Concerns about excessive or unequitable regulations are well founded. But three 

 important facts place the issue of rationing squarely before us. First, the supply of 

 land that qualifies as wilderness is finite. Currently, about 14.4 million acres have 

 been formally designated for preservation. Estimates vary as to the potential size of 

 the National Wilderness Preservation system (NWPS) , but about 40 to 50 million acres 

 (2 percent of the United States) might eventually be classified as wilderness (McCloskey 

 1966; Stankey 1971). However, although future additions to the NWPS might expand its 

 current size by a factor of three or four, these additions will not increase net 

 capacity. Areas currently unclassified, but possessing wilderness qualities, frequently 

 have substantial use. 



Second, wilderness use is steadily growing. Nationally, Forest Service statistics 

 indicate about an 8 percent annual growth rate in wilderness since 1969. Moreover, 

 wilderness use is growing at a faster rate than other forest-based recreation demands 

 such as campground use. Although the current economic situation casts uncertainty on 

 future trends, it seems reasonable to expect further growth, and as a consequence, 

 more problems. 



Third, the goals that society has established for the NWPS emphasize that wilder- 

 ness shall be, first, an area where ecological processes operate as unmodified as 

 possible (fig. 1) and second, an area providing solitude and challenging, primitive 

 recreation (fig. 2) (Hendee and Stankey 1973). While use is to be permitted, it must 

 be consistent with the preservation of the area as wilderness . Moreover, management 

 guidelines in the Wilderness Act seem to disallow an "engineering" response to overuse 

 problems; namely, extensive "hardening" of sites, developing facilities, and so forth. 

 Although this approach has been proposed (Zivnuska 1973; Behan 1974), we believe it is 

 both illegal and inappropriate in areas managed for the preservation of natural eco- 

 logical processes. 



Figure l.—A major objective of the Wilderness Act is to preserve natural processes 

 that shaped the land and its community of life— conditions that prevail at this 

 unnamed lake in the Anaconda- Pintlar Wilderness. 



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