Introduction

Section 4(c) of the Wilderness Act prohibits motorized uses, with only very narrow exception. The Act prohibits the use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment, motorboats, landing of aircraft, and all other forms of mechanical transport. Congress clearly viewed wilderness as a place that would be in contrast to our civilized world, a place where our motors, technologies, and modern contrivances do not intrude. The very first sentence in the Wilderness Act emphasizes this congressional intent:
"In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States…”

Even in those limited circumstances where motorized uses may be allowed by law, motorized use and mechanization are always incompatible with wilderness character. This is why Congress prohibited such activities in the first place, with only very narrow exceptions. The vast majority of motorization taking place in wilderness today is either discretionary or illegal. Public input is absolutely critical to give managers both the push and the support they need to impose strict limits on both their own motorized activities and those of the public.

Most Alaska wilderness is significantly different in terms of motorized use compared to the lower 48 due to special provisions in the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA) that allows public use of airplanes, snowmachines, and motorboats in wilderness for certain purposes.

It is increasingly common for wilderness administrators to use motor vehicles, aircraft (especially helicopters), chain saws, cement mixers, power drills, backhoes and bulldozers in wilderness. Several different agencies engage in these motorized activities, including the land management agency, state game and fish agencies, and federal law enforcement agencies in wildernesses located along the U.S.-Mexico border.

The public’s motorized activities can be classified as those that are permissible by law, those that land managers have discretion to allow, and those that are flatly illegal. Snowmobiles and all-terrain-vehicles (ATV’s) are the most rapidly increasing forms of illegal motorized trespass in wildernesses in the lower 48, and ATV use is proliferating in some Alaska wildernesses by rural Alaskans. Motorboats and airboats are common in some southeastern wildernesses, and four-wheel-drive vehicles are a continuing problem in some places including the Brigantine Wilderness in New Jersey and the Cumberland Island Wilderness in Georgia.

Stay alert to the types of situations most likely to trigger proposals for motorized use. These include trail maintenance, fish stocking, livestock management, scientific research, game management, restoration of historic structures, weather monitoring, fire management, and access to private land inholdings in wilderness.