User:Jonathandemart/sandbox

1 Amphibian are among the many types of flora and fauna that are protected by the wilderness protection system > insert picture of a salamander from the Cohutta wilderness in northern GA.

Most U.S. wilderness areas are in National Forests but the largest amount of wilderness land is administered by the National Park Service. The largest contiguous wilderness complex in the United States is the Noatak and Gates of the Arctic Wildernesses in Alaska at 12,743,329 acres (5,157,042 ha); the largest wilderness area outside Alaska is the Death Valley Wilderness in southeastern California.

^ add to this section 1 The smallest area protected by the WPS is the Pelican Island Wilderness in northern florida, which measures just six acres total. The smallest area preserved in the system was formerly the Rocks and Islands Wilderness in Northern California at five acres, but after a reassessment by the Bureau of Land Management in 2006 it was officially expanded to 19 acres. (1) 2 The states with the highest number of wildernesses are California, Arizona, Nevada, Alaska, and Oregon, however, when measured in wilderness acres the list changes dramatically as Alaska contains many of the largest areas protected under the act. In terms of total acres, Alaska, California, Arizona, Idaho, and Washington compose the list of the five states with the most wilderness.(1) - The Bureau of Land Management was not required to review its lands for inclusion in the NWPS until 1976, when the Federal Land Policy and Management Act was passed by Congress**. As of August 2008, a total of 704 separate wilderness areas, encompassing 107,514,938 acres (43,509,752 ha) had been set aside.[3] With the passage of the Omnibus Public Lands Act in March 2009, there are now 756 wilderness areas.

^^^^ add to this section 1 The Elkhorn Ridge Wilderness, which was officially initiated into the system on January 13, 2011, is the newest area protected by the act. This came five years after the 2006 law that designated the area to the system due to restorations on 1,565 acres of land reacquired from the public.(1) 2** 2** This act clarified the landholdings of the bureau of land management and set up a deadline for review of the lands by November 1980. This deadline corresponds to the drastic spike of acreage added for that year and also explains why 1980 became the year with the most wilderness acreage added in the United States by far. * add wiki citation/link to wilderness act(1)

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1 Add chart of acreage added by year and citation of data from wilderness.net

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On federal lands in the United States, Congress may designate an area as wilderness under the provisions of the Wilderness Act of 1964. ** the Wilderness Act stipulated that a wilderness area must be ***"where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man," the Eastern Wilderness Act, which added 16 National Forest areas to the NWPS, allowed for the inclusion of areas that had been severely modified by human interference.[1]

new paragraph 1** Multiple agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the National Fish and Wildlife Service, the US forest service, among others are responsible for the submission of new areas that fit the criteria to become wilderness to congress. Congress then reviews these cases on a state by state basis and determines which areas and how much land in each area will become part of the WPS. There have been multiple occasions in which congress designated more federal land then was recommended by the nominating agency. 2*** change quote of law to "administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such a manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness."

add new section " wildlife preservation" In late 2011, a full wilderness review was requested of the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plane in Alaska. One of the major qualifications for this area to be considered as a possible wilderness area was its diverse wildlife population, many of which are on the endangered species list.(2) One of the major goals of the Wilderness Preservation System is to provide undeveloped habitats for threatened or endangered species.(3)  In this potential wilderness area alone, Whales, Seals, Wolves, Polar Bears, Grizzly Bears, Muskoxen, Caribou, and over 200 species of migratory birds call this one area home for at least part of the year, this vast assortment of flora and fauna is a major consideration for addition into the wilderness preservation system. This is a trait shared by many of the Wilderness areas in the United States, and many of the species found in our country are represented in wilderness areas. There are 261 basic ecosystems in the US, and 157 of them are represented in the system. With 60% of all ecosystems somewhat protected by the WPS much of the wildlife in our country also has an area to exist without the fear of human interaction. -- 1. Add pie chart of wilderness by agency (4)

sources 1. "Creation and Growth of the National Wilderness Preservation System ." Wilderness.net. Wilderness.net, 2011. Web. 18 Mar 2012. .

2.http://wilderness.org/content/what-wilderness

3. http://ak.audubon.org/newsroom/press-releases/2012/us-fish-and-wildlife-service-considers-wilderness-arctic-refuge-coastal

4.http://www.wilderness.net/index.cfm?fuse=NWPS