Wilderness Study Area

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Wilderness Study Area

A Wilderness Study Area is an area of public land that is a candidate for official Wilderness Area designation by the United States Government. Federally recognized Wilderness Areas, created by Congress and included in the National Wilderness Preservation System (NWPS), are legally protected from development, road building, motorized access, and most resource exploitation as dictated by the Wilderness Act of 1964.

The process of identifying, defining, and confirming the areas included in the NWPS is, however, long and slow. In preparation for Wilderness Area designation, states survey their public lands and identify Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs). These areas are parcels of undeveloped and undisturbed land that meet wilderness qualifications and on which Congress can later vote for inclusion in the NWPS. Out of over 300 million acres (121.4 million ha) of federally held roadless areas, about 23 million acres (9.3 million ha), comprising 861 different study areas, were identified as WSAs between 1976 and 1991. Of these WSAs, only a small percentage were finally recommended to Congress for Wilderness Area status.

Nearly all WSAs are on lands currently administered by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) or the Forest Service , and nearly all are in western states. Relatively little undisturbed land remains in eastern states, and most eastern Wilderness Areas were established relatively quickly in 1975 by the Eastern Wilderness Bill. But at the time of this bill adequate surveys of the West had not been completed. The Wilderness Act had ordered western surveys back in 1964, but initial efforts were hasty and incomplete, and the West was excluded from the 1975 Eastern Wilderness Bill.

In 1976 Congress initiated a second attempt to identify western wilderness areas with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act . According to this act, each state was to carefully survey its BLM, Forest Service, and National Park Service lands. All roadless areas of 5,000 acres (2,000 ha) or more were to be identified and their wilderness, recreational, and scenic assets assessed. Each state legislature was then required to create a policy and management plan for these public lands, identifying which lands could be considered Wilderness Study Areas and which were best used for development, logging , or intensive livestock grazing. This public lands survey was known as the Second Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE II). Although RARE II recommendations from business-minded BLM and Forest Service administrators did not satisfy most conservationists, the survey's WSA lists represented a substantial improvement over previous wilderness identification efforts.

As potential Wilderness Areas, WSAs require a number of basic "wilderness" attributes. As stressed in the 1964 Wilderness Act, these areas must possess a distinctive "wilderness character" and allow visitors an "unimpaired" wilderness experience. Set aside expressly for their wildness, these areas' intended use is mainly low-impact, short-term recreation . Ideally, human presence should be invisible and their impact negligible. Roadless areas are the focus of wilderness surveys precisely because of their relative inaccessibility. However, because all federal laws involve compromise, wilderness designation does not exclude livestock grazing, an extremely common use of public lands in the West. Mineral exploration and exploitation, a potentially disastrous activity in a wilderness, is also legal in Wilderness Areas.

Long and bitter conflicts between conservation and development interests have accompanied every state wilderness bill. Some western state legislatures, steered by business interests, have recommended less than ten percent of their roadless areas for inclusion in the NWPS. Once recommendations are made, further study can continue on each WSA until Congress votes, usually considering just a few areas at a time, to include it in the NWPS or to exclude it from consideration.

[Mary Ann Cunningham Ph.D. ]