new or existing National Parks, 13 million acres 

 would be in new or existing National Wildlife 

 Refuges, and 6.2 million would be in existing and 

 additions to the Chugach and Tongass National 

 Forests. During the 96th Congress, the House passed 

 a bill designating approximately 67 million acres of 

 wilderness including 6.4 million acres in National 

 Forests. The Senate committee on Energy and Natu- 

 ral Resources also is considering a bill which calls for 

 the classification of about 35 million acres (including 

 3.9 million acres of National Forest lands and 1.4 

 million acres in a National Park Preserve) as wilder- 

 ness. Judging from the proposals considered by the 

 96th Congress, it is likely that a large proportion of 

 the National Wilderness Preservation System will be 

 located in Alaska. 



State, local governments, and private lands consti- 

 tute another potential source of wilderness. Nine 

 States throughout the Nation have established wil- 

 derness systems within their boundaries, and other 

 public lands also have potential for wilderness desig- 

 nation. A noteworthy example is New York State 

 whose 16 areas total approximately 1 million acres. 

 Additional public units, together with such lands as 

 the "pocket" wildernesses established by Bowaters 

 Paper Corporation in Tennessee, could provide 

 important protection for the Nation's wilderness 

 resource. 



Opportunities to improve wilderness management 

 and planning — In addition to increasing the size of 

 the wilderness resource, more indirect but nonethe- 

 less effective efforts are being made to increase the 

 quantity and quality of wilderness experiences. One 

 important opportunity is improved coordination and 

 management of recreation and other uses in estab- 

 lished wildernesses. By considering the particular 

 characteristics of an area and its specific problems or 

 conflicts, management plans are helping to achieve a 

 balance between consistent policy application and 

 responsiveness to individual area differences. In par- 

 ticular, a recreational carrying capacity — the num- 

 ber of recreationists an area can support without 

 unacceptable change in the wilderness resource and 

 the recreation experiences it provides — needs to be 

 established for each unit. Actions to maintain visita- 

 tion levels at or below that capacity can help in en- 

 suring resource protection and in providing quality 

 wilderness opportunities. For instance, trailhead man- 

 agement at or near the wilderness boundary can serve 

 both the visitor and resource. Establishing new trail- 

 heads, closing others, and coordinating all trailheads 

 can be aids to successful wilderness management. Pre- 

 vious neglect of this opportunity has caused some of 

 the present user distribution problems. 



Wilderness areas and wilderness use must be actively managed if 

 the full wilderness recreation potential of the land is to be attained. 



Improved coordination of wilderness planning 

 with other resource planning efforts is also helping to 

 facilitate effective management. Many of the most 

 effective management techniques are those which are 

 applied outside the wilderness rather than within it, 

 stressing the importance of coordinated planning. 

 For instance, an opportunity for maintaining an 

 enduring wilderness resource is to make quality 

 recreational experiences available on nonwilderness 

 lands. Fishing might be equally enjoyable in a 

 dispersed recreation area managed for this purpose 

 but lacking such wilderness attributes as non- 

 motorized travel, little resource modification, and 

 low-density use. Efforts are currently being made to 

 develop and apply a planning technology — based on 

 the concept of an outdoor recreation opportunity 

 spectrum — which will serve to promote this broader 

 range of alternative recreation opportunities. That 

 broader range of opportunities, in turn, could in- 

 directly help to ease the growing use pressures on 

 wildernesses. 



Opportunities to increase visitor information and 

 education efforts — Another important opportunity 

 for enhancing the management of the wilderness 

 resource is providing improved information and edu- 

 cation programs for the public. Increased efforts 

 to promote visitor understanding and cooperation 

 through education could help reduce the need for 

 control of public recreation in many wildernesses. 

 Before prospective wilderness visitors enter the wil- 



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