Wilderness: What is Wilderness?
Though Glacier National Park is not designated as a Wilderness Area, park officials and employees treat it as such. Here are the most frequently asked questions about this thing called wilderness:
What Is Wilderness?
Wilderness is a place where the imprint of humans is substantially unnoticed. It is where natural processes are the primary influences and human activity is limited to primitive recreation and minimum tools. This allows us to experience wild places without intention to disturb or destroy natural processes. Change will occur primarily through natural disturbance, and minimum human influence.
Is It A Law?
YES. In 1964 the Congress of the United States passed the Wilderness Act, restricting grazing, mining, timber cutting and mechanized vehicles in these areas. They are protected and valued for their ecological, historical, scientific and experiential resources. The law protects these values for future generations.
Who Manages Wilderness?
The National Wilderness Preservation System is managed by the National Park Service, Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Wilderness, designated by Congress, is one layer of protection, placed on top of original federal land designation.
Although federal agencies are legally responsible for managing Wilderness areas, all citizens have a role and responsibility. As visitors, your behaviors and actions should be appropriate. As citizens, we should be aware of the impacts of our lifestyles on our country's wild lands.
Why do we have to manage a Wilderness?
Wilderness management is essentially the regulation of human use and influence in order to preserve the quality, character and integrity of these protected lands. We all must be aware of our impacts. As individuals our choices and consumption of resources may in some way degrade wilderness values such as ecological health, solitude and aesthetics.
We are managing for future generations, committing to having places that remain undisturbed for centuries, not just decades. In order to keep Wilderness wild, we need to ensure that our social and individual practices, both inside the Wilderness and outside, do not cause changes that will erode the resource.
What are the threats to Wilderness?
There are many issues in Wilderness. What is a minimum tool? What is primitive? What is Wilderness character and integrity? What is solitude? How do we manage threats, like air pollution, that are outside Wilderness? In many cases, societal pressures have the most significant affect upon wildland resources. Resource managers are discovering the significant connection between society and Wilderness. For instance, pollution sources in cities can disturb plant and aquatic life in seemingly distant and separate Wilderness lands.
The ecological as well as recreational values of Wilderness must be maintained in preserving Wilderness. With economic growth exerting pressures of a growing population, agencies are observing many of these potential threats to the Wilderness resources including:
- Loss of character, quality and integrity of Wilderness.
- Loss of or threats to biological/ecological processes and biodiversity, through human disturbance.
- Soil compaction, vegetation loss or disturbance and replacement by non-native species such as noxious weeds, on trails and campsites caused by heavy recreation use.
- Crowding, loss of solitude.
- Deterioration of water quality from improper disposal of human waste and waste water. Air pollution from outside sources.
- Interruption of natural functioning ecosystems by ire suppression.
- Threats to native plant species from the spread of noxious weeds from sources outside Wilderness.
So What Can I Do?
Everyone has a role in protecting and managing Wilderness. Through your vote, your lifestyle and your actions while visiting Wilderness, you can help reduce these threats to wild areas. Contact your local Forest Service Ranger District, Park headquarters, BLM Resource Area or Refuge Manager for more information.