“Wilderness values. Wilderness values are physical (wildlife, ecosystems and natural processes), psychological (opportunity for solitude, i.e. avoid the sights, sounds, and evidence of humans), symbolic (national and natural remnants of American cultural and evolutionary heritage), and spiritual (connection with nature and primal forces).
— FWS Draft Wilderness Stewardship Policy, 2001

Values are intangible qualities that we intrinsically hold dear, qualities that we strive to protect and guard against harm. In untrammeled Wilderness we have opportunities to experience natural processes unfolding and evolving in accord with nature’s rules and timeframe, not our own. There is almost no where else on the planet today where this experience is still available. In wilderness we expect to find native wildlife species present at naturally occurring population levels. The psychological values of wilderness spring from the opportunity to experience the special solace of solitude from civilization. Wilderness can nurture psychological values of reflection and knowledge that we are part of a larger community of life.

Wilderness is more than just landscape. It has significant symbolic value as special places set apart, where we interact with the place differently than we do with any other landscape. Like a national memorial or a cathedral, the attitudes and behaviors that we bring to these special places set apart are different from how we may behave in our routine daily lives. Across all cultures, humans have always set aside certain places and deemed them special, thereby imbuing them symbolic value and meaning. It is the way that we interact with special places that assures their symbolic value and meaning will endure. If we cease to treat places set apart with respect, humility, and restraint, and begin to approach them as ordinary and common, then we will lose the symbolic value that these special places provide to us as a society.

Howard Zahniser believed that modern humans deeply need Wilderness because of the spiritual value that comes from recognizing ourselves not as masters but as members of a larger community of life. Zahniser believed this sense of membership and belonging is ancient and deeply nourishing to the human spirit. The spiritual values of Wilderness are therefore those values that nurture, inspire, and fulfill needs of the human spirit.