The Eastern Wilderness Areas Act () was signed into law by President
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph Ford Jr. (born Leslie Lynch King Jr.; July 14, 1913December 26, 2006) was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, Ford assumed the p ...
on January 3, 1975. The Act designated 16 new
wilderness areas in the
Eastern United States
The Eastern United States, often abbreviated as simply the East, is a macroregion of the United States located to the east of the Mississippi River. It includes 17–26 states and Washington, D.C., the national capital.
As of 2011, the Eastern ...
, including of wilderness on national lands in 13 states. Although it was originally untitled, the bill signed by Ford has come to be known as the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act.
The Act built upon the
Wilderness Act
The Wilderness Act of 1964 () is a federal land management statute meant to protect U.S. Wilderness Area, federal wilderness and to create a formal mechanism for designating wilderness. It was written by Howard Zahniser of The Wilderness Socie ...
, which was written by
Howard Zahniser
Howard Clinton Zahniser (February 25, 1906 – May 5, 1964) was an American environmental activist. From 1945 until his death he led The Wilderness Society as executive secretary, executive director, and editor of ''The Living Wilderness''. Zahnis ...
of
The Wilderness Society and signed into law by President
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson (; August 27, 1908January 22, 1973), also known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. He became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served a ...
in 1964. While the Wilderness Act created the legal definition of
wilderness
Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plurale tantum, plural) are Earth, Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human impact on the environment, human activity, or any urbanization, nonurbanized land not u ...
in the United States, the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act applied only to land east of the
100th meridian west.
Background
In 1964, both the
Forest Service and
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...
agreed that eastern areas would have qualified as wilderness. However, six years later, the Forest Service opposed congressional designation of new wilderness areas in
West Virginia
West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...
with land use histories of logging. In 1971, it adopted a "purity" interpretation for wilderness designation so that no eastern or western lands with a history of human disturbance could qualify as wilderness.
The Forest Service drafted its own bill as an alternative "to establish a system of wild areas within the land of the national forest system" that would have allowed cutting trees to "improve" wildlife habitat and recreation. The organization described the bill as necessary because eastern areas "do not meet the strict criteria of the Wilderness Act." Members of Congress who championed the Wilderness Act resolved to overturn the misconception that wilderness areas included only those "pristine" in nature. Senator
Henry Jackson warned of this "serious and fundamental misinterpretation of the Wilderness Act" and pledged himself to correct the falsity of the so-called purity theory. Senator
Frank Church, who had been leader of the Senate debate on the Wilderness Act, observed that "the effect of such an interpretation would be to automatically disqualify almost everything, for few if any lands on this continent—or any other—have escaped man’s imprint to some degree."
To counteract the Forest Service bill, advocates for wilderness, including The Wilderness Society, the
Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir. A product of the Pro ...
, and
Friends of the Earth
Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) is an international network of grassroots environmental organizations in 73 countries. About half of the member groups call themselves "Friends of the Earth" in their own languages; the others use other ...
, and their congressional allies, responded with the proposed Eastern Wilderness Areas Act. Promoted largely by
Ernie Dickerman, a Wilderness Society staff member, and
George Aiken
George David Aiken (August 20, 1892 – November 19, 1984) was an American politician and horticulturist. A member of the Republican Party, he was the 64th governor of Vermont (1937–1941) before serving in the United States Senate for 34 ye ...
, a senator from Vermont, the Senate endorsed the bill in May 1974.
The final legislation adopted some elements of the Forest Service-inspired bill, but it did not alter the definition and intent of the Wilderness Act of 1964. The previous debate regarding the meaning of "wilderness" versus "pristine" land led to the understanding that cultural use of lands should not keep the area from being restored to a "secondary wilderness," with functioning natural processes similar to when the land was in a primary state. Therefore, the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act explicitly protects lands that both suffered previous abuse and have the ability to recover and therefore be designated for wilderness protection.
Wilderness areas created
See also
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List of U.S. Wilderness Areas
CivilGEO - Engineering Software
Bibliography
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References
{{reflist
External links
Eastern Wilderness Areas Act, January 3, 1975
Protected areas of the United States
United States federal public land legislation
Act
Environmental law in the United States