the concept of wilderness 

 as provided in the 

 Wilderness Act of 1964. It 

 designated areas of less 

 than 5,000 acres as 

 wilderness and wilderness 

 study areas. It also provided 

 for incorporating into the 

 Wilderness Preservation 

 System areas that did not 

 meet the earlier criteria 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." 



Nine subsequent wilderness 

 acts increased the number 

 of wildernesses at the end 

 of 1984 to 60 and the area 

 to 522,737 acres. Some of 

 these areas had been cut 

 over, burned over, or 

 occupied by local citizens 

 for years prior to acquisition 

 for the national forests. On 

 some of the areas, there 

 had been timber sales, 

 roadbuilding, and cutting 

 within the previous 30 years. 

 Designated and proposed 

 wilderness encompassed 

 significant areas of 

 commercial forest land and 

 stands of timber that were 

 part of the timber resource 

 base for sustained-yield 

 production. 



Court Actions and the 

 National Forest 

 Management Act 



In the early and mid-1 970's, 

 court actions emanating 

 from the clearcutting 

 controversy about 

 even-aged management 

 and timber-harvesting 

 activities in the 

 Monongahela National 

 Forest in West Virginia had 

 curtailed timber sales on 

 the national forests in 

 Virginia, North Carolina, 

 South Carolina, and Texas. 

 In its August 21, 1975, 

 decision, the U.S. Court of 

 Appeals for the Fourth 

 Circuit upheld the November 

 4, 1973, decision of the 

 Federal District Court in 

 Elkins, WV, in the case of 

 Izaak Walton League v. 

 Butz, et al. That decision 

 limited the sale and harvest 

 of national forest timber to 

 dead, mature, or 

 large-growth trees. This 

 and other injunctive actions 

 came at a time when 

 demand was high, 

 stumpage prices were up, 

 and the southern pine beetle 

 was making another run in 

 several areas of the South. 



Relief of a sort came with 

 passage of the National 

 Forest Management Act of 

 1976, which opened the 

 way to continue the sale of 

 timber. But at the same 

 time, this legislation required 



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