Current News
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Obama protects wildland areas, helping wolvesJess Edberg, Information Services Director -- International Wolf Center, 04/14/2009
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In a major environmental move, President Barack Obama signed in a new era of conservation with his pen-stroke on one of the largest wilderness preservation bills in recent history. The President passed the Omnibus Public Land Management (OPLM) Act of 2009 into law on March 30, 2009.
This act is the largest wilderness preservation bill since President Clinton signed the Desert Protection Act in 1994. Protections were added to 2.1 million acres of federal land in areas within California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, New Mexico, Oregon, Virginia and West Virginia. Additionally, over 1,000 miles of rivers in Arizona, California, Idaho, Massachusetts, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming were designated wild and scenic.
The OPLM Act effectively limits use within the newly designated areas to non-invasive activities. In federally designated wilderness areas timber harvest, mining, creating roads and certain activities such as riding mountain bikes are prohibited. Waterways with the wild and scenic designation cannot be altered or dammed.
Limiting the types of activities in wilderness areas is one method of preserving and protecting environmentally valuable areas. During the historic signing of the OPLM Act at a White House ceremony, President Obama stated, “This legislation guarantees that we will not take our forests, rivers, oceans, national parks, monuments, and wilderness areas for granted; but rather we will set them aside and guard their sanctity for everyone to share. That's something all Americans can support."
Although these new restrictions are a disappointment to some interest groups such as those invested in energy development uses for lands, all of the wilderness areas included in the bill are located within national parks, national forests or land owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. No state, county or private land was ceded.
For wildlife such as the wolf, the OPLM Act may help establish greater understanding for the value of wildlands that are important to the wolf for survival. A wildland is any area where there is available habitat for a variety of wildlife and conflict with humans is low. Access to seasonal feeding grounds, food sources and mates help maintain healthy and genetically diverse populations, which create conditions where wildlife populations can thrive.
Human development can interrupt this flow by creating islands of wildland surrounded by industry or human-focused habitats that may include highways, neighborhoods or fencing.
Wildlands are an important part of wolf survival in that if wolves have access to habitat in areas where human contact is minimal or human tolerance is high, wolves will encounter fewer obstacles to living as a large predator. The International Wolf Center’s mission is to advance the survival of wolf populations by teaching about wolves, their relationship to wildlands and the human role in their future.
The Center understands that education does not always translate into immediate action, but it does result in reevaluation and change. With the power of full, accurate and science-based information to improve decision-making about the conservation and management of wolves and wildlands it is possible to make a long-term positive change for wolves.
This year as we celebrate the 45th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, which was signed into law in 1964, by President Lyndon Johnson, the International Wolf Center emphasizes the importance for the public to understand the critical relationship between wildland preservation and wolf population survival.
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