The goal of the Wilderness Preservation System is to protect undeveloped habitats and to help maintain the lives of threatened or endangered species. [1] Many of the species found in the United States are represented in wilderness areas. There are a total of 419 terrestrial ecosystems in the U.S., where a majority of the wildlife in the U.S. reside. With 60% of all ecosystems somewhat protected by the NWPS, much of the wildlife in the U.S. also has an area in which to exist without significant human interaction. [1]
On federal lands in the United States, Congress may designate an area as wilderness under the provisions of the Wilderness Act of 1964. [2] Multiple agencies, including the BLM, the NPS, the FWS, and the U.S.FS, are responsible for the submission of new areas that fit the criteria to become wilderness to Congress. Congress then reviews these cases on a state by state basis and determines which areas and how much land in each area will become part of the WPS. There have been multiple occasions in which Congress designated more federal land than had been recommended by the nominating agency. [3] Where as the Wilderness Act stipulated that a wilderness area must be "administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such a manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness", [3] the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act of 1975, which added 16 national forest areas to the NWPS, allowed for the inclusion of areas that had been severely modified by human interference. [4]
Agency | Wilderness area | Agency land
designated wilderness |
---|---|---|
National Park Service | 43,932,843 acres (17,778,991 ha) | 56% |
U.S. Forest Service | 36,165,620 acres (14,635,710 ha) | 18% |
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service | 20,702,488 acres (8,378,000 ha) | 22% |
Bureau of Land Management | 8,710,087 acres (3,524,847 ha) | 2% |
Total | 109,511,038 acres (44,317,545 ha) |
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The goal of the Wilderness Preservation System is to protect undeveloped habitats and to help maintain the lives of threatened or endangered species. [1] Many of the species found in the United States are represented in wilderness areas. There are a total of 419 terrestrial ecosystems in the U.S., where a majority of the wildlife in the U.S. reside. With 60% of all ecosystems somewhat protected by the NWPS, much of the wildlife in the U.S. also has an area in which to exist without significant human interaction. [1]
On federal lands in the United States, Congress may designate an area as wilderness under the provisions of the Wilderness Act of 1964. [2] Multiple agencies, including the BLM, the NPS, the FWS, and the U.S.FS, are responsible for the submission of new areas that fit the criteria to become wilderness to Congress. Congress then reviews these cases on a state by state basis and determines which areas and how much land in each area will become part of the WPS. There have been multiple occasions in which Congress designated more federal land than had been recommended by the nominating agency. [3] Where as the Wilderness Act stipulated that a wilderness area must be "administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such a manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness", [3] the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act of 1975, which added 16 national forest areas to the NWPS, allowed for the inclusion of areas that had been severely modified by human interference. [4]
Agency | Wilderness area | Agency land
designated wilderness |
---|---|---|
National Park Service | 43,932,843 acres (17,778,991 ha) | 56% |
U.S. Forest Service | 36,165,620 acres (14,635,710 ha) | 18% |
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service | 20,702,488 acres (8,378,000 ha) | 22% |
Bureau of Land Management | 8,710,087 acres (3,524,847 ha) | 2% |
Total | 109,511,038 acres (44,317,545 ha) |
![]() | This is the sandbox page where you will draft your initial Wikipedia contribution.
If you're starting a new article, you can develop it here until it's ready to go live. If you're working on improvements to an existing article, copy only one section at a time of the article to this sandbox to work on, and be sure to use an edit summary linking to the article you copied from. Do not copy over the entire article. You can find additional instructions here. Remember to save your work regularly using the "Publish page" button. (It just means 'save'; it will still be in the sandbox.) You can add bold formatting to your additions to differentiate them from existing content. |