User:LawGenius1234/Wilderness Act

The Wilderness Act of 1964 was created to protect 9.1 million acres of land. This act also created the National Wilderness Preservation System which established National Parks.

Summary (Wilderness Designations)
The Wilderness Act of 1964 was created due to the expansion of the United States and created the National Wilderness Preservation System. This system worked to establish designated land for the American people to use for things like recreation, historical value, wilderness preservation, educational reasons, and scientific needs. Each designated land has a purpose or goal of being established. Based on the goals of the land government decides what entity manages and what the land is labeled as. For example, Mt. Rushmore is labeled as a National Monuments, it's purpose is for historical value, and are managed by the National Park System. Under the Wilderness Act of 1964 Wilderness Designations were created for the purpose of preserving the land and the ecosystems. That being said these designations have violations. These include the use of these lands in a commercial fashion like building roads and commercial buildings on these lands.

Designations are created under the US Congress and the executive branch. Designations are protected under the federal government and have the same amount of protection as other public land created under the Wilderness Acts. Federal owned designations are federally owned land that has be designated by both congress and the executive branch. For nonfederal land, also known as private land, the owner will not be backed by government funding and are not held to the same laws as federal designations. Designations are managed by one of the 5 entities depending on the reason the land was designated. These include the National Parks System, Bureau of Land Management, U.S Fish and Wildlife, Department of Interior, U.S Forest Service. Based on the purpose and physical properties of the land designations are assigned a designation like a National Monument, National Park, etc...

There are current issues that still happen in regards to the Wilderness Act of 1964 and land designations. Companies are drawn to the beauties of American federal land and want to expand into them. The biggest way that companies are getting access to land near designations and sometimes on them is through inholdings. These lands are non federally own land next to federally owned land designations. These lands are not considered designations or federally owned public land so they are not hold to the same violations so companies are able to develop these areas. Many times these lands are managed by the states in which the designation is in or the owner of the land. Since these lands are not under the same restrictions as federally owned land companies are able to expand on to them. "as a result, inholdings can pose significant challenges to public land management ranging from access to boundary disputes to adverse wildlife habitat, watersheds, and cultural historical resources".

Furthermore, there are current cases that don't involve inholdings like McKnown v. Untied States that companies are trying to get access to designations. The McKnown case dealt with the company trying to get access to drill on a wilderness designation because they found large amounts of quartz. McKnown wanted the government to allow him access by providing them with a mining claim. The court deemed that the claim lacked substantial evidence and McKnown was denied access to the wilderness designation. In the Wilderness Act companies are allowed to submit a claim to get access to designations and federally owned lands however they have to provided good reason and evidence.