on the continent. The road would facilitate huge mining operations…
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Prioritize quiet in the Boundary Waters
In late 2023, the Forest Service invited public input on the management of commercial, motorized towboat operations within the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota, as it considers amending the Forest Plan to address this issue. This public comment opportunity…
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842,448 Wilderness acres 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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Wilderness Watch sues to protect Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness from poisoning and helicopters
On November 8, 2023 Wilderness Watch filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service (USFS), challenging the agency’s unlawful decision to poison more than 45 miles of Buffalo Creek in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness at the behest of Montana Fish…
Photo: Desolation Wilderness, Utah by Bob Wick/BLM