Introduction

Federal lands designated as Wilderness often surround parcels of state or privately-owned land. These state or private parcels surrounded by federal land are called inholdings. The NWPS contains more than a million acres of inholdings. The presence of inholdings within Wilderness was unavoidable during the process of building the Wilderness system that we have today.

Another form of private property interest that is found in many Wildernesses are ‘valid occupancies.’ The holder of a valid occupancy does not have full ownership and a deed to the land, but does have a legal claim to the land and may be in the process of gaining full ownership. Examples of valid occupancies include mining claims, right-of-ways, easements, irrigation dams, and Alaska Native settlement claims that are in the process of being conveyed to full ownership.

Inholdings present a variety of serious stewardship challenges that can be classified into five main categories: requests for motorized access across Wilderness to the inholding; land speculation and threatened development of inholdings; other property uses that are incompatible within a wilderness context; legal ambiguities related to the extent of property rights of inholders; and multiple legal guidelines governing access through Wilderness.

In the western United States, inholdings in wilderness are largely a result of five legislative acts: The 1872 Mining Law, the 1862 Homestead Act, the 1864 and 1870 Land Grant Acts, and the Alaska Native Claims and Settlement Act (ANCSA). Under the first four Acts, public lands were distributed to the private sector and to states to advance westward expansion by settlers of European descent. ANCSA distributed public lands to Alaskan Natives as part of a settlement after Alaska gained statehood.
Many inholdings in wilderness are quite large. Under the 1872 Mining Law, parcels were claimed in units of 20 acres, while the Homestead Act deeded 160-acre parcels to individuals. While these two Acts distributed land to private individuals, the Land Grant Acts distributed land to States in 640-acre parcels. ANCSA awarded a total land grant of 44 million acres to Alaskan Natives and Alaskan Native Corporations in exchange for renouncing all further claims to land in Alaska.

On the landscape these land grant programs have resulted in a patchwork of private and state-owned land parcels scattered across public lands. Balancing the rights of landowners with the obligation to preserve the overall Wilderness character of the area is a major stewardship challenge.
Access to inholdings and valid occupancies is governed by the management direction provided in the statute that designated a particular Wilderness. In the majority of cases in the lower 48, the designation legislation states that the new Wildernesses will be administered in accordance with the Wilderness Act. Access to Wilderness inholdings in most Alaska Wildernesses is governed by the access provision in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). For many Wildernesses in the California Desert, access to inholdings is governed by the access provision in the California Desert Protection Act which uses language that is somewhat different from both the Wilderness Act and ANILCA. In summary, access to inholdings is not governed uniformly across the National Wilderness Preservation System.