We bring you: Part II of Michael Egan's guest-blogging interview with Kevin Marsh about Marsh's new book, Drawing Lines in the Forest: Creating Wilderness Areas in the Pacific Northwest.
Part I is here.
All entries in our author-meets-bloggers series are here.
Continued from Part I...
ME: What does wilderness designation entail in terms of use?
KM: Wilderness designation in the U.S. is defined by federal statute, the Wilderness Act of 1964, with certain broad parameters: a minimum size of 5,000 acres, a generally "untrammeled" character to the land, an area off-limits to mechanized transport and tools, and a place that offers "exceptional opportunities for solitude." A phrase in the law, "where man himself is a visitor who does not remain," is often used to criticize the act for a dogmatic, radical, and unrealistic separation of humans from the environment. However, from its initial passage, the history of wilderness legislation is full of loopholes that recognize different uses based on the geography, history, and culture of each area. Existing roads have been permitted in wilderness areas since 1964. Many wilderness areas continue to host active landing strips for aircraft. In Alaska, wilderness areas are open to motorized transportation for local use. A common misperception of wilderness status is that it forbids hunting. The hunting lobby has historically supported wilderness legislation precisely because it has always protected prized habitat from development.
ME: Who's in charge of them?
KM: Wilderness areas are managed by different federal agencies, the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and each of these has its own distinct patterns of what use is allowed. The Forest Service has long limited itself to primitive tools, requiring only hand saws for clearing trails and other work. When I worked for the Mount-Baker Snoqualmie National Forest, my crew needed special permission from the forest supervisor to use a wheelbarrow once on a trail reconstruction project. The Park Service, however, typically brings in chain saws and helicopters for its maintenance work.
ME: In terms of recreational use, are wilderness areas receiving greater or fewer visitors?
KM: Wilderness areas continue to receive increased visitors every year since 1964. The absolute growth in numbers has remained fairly consistent over the decades, but the percentage of annual growth has declined from over 10% annually in 1964 to under 3% growth in the mid-90s. Precise numbers are hard to gather, since most wilderness areas are managed with very little oversight of visitors. It's the nature of such backcountry areas that most visitors are not counted or monitored during their stay, so for managers in federal agencies it is difficult to compile precise numbers for the sake of management decisions and reporting. But it seems quite clear that use of those areas in general continues to rise.
ME: What is the historical significance and legacy of the 1964 Wilderness Act?
KM: The legacy is most visible on the ground in the 107 million acres of public land within wilderness areas. However, I think the main historical significance is one of process, how decisions of public lands management are made. Prior to 1964, the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of Agriculture had full responsibility for determining the boundaries of wilderness areas. The Forest Service designated the first wilderness area in 1927 in New Mexico. By 1964, it had established over 9 million acres as wilderness, along with lots of primitive areas. But just as that agency created them, it could take them away. This was the case in Oregon in 1957 when the Forest Service reduced the size of the Three Sisters Wilderness area by 53,000 acres. Even though many people thought the decision was valid as a way to boost timber supply, politicians and newspaper editorials across the state criticized the institutional arrogance demonstrated by the agency during the process. Both Oregon Senators at the time vowed to remove such power from the Forest Service, and they both signed on as sponsors of the Wilderness Bill as a result.
The Wilderness Act of 1964 was as much about reigning in a federal agency as it was about the 9 million acres declared as wilderness in the original law. From that point on, only Congress had the power to determine wilderness boundaries. Congress is far more accessible to the public than are the bureaucracies of the executive branch, and this law opened the doors to increased public participation in land use issues. It's a groundbreaking moment not just for public lands management, but it sets the tone for expansive involvement through hearings and public testimonies and much greater accountability for those boundary decisions. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1970 is famous for exposing the actions of government to public scrutiny, but in many ways it simply expands the procedures of the Wilderness Act to apply to all aspects of the federal government. By the 1970s, the Forest Service frequently complains that citizens are determining boundaries that it, with its staff of trained foresters, should decide upon. The agency leaders didn't always understand, that was the point.
Look for Part III here; Part I was here.
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