The wilderness, wild, untrammeled and untrampled. If our government where to change its mind and to open the last few wilderness areas to motorized and mechanical travel, i.e. mountain bikes, it would be the last nail in the coffin of the world it would become man’s world, no longer our world. “Our” implies that we, mankind, share the world with animals, plants, even our pests and our varmints for we all began this world together.
It has been and is the role of the brave folk who make up our National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stem the tide of mankind against the wild world. Those people maintain our paths, protect our animals, plants, and fish while still allowing people to ATV, mountain bike, and to enjoy nature through parks, but the Wilderness is different.
These agencies set aside Wilderness, then leave Earth to its own natural devices, the policies, laws, and rules they apply keep people from trammeling and tramping the last of our wild nearly pristine places. By installing those rules of no structures, no roads, no motors and no mechanics force people who truly wish to experience the actual “Wild” those rules push people to walk, climb, camp, and or by horse. The wilderness is meant to be for those who wish to be wild to live like humans before the onset of modern technology and our paved culture.
The four agencies comprise the National Wilderness Preservation System and each of them play a vital role in managing people and our interactions and relationship with nature. The National Park Service our historical and cultural natural resource while still managing their 51 national parks and over 300 other national monuments, they protect and conserve while still allowing for people to recreate and preserve our sites. The Bureau of Land Management watches over 270 million acres, they preside over range lands to monitor mining, grazing, oil and gas development, and have gone into monitoring recreation and wilderness. The U.S. Forest Service studies forests and grassland while monitoring forest resource use for the 200 million acres over which their have been tasked with protecting. Finally, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife watches over the nation’s animals and their habitats through overseeing 500 national wildlife refuges spanning 91 million acres.
Without these four agencies the Wilderness and our ability as people to interact without destroying, trammeling, or disrupting habitats and their animals, plants and fish would not be possible. As the human race evolves and becomes more technologically advanced, our ability to preserve the wilderness will grow as long as individuals and groups are willing and supportive of these agencies and they work they do.