TITLE 16 - CONSERVATION
CHAPTER 23 - NATIONAL WILDERNESS PRESERVATION SYSTEM
Sec. 1131. National Wilderness Preservation System
(a) . .
. In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding
settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas
within the United States and its possessions, leaving no lands designated for
preservation and protection in their natural condition, it is hereby declared
to be the policy of the Congress to secure for the American people of present
and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness. For
this purpose there is hereby established a National Wilderness Preservation
System to be composed of federally owned areas designated by Congress as
wilderness areas, and these shall be administered for the use and enjoyment
of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future
use and enjoyment as wilderness, and so as to provide for the protection of
these areas, the preservation of their wilderness character, and for the
gathering and dissemination of information regarding their use and enjoyment
as wilderness; and no Federal lands shall be designated as wilderness areas
except as provided for in this chapter or by a subsequent Act.
(b) . .
. The inclusion of an area in the National Wilderness Preservation System
notwithstanding, the area shall continue to be managed by the Department and
agency having jurisdiction thereover immediately before its inclusion in the
National Wilderness Preservation System unless otherwise provided by Act of
Congress. No appropriation shall be available for the payment of expenses or
salaries for the administration of the National Wilderness Preservation System
as a separate unit nor shall any appropriations be available for additional
personnel stated as being required solely for the purpose of managing or
administering areas solely because they are included within the National
Wilderness Preservation System.
(c)
Wilderness defined:
A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works
dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized 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. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this
chapter an area of underdeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval
character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation,
which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and
which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of
nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has
outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of
recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient
size as to make practicable 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.