“Wilderness, above all its definitions, purposes and uses, is sacred space, with sacred power, the heart of a moral world.” — Michael Frome, Battle for the Wilderness

With passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964, Congress created a new statutory land classification and gave the concept of ‘Wilderness’ a legal definition. The first paragraph of the Wilderness Act refers to an “enduring resource of wilderness,” with “resource” being singular. Congress specifically recognized wilderness as a unique resource in its own right, not just a collection of other natural resources.

Only Congress can designate or undesignate federal lands as Wilderness. Congressional designation as Wilderness provides an area with the highest level of statutory land protection available in the United States. The statutory definition of Wilderness is found in Section 2(c) of the Wilderness Act.
According to the canons of statutory interpretation, when reading a specific section of law the first statements in the section are understood to lay out Congress’ clear intent and subsequent statements in that same section are understood to support and expound on that legal directive. It is contrary to legal principles to think there are contradictory or competing directives within a given section of a statute.

With this in mind, the first sentence of Section 2(c) defines Wilderness as follows:
“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrmameled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” (emphasis added)

Congress intended that Wilderness remain in contrast to modern civilization, its technologies, conventions, and contrivances. Congress also intended that Wilderness remain untrammeled, meaning free of intentional human manipulation. In Wilderness, the forces of nature and natural processes would be allowed to unfold without intentional human interference. In this definition, Congress defines not only qualities of Wilderness but also provides statutory direction for how humans interact with Wilderness, and what our relationship will be with these places. In Wilderness, Congress clearly intended that humans will not dominate or develop the landscape, and will not control natural processes.

The second sentence in Section 2(c) expands the definition of Wilderness:

“An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.”

This sentence recognizes that areas designated as Wilderness may have some limited signs of past human influence and uses, but nonetheless the clear direction in the first sentence of Section 2(c) makes it clear that, once designated, human influence will be restrained so that the earth and its community of life will remain untrammeled from that point forward, and signs of past human dominance will fade over time.