WILDERNESS FAQ

Designated Bureau of Land Management areas "where special management attention is needed to protect important historical, cultural, and scenic values, or fish and wildlife or other natural resources. ACECs can also be designated to protect human life and safety from natural hazards."

Public land protections achieved through federal agency planning processes and the NEPA public comment process. Resource Management Plans for the BLM and Forest Plans for our national forests can protect areas in a variety of ways, such as ACECs, backcountry non-motorized areas, or confirming legislative designations. Administrative protections are more easily achieved through effective public comment processes compared to legislative actions, but administrative protections are less permanent, less clear, and less legally binding than legislative protections like designated Wilderness.

Federal agency established in 1964 and tasked "with a mandate of managing public lands for a variety of uses such as energy development, livestock grazing, recreation, and timber harvesting while ensuring natural, cultural, and historic resources are maintained for present and future use.

"A comprehensive study that identifies environmental impacts of a land development action and analyzes a broad set of parameters including biodiversity, environmental justice, wetlands, air and water pollution, traffic, geotechnical risks, public safety issues and also hazardous substance issues."

"A comprehensive document that analyzes the impacts of a federal action that will have a significant effect on the human environment."

Officially called a Land Management Plan, these plans are required by the National Forest Management Act of 1976 and the process currently followed for plan revision is outlined by the 2012 Planning Rule. This process was intended to occur every 15 years in order to ensure management is relevant and timely. A Forest Plan starts with assessing what is currently happening to inform what direction to take. Then a plan is developed and a draft with multiple alternatives is released and the public is able to comment. A revision is released and the public is able to comment again. This feedback is then used to draft a final revision.

"Undeveloped areas typically exceeding 5,000 acres that met the minimum criteria for wilderness consideration under the Wilderness Act and that were inventoried during the Forest Service’s Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE II) process, subsequent assessments, or forest planning," in accordance with the  Roadless Area Conservation Final Rule. This term is no longer used when considering areas for wilderness recommendation, instead, they are called 'Potential Wilderness Areas.'

Lands that "possess sufficient size, naturalness, and outstanding opportunities for either solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation."

"Requires federal agencies to assess the environmental effects of their proposed actions prior to making decisions."

Established by the Wilderness Act of 1964, is a system of our wildest landscapes with the highest forms of government protections. The NWPS includes more than 111 million acres of protected wilderness areas that are managed by the National Parks Service, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management.

"Areas identified and evaluated during the development or revision of Forest Plans for administrative recommendation to Congress for wilderness designation." (See also 'Inventoried Roadless Areas.')

RMP's serve as land management blueprints for the BLM to "more readily address resource issues at a variety of scales, such as wildfire, wildlife habitat, appropriate development, or the demand for renewable and non-renewable energy sources, and to respond more effectively to change." The planning process says what can happen and where, and provide the overarching guidance for public land management in place for several decades. Other proposed projects and planning processes, like Travel Planning, say what will happen.

Encompasses the landscape, environment, wildlife, water, and material cultural items in conjunction with oral histories passed down from Tribal ancestors.  TEK or Indigenous Knowledge are living, place-based information and knowledge systems held by Tribes and Indigenous Peoples containing over thousands of years of observations and understanding. These expansive knowledge systems continue to develop through ongoing, direct interactions and long-lived experiences with the environment, and include skills, traditions, lessons, beliefs, oral and written history, and innovations passed down generationally.

Travel management planning for public lands is generally described as the process of designating a sustainable system of roads, trails, and areas that are open for motor vehicle use. Resource Management Plans (RMPs for the BLM) and Forest Land Management Plans (LMPs for USFS) identify what uses are allowed where, including motorized and recreational vehicles. These guiding plans say what can happen on our public lands, but travel management planning determines what will happen.

Established in the Wilderness Act of 1964 and "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 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..."

The Wilderness Act was signed into law on September 3, 1964, by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Wilderness Act created the National Wilderness Preservation System and immediately placed fifty four areas, covering 9.1 million acres in thirteen different states, into the system.

A broad term referring to roadless areas greater than 5,000 acres. Wilderness Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, or other land with "wilderness characteristics" are considered wildlands.

Places that have wilderness characteristics; that is a minimum size, naturalness, and outstanding opportunities for recreation which make them eligible for designation as Wilderness.

In 2015, the Wyoming County Commissioners Association launched the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative (WPLI) to address the state's Wilderness Study Areas through county-led collaboratives. Through a majority-vote process that does not fully represent the Wyoming public, lacked support from many committee members, and failed to consult with tribal governments, the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative Act (WPLIA, S. 1750) was introduced by Senator Barrasso in Spring 2021, which would only designate 10% of current WSA's as Wilderness, while releasing 77% to various multiple-use management. This flawed decision process and net loss of wildlands is not supported by the Wyoming Wilderness Association.

Sponsored by Representative Malcolm Wallop [R-WY] and Dick Cheney [R-WY], the Wyoming Wilderness Act of 1984 permanently protected 1.1 million acres of ecologically diverse, wild landscapes in Wyoming by adding them to the National Wilderness Preservation System. These included: The Cloud Peak Wilderness in the Bighorn NF The Popo Agie Wilderness in the Shoshone NF The Gros Ventre Wilderness in the Bridger-Teton NF The Winegar Hole Wilderness in the Bridger-Teton NF The Jedediah Smith Wilderness in the Targhee NF The Huston Park Wilderness in the Medicine Bow NF The Encampment River Wilderness in the Medicine Bow NF The Platte River Wilderness in the Medicine Bow and Routt NFs of Wyoming and Colorado The Corridor Addition to the Teton Wilderness in the Bridge-Teton Wilderness The Silver Creek Addition to the Bridger Wilderness and the Newfork Lake Addition to the Bridger Wilderness in the Bridger-Teton NF The Glacier Addition to the Fitzpatrick Wilderness in the Shoshones NF The South Fork Addition to the Washakie Wilderness in the Shoshone NF The High Lakes Addition to the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness in the Shoshone NF