Trees in the city are becoming increasingly important 

 in upgrading the quality of an urban environment. 

 Open spaces, greenbelts, buffer strips, roadsides, 

 community parks, wooded residential and industrial 

 zones, expanding urban areas, and new communities 

 are all areas of forest recreation research. Many 

 potential benefits, including pleasant and serene 

 environments, increased natural beauty, cooling 

 shade, recreational opportunities, better air to 

 breathe, less street noise, protection from the winds, 

 and more birds and wildlife, are thought to be pro- 

 vided by the urban forest. 



Here, additional research is needed to: assess the 

 human benefits from urban forests for recreation and 

 amenity values; develop methods to breed, select, 

 establish, maintain, and protect urban forests from 

 insects and diseases to improve human benefits, and 

 develop strategies to integrate sound urban forest 

 planning and management into the total urban plan- 

 ning and development process. 



Wilderness 



In the last few decades, the wilderness resource in 

 the United States has received increasing attention. 

 Recreation and other uses of wilderness have grown 

 substantially since World War II, while the land area 

 available for wilderness designation has been reduced 

 by development. In the last decade, few forest and 

 range issues have created as much interest and con- 

 troversy as the designation of forest and range land as 

 wilderness. This section presents information on 



(1) the use of forest and range lands as wilderness and 



(2) opportunities for meeting future demands for 

 wilderness. 



The National Wilderness 

 Preservation System 



Although the creation of Yellowstone National 

 Park and the Adirondack Forest Preserve were early 

 attempts to protect areas in the United States from 

 traditional development, the first wilderness area — 

 a half million acres in the headwaters of the Gila 

 River on the Gila National Forest in New Mexico — 

 was set aside in 1924 by the Secretary of Agriculture 

 in response to a proposal by Aldo Leopold. Other 

 areas were soon added and by 1940 the system com- 

 prised 73 areas. 



Various groups sought more permanence in wil- 

 derness designations by proposing Federal legislation 

 to establish a national wilderness system. In response 

 to this interest. Congress passed the "Wilderness Act" 

 in 1964, which established a National Wilderness 



Preservation System composed of Federally owned 

 lands designated as "wilderness areas." 



The 1964 Act required all of the areas which had 

 been classified under the Secretary of Agriculture 

 regulations as wilderness, wild, or canoe areas to be 

 designated as wilderness areas. The legislation di- 

 rected the Forest Service to review all National 

 Forest areas classified as "primitive" and make 

 recommendations to the President and Congress 

 within 10 years as to their suitability for preservation 

 in the national wilderness system. The Secretary of 

 the Interior was directed to review every roadless area 

 of 5,000 contiguous acres or more in the National 

 Parks, National Monuments, and National Wildlife 

 Refuges for possible inclusion in the National Wil- 

 derness Preservation System. 



The Wilderness Act of 1964 also declared it to be 

 the policy of Congress "to secure for the American 

 people of present and future generations, the benefits 

 of an enduring resource of wilderness." Congress 

 could designate federally owned areas to be "adminis- 

 tered for the use and enjoyment of the American peo- 

 ple in such a manner as will leave them unimpaired 

 for future use and enjoyment as wilderness . . ." The 

 Act states that wilderness is "an area where the earth 

 and its community of life are untrammeled by man, 

 where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." 

 Wilderness is further defined in the Act as "an area of 

 undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval 

 character and influence . . ." and which (1) generally 

 appears to have been affected primarily by the forces 

 of nature, with the imprint of man's work substan- 

 tially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities 

 for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of 

 recreation; (3) has at least 5,000 acres of land or is of 

 sufficient size as to make practical 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." 



In 1975, a Congressional Act, (P.L. 93622) estab- 

 lished 16 wildernesses with a total area of about 

 171,000 acres east of the 100th meridian. This Act 

 also designated 17 additional areas to be studied for 

 possible inclusion into the National Wilderness Pres- 

 ervation System. The 17 areas cover approximately 

 125,000 acres. The Act required that the studies be 

 completed and a report made to Congress within 5 

 years on their suitability. 



As of July 1, 1979, 191 Federal wilderness areas 

 containing 19.0 million acres had been designated in 

 the United States (fig. 3.8). About 80 percent of this 

 area is administered by the Forest Service, 16 percent 

 by the National Park Service and 4 percent by the 

 Fish and Wildlife Service. In addition, 12,000 acres of 



100 



