Wilderness Bill or Wilderness Act, Term Paper

" (Scott, p. 43).

At the same time, the Wilderness Act ensures that the lands be available for multiple uses, so long as the uses stay within the previously discussed parameters of conservation. Therefore, wilderness areas are often used for tourism and recreation. For example, outdoor recreation is allowed but it cannot involve motorized or mechanical vehicles and other equipment. In other words, the focus of the wilderness areas is to provide a haven of quiet and a return to our roots. According to Scott,

Wilderness is the haven of quiet beyond the end of the road, the wild sanctuary we meet on its own terms by leaving the machinery of twenty-first-century life behind. The wild popularity of wilderness recreation shows how hungry Americans are for just such sanctuaries." (Scott, p. 132).

The Wilderness Act's enactment has had a monumental effect on American society. Not only did it benefit society by immediately protecting all the nation's designated wilderness areas, it also established a statutory process for how future generations can expand the wilderness system. In other words, the Act created a fundamental shift in how society would recommend and act upon protecting new wilderness areas. According to the Wilderness Society,

Essentially, the Act shifted much of this responsibility (of protecting wilderness areas) from the federal land management agencies and put it into the hands of the American people and the legislative process."

More than anything, the Wilderness Act of 1964 democratized the protection of the nation's wilderness areas. Prior to the act, protection involved a drawn out, administrative process that required land management agencies to make recommendations. After the act, citizens were given the means to develop their own wilderness area protection proposals and submit them to their representative. (the Wilderness Society, et. al.).

In conclusion, the lasting impact of the Wilderness Act is its successful protection of America's fragile ecosystems from own destructive ways. It placed conservation over recreation yet still allowed recreation so as to educate people on the importance of future protection. Instead of sealing the areas off, the Wilderness Act created natural havens encouraging the American people to visit, to see their land that they protected, and reconnect with the feeling of the frontier, the wild, that this nation was founded on. It offered a reconnection to our collective past by looking towards the future and ensuring that our past would always be a part of our present.

Bibliography

Gorte, Ross W. Wilderness Laws: Permitted and Prohibited Uses. Congressional Research Service. Washington: Library of Congress, 2005.

Harvey, Mark. Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the Wilderness Act. Seattle: Washington University Press, 2005.

Scott, Doug. The Enduring Wilderness: Protecting Our Natural Heritage through the Wilderness Act. Golden: Fulcrum Publishing, 2004.

The Wilderness Act......