WILDERNESS WATCH is America's leading conservation organization dedicated solely to protecting the lands and waters in the 110 million-acre National Wilderness Preservation System. We strive for proper stewardship of these remarkable Wilderness reserves through citizen oversight, education, and continual monitoring of federal management activities. Please join us in ensuring that America's Wilderness remains full of mystery, adventure, and biological wealth. Learn more >>
“It is painfully clear to me…that a private, citizen’s organization is necessary if the spirit and letter of this landmark law [the Wilderness Act] is to be observed… I wholeheartedly offer my name and energy to your splendid efforts.” —Former Secretary of the Interior, Stewart Udall, upon joining the Wilderness Watch board of directors
Wilderness: A Place to Unplug
9/28/2011
By Gary Macfarlane
"The temptation for wilderness users themselves to resort to practices that modify through convenience their own wilderness experiences is indeed one of the great threats to the maintenance of wilderness. When this temptation is used by administrators and other friends of wilderness areas to attract more people into the wilderness the result is a compound threat.” Howard Zahniser, 1949
Howard Zahniser, the author of the 1964 Wilderness Act and the single person most influential in developing the idea of Wilderness, was perhaps prescient. This quote foreshadowed, more than 60 years ago, one of the most insidious threats to Wilderness, technological communication gadgets.
