ARTICLE 6. (a) The Minister of Agriculture may accept gifts or bequests of lands in wilderness areas designated for conservation under this Act. The Secretary of Agriculture may also accept gifts or bequests of lands adjacent to wilderness areas designated as wilderness under this Conservation Act if he has notified the Speaker of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives sixty days in advance. The lands accepted by the Minister of Agriculture under this section are part of the wilderness area concerned. By-laws relating to such lands may be consistent with such agreements, consistent with the policy of this Act as adopted at the time of such gift, or with conditions consistent with, contained in, and acceptable to such bequest. The Wilderness Act 1964 (Pub.L. 88–577) was written by Howard Zahniser of the Wilderness Society. He created the legal definition of wilderness in the United States and protected 9.1 million acres (37,000 km²) of federal land. Following lengthy efforts to protect the federal wilderness and create a formal wilderness designation mechanism, the Wilderness Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 3, 1964, after more than sixty drafts and eight years of work. The Eastern Wilderness Areas Act added 16 national forest areas to the national wilderness preservation system and required 17 areas of the eastern national forests to be surveyed, and within 5 years, the Secretary of Agriculture was required to recommend additions to the wilderness system.
A power of condemnation has been granted. Congress discussed the question of adding areas that had been significantly modified. They chose to do so and refused to create a separate “Eastern Wilderness” category. Wilderness areas east of the Mississippi River are often referred to as the “wilderness of the East.” (2) Make public the records of such wilderness areas, including maps and legal descriptions, copies of the regulations governing them, copies of public announcements, and reports submitted to Congress on pending amendments, deletions, or amendments. Maps, legal descriptions and regulations relating to wilderness areas in their respective areas of responsibility are also available to the public at the offices of regional foresters, national forest inspectorates and foresters. (B) (hearings) hold one or more public hearings in one or more locations favourable to the area concerned. Hearings shall be announced in such manner as the Secretaries concerned deem appropriate, including notices in the Federal Register and in newspapers of major circulation in the territory: provided that, if the property in question is located in more than one State, at least one hearing is held in each State where any part of the land is located; Mardy was a powerful environmentalist herself and led the crusade to protect the Alaskan wilderness after Olaus` death. (d) (1) (Suitability) The Secretary of Agriculture and the Secretary of the Interior shall, before making recommendations to the President concerning the suitability of an area for wilderness conservation: The 21st century has been a mixture of wilderness.
In the early years, measures such as the Roadless Area Conservation Rule showed that America had not forgotten its core values of stewardship. Later, hundreds of thousands of acres were protected by special laws in Utah, Nevada, California and elsewhere, culminating in President Barack Obama`s passage of the Omnibus Public Land Management Act in 2009, which added more than 2 million acres to the national wilderness preservation system. SECTION 7. At the opening of each session of Congress, the Ministers of Agriculture and of the Interior shall report jointly to the President on the state of the wilderness system, including a list and description of areas of the system, applicable regulations and other relevant information, and any recommendations they wish to make. (c) A desert, unlike the areas in which man and his works dominate the landscape, is recognized as a space in which the earth and its community are not hindered by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not stay. A wilderness area is defined more broadly than in this Act as an area of undeveloped federal land that retains its original character and influence without permanent improvements or human settlement, that is protected and managed to preserve its natural conditions, and (1) generally appears to be primarily affected by the forces of nature, the imprint of human labour being essentially imperceptible; (2) has excellent opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unlimited mode of leisure; (3) owns at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size to make its conservation and use practicable in its intact state; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, landscape, or historical value. (c) Except as otherwise expressly provided in this Law and subject to existing private rights, there shall be no commercial enterprise or permanent road in a wilderness area designated by this Law, unless it is necessary to meet the minimum management requirements of the area for the purposes of this Law (including necessary measures in case of emergency); affecting the health and safety of persons in the area), There shall be no temporary roads, no use of motor vehicles, motorized machinery or motor boats, no landing of aircraft, no other form of mechanical transport and no structure or installation in such an area. Aldo Leopold, a Yale-trained professor of wildlife management and founder of the Wilderness Society, worked with the Forest Service to protect the nation`s first wilderness area.
He also wrote A Sand County Almanac, the seminal book on land ethics. When the Wilderness Act was passed, it ignored land managed by the Bureau of Land Management due to uncertainty among policymakers about the future of these areas. The uncertainty was dispelled in 1976 with the passage of the Federal Land Policy and Management Act, which stipulated that lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management were to remain federal property and be reviewed between March 1978 and November 1980 for possible wilderness designation. [3] Some of the first-ever wilderness areas created by the Act include: Wilderness and Air Quality Managers work closely with state aviation regulators, EPAs and stakeholders to protect Class I wilderness from the adverse effects of new sources of pollution as part of the Clean Air Significant Deterioration Prevention Program Act. Managers may also certify existing deficiencies in Category I territories from existing sources. This obliges States to develop a plan to clean up pollution sources. The Clean Air Act also requires states to develop plans to reduce haze to natural background levels by 2064. Comprehensive monitoring of wilderness air quality levels is conducted across the country to fulfill the land manager`s responsibility under the Clean Air Act. (A) (publication in the Federal Register) publish the proposed measure as they deem appropriate, including publication in the Federal Register and in a newspaper of wide circulation in the area or areas adjacent to the country concerned; (1) Within one year after this Act comes into force, submit a map and legal description of each wilderness area to the Committees on Home Affairs and Insular Affairs of the United States Senate and House of Representatives, and such descriptions shall have the same force and effect as if they were contained in this Act, The correction of typographical and typographical errors in these descriptions and legal maps can be done: become. Since then, however, congressional partisanship has led to an inertia that belies our conservation heritage. As we prepare to commemorate the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964, we are also facing a time when legislators have made little use of the framework of that law to protect public lands. Indeed, potential wilderness areas across the country are now in a precarious position, despite the mandate of ordinary Americans, who made clear their love of public lands during the two-week government shutdown in 2013.
(1) In wilderness areas designated by this Act, the use of aircraft or powerboats, to the extent that such uses have already been established, may be continued, subject to such restrictions as the Minister of Agriculture considers advisable.