The Wilderness Act
(excerpt)
Signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson,
Section 1. This Act may be cited as the
"Wilderness Act".
WILDERNESS
SYSTEM ESTABLISHED STATEMENT OF POLICY
Sec. 2. (a) In order to assure that an
increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing
mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States
and its possessions, leaving no lands designated for preservation and
protection in their natural condition, it is hereby declared to be the policy
of the Congress to secure for the American people of present and future
generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness. For this
purpose there is hereby established a National Wilderness Preservation System
to be composed of federally owned areas designated by Congress as
"wilderness areas", and these shall be administered for the use and
enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired
for future use and enjoyment as wilderness...
DEFINITION
OF WILDERNESS
(c) A wilderness, in contrast with those
areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized
as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man,
where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is
further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land
retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements
or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its
natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected
primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially
unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and
unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or
is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an
unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other
features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value..
Source:
"Widerness Act" Public Law 88-577 88th Congress, S. 4 September 3,
1964 Wilderness.net