The Wilderness Society
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The Wilderness Society is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that was founded in 1935 by Bob Marshall, the chief of recreation and lands for the U.S. Forest Service, Aldo Leopold, a wildlife ecologist, and Robert Sterling Yard, a publicist for the U.S. National Park Service. The organization’s mission is “to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places.” Howard Zahniser, who served as The Wilderness Society's executive secretary and later as its executive director, played a leading role in writing and helping pass the Wilderness Act in Congress in 1964.[1]
The Wilderness Society advocates for policies designating federal lands as federally protected wilderness areas and national monuments, which are areas preserved primarily for conservation similar to national parks. Additionally, the organization supports policies conserving national forests, limiting oil and natural gas development near wilderness areas, and siting renewable energy resources in areas where they will not affect wildlife. The group also focuses on informing the public about federal land management policies and lobbying the federal government for conservation and recreation project funding.[2]
The organization's is headquartered in Washington, D.C. The organization has regional offices in Alaska, California, Colorado, Idaho, Maine, Montana, New Mexico, North Carolina, and Washington.[3]
Mission
As of February 2015, the website for The Wilderness Society listed the following mission statement for the organization:
| “ | Our mission is to protect wilderness and inspire Americans to care for our wild places. The Wilderness Society has been the leading organization protecting our nation’s shared public lands since 1935. Through our conservation and public engagement efforts, we work to preserve our nation’s rich natural legacy for future generations.[4] | ” |
| —The Wilderness Society[1] | ||
Work
The Wilderness Society partners with local communities, businesses, and individuals to conserve federal lands and to advocate for identifying and mitigating threats to wilderness and wildlife. The organization focuses on three objectives:
| “ |
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| —The Wilderness Society[1] | ||
The organization’s work focuses on the following issues:[2]
- Wilderness designation: The organization works with “local grassroots coalitions on campaigns to build support for wilderness and other conservation designations, both on the local and congressional levels.” An area that is designated as wilderness by Congress or the president is protected solely for conservation purposes similar to national parks. The organization leads campaigns on behalf of new and existing wilderness areas “to protect America’s treasured wildlands.”[5]
- National forest conservation: The organization's National Forest Action Center “works with people on the ground and in local and federal government to keep our forests natural and untouched by modern development.” The organization supports increased forest conservation funding.[6]
- BLM land conservation: The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages approximately 247 million acres of federal land. The organization’s BLM Action Center works with “the BLM, the public, and conservation organizations to bring about public policies and on-the-ground management decisions that protect wildlands and carefully balance conservation with development on our shared lands.” The center produces research, analysis, and legal information to promote “informed community participation in land use planning and public lands management decisions.”[7]
- Oil and gas development: The organization characterizes oil and natural gas development on federal lands as “one of the largest threats to our wild landscapes.” The organization supports revising land management plans and introducing federal guidelines limiting energy leasing and development in “the most sensitive areas.”[8]
- Renewable energy: The organization supports renewable energy development on federal lands as a way to reduce the use of oil and natural gas, which some scientists have argued may contribute to human-made climate change. The organization supports renewable energy development “in the right places and in the right ways” to protect wilderness areas from potential development.[9]
- Conservation funding: The organization favors increased federal funding for conservation. The organization has argued that conservation funding has risen 2 percent in real dollars since 1983 while spending on other federal programs has increased at a higher rate. “When funded properly, federal conservation programs help support healthy ecosystems and ensure wildlands are accessible to the public,” according to The Wilderness Society’s website.[10][11]
- Outdoor recreation: The organization supports “more funding for recreation programs run by the federal government” in order to maintain “the quality of the recreation experiences for Americans.”[12][13]
Passage of the Wilderness Act
- See also: Wilderness Act
The Wilderness Society played leading role in passing the Wilderness Act in Congress in 1964. Howard Zahniser, a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employee and Wilderness Society member, drafted the first version of the Wilderness Act in 1956. The stated purpose of the legislation was to conserve some of the remaining wilderness areas in the United States that were not already federally protected. Sen. Hubert Humphrey (D-Minn.) and Rep. John Saylor (R-Pa.) first introduced the legislation in 1956. Meanwhile, industry groups such as the American Pulpwood Association, the American National Cattleman's Association, and the American Mining Association opposed the legislation. These groups viewed wilderness areas as new locations for their commercial activities, including logging, pulp manufacturing, grazing, and mining. Federal protection for wilderness areas under the bill could potentially limit or outright prohibit these activities in those areas, according to industry groups. The bill was also opposed by the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. National Park Service, which argued that the bill might reduce their authority over the federal lands they managed at the time.[15][16][17]
A version of the Wilderness Act passed in the U.S. Senate in 1961, but the legislation faced opposition from the timber, mining, and grazing industries that had a political ally in Rep. Wayne Aspinall (D-Colo.), the chairman of the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee. According to Mark Harvey, a professor of history at North Dakota State University, Aspinall, who represented the Western Slope in Colorado, was supportive of agricultural and energy groups and critical of environmental groups, which he viewed as uncompromising. Aspinall used his chairmanship to block the legislation, and the bill died in committee in 1962. Though the Senate passed another version of the Wilderness Act in 1963, it died in the same House committee. "Aspinall was able to block the bill, that is keep it from going to the floor of the House for a vote for really two years," according to Harvey.[18]
Although The Wilderness Society and other supporters backed the 1963 Senate version of the bill as written, they concluded that the bill would not pass without revisions. As a result, conservation groups compromised with industry groups in order to get the bill passed. Industry groups requested that grazing and prospecting continue in wilderness areas (grazing and prospecting in wilderness areas have since been prohibited). In exchange for these compromises, the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee allowed the legislation to go to the House floor for debate. The House overwhelmingly supported the bill; the Wilderness Act passed in 1964 with only a single "No" vote in the House. The Senate previously passed the final bill in 1963 by a vote of 73 to 12. In total, the bill was re-written 66 times and was discussed in 18 congressional hearings. President Lyndon Johnson (D) signed the bill into law on September 3, 1964.[15][19]
The Wilderness Act legally defined “wilderness” as “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” The law defined “an area of wilderness” as “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.” The Wilderness Act originally set aside 9.1 million acres of federal land in 13 states as protected wilderness and established the National Wilderness Preservation System, a federal program for the preservation and protection of wilderness areas. The system is managed by four federal agencies: the U.S. National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. In 1964, when the Wilderness Act was passed, the 9.1 million acres of wilderness represented 1.3 percent of all land owned by the federal government. As of September 2015, federally protected wilderness areas totaled 109.1 million acres—an increase of 110 percent since 1964. Federally protected wilderness areas represented 17 percent of all land owned by the federal government and 4.8 percent of all land in the United States as of September 2015.[20][21][22]
Leadership
Contact us about any updates to the leadership information below.
As of October 2016, Jamie Williams was the president of The Wilderness Society.[23]
The following individuals were listed as members of the organization’s governing council as of October 2016:[24]
- David Churchill, Governing Council Chair
- Molly Mcusic, Vice Chair
- William J. Cronon, Vice Chair
- Kevin Luzak, Treasurer
- Marcia Kunstel, Secretary
- David Bonderman, At Large
- Hansjörg Wyss, At Large
- Caroline M. Getty, At Large
- Thomas A. Barron
- Richard C. Blum
- Crandall C. Bowles
- Norm Christensen
- Brenda S. Davis
- Will Coleman
- Christopher J. Elliman
- Carl Ferenbach
- David J. Field
- George T. Frampton, Jr.
- Martinique Grigg
- Reginald Hagood
- Michael A. Mantell
- Juan D. Martinez
- Dave Matthews
- Jaime A. Pinkham
- Rebecca L. Rom
- Theodore Roosevelt IV
- Gregg Sherrill
- Jennifer Perkins Speer
- Cathy Douglas Stone
- Sara Vera
Finances
Below is a breakdown of The Wilderness Society's revenue and expenses for the 2013, 2014, and 2015 fiscal years.
| Annual revenue and expenses for The Wilderness Society, 2013-2015 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Tax year | Total revenue | Total expenses |
| 2015[25] | $26,700,000 | $28,300,000 |
| 2014[26] | $29,700,000 | $26,500,000 |
| 2013[27] | $36,200,000 | $27,700,000 |
See also
Footnotes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 The Wilderness Society, "Mission and Impact," accessed February 9, 2015
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Wilderness Society, "Hot Issues," accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "Regional offices," accessed October 26, 2016
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Note: This text is quoted verbatim from the original source. Any inconsistencies are attributable to the original source.
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "Wilderness Designation," accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "National Forests," accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "Protecting BLM Lands," accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "Modernizing oil and gas," accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "Advancing clean energy," accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "Conservation Funding," accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "2013 Legislative funding priorities," accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "Outdoor Recreation," accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "Recreation Funding," accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "Wilderness Act," accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Smithsonian.com, "How the Wilderness Act Was Passed," accessed February 9, 2015
- ↑ PBS.org, "Wilderness Act Overview," accessed February 9, 2015
- ↑ Brigham Young University Law Review, "The Wilderness Act of 1964: Where We Do We Go From Here?" October 1, 1975
- ↑ Colorado Public Radio, "Wilderness Act: 50 Years Ago, Colorado Was At The Heart Of A Wild Fight," August 28, 2014
- ↑ Govtrack.us, "H.R. 9070. Establish a National Wilderness Preservation System. Passage," accessed February 16, 2015
- ↑ Wilderness.net, "The Wilderness Act of 1964" accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ Wilderness.net, "Fact Sheet," accessed October 26, 2016
- ↑ U.S. General Accounting Office, "Land ownership: Information on the Acreage, Management, and Use of Federal and Other Lands," March 13, 1996
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "Jaime Williams" accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "Council Leadership" accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "2015 Annual Report" accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "2014 Annual Report" accessed October 21, 2016
- ↑ The Wilderness Society, "2013 Annual Report" accessed October 21, 2016
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