This September marks the 60th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, which allows Congress to designate new wilderness areas. Decades later, a new national group is hoping to reinvigorate the wilderness lobby at the federal level.
Carbondale-based environmental advocacy group Wilderness Workshop is sending representatives to Washington D.C. next week as part of the new National Wilderness Coalition. Those staffers will meet and talk with politicians about the importance of wilderness.
In the original 1964 act, wilderness is defined 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.” Extractive activities, like mining, and oil and gas, are banned in wilderness areas; so is mechanized transportation, like bikes and off-road vehicles.
Some local wilderness areas include the Maroon Bells Snowmass Wilderness, the Hunter Fryingpan Wilderness, and the Flat Tops Wilderness.
And the idea of wilderness is very popular — in the Maroon Bells, for instance, some areas require overnight permits or reservations to visit, because of the area’s popularity.
Wilderness Workshop CEO Will Roush said the idea is especially beloved in places like the Roaring Fork Valley.
“There's a whole bunch of people in Colorado and elsewhere in the country, but specifically in Colorado who want to see more wilderness,” he said. “And that's demonstrated really clearly in the fact that we've got several wilderness bills sponsored by our senators and representatives that are, you know, essentially just sitting around waiting for Congress to act.”
That congressional dysfunction has stalled the Colorado delegation’s own efforts, Roush said.
“Senator (Michael) Bennett (D-Colorado) has the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act, or CORE Act, that has a mix of wilderness and other land protections,” he said. “He's also been working on an initiative down in Gunnison County that would protect hundreds of thousands of acres. (Representative) Diana DeGette (D-Colorado) has a wilderness bill for the state of Colorado. So people want more wilderness.”
The National Wilderness Coalition says advocating for new wilderness is more important than ever, in part due to the biodiversity and climate resilience they create. They’re also hoping to center indigenous stewardship of federal lands, many of which were occupied long before the act’s establishment.
