ORRRC at 40! ORRRC and wilderness.

The work of the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission was incredible, and the output of the commission produced significant changes in the way that we deal with outdoor recreation, heritage resources, open space and wilderness in the U.S. We find in the commission's report "Wilderness and Recreation" considerable anticipation of things that we're experiencing today. This report was prepared as extensive debate was being conducted about a wilderness bill. That debate informed the ORRRC report, but in turn the ORRRC report informed the debate that continued for two more years until the Wilderness Act of 1964 was signed into law.

ORRRC was prophetic about wilderness in many ways. It brought to the surface the need to know about the values underlying recreation and wilderness, and this is a topic we still are studying. It suggested guidelines for management of "Class V-Primitive Areas" in its land-use classification scheme, describing Class V as undisturbed roadless areas characterized by natural, wild conditions, including "wilderness areas." And while wilderness isn't synonymous with recreation, and vice versa, the report made it clear that some forms of cherished recreation occur in wilderness. Planning recommendation #9 said that Congress should enact legislation to provide for the establishment and preservation of certain primitive areas as "wilderness areas."

We know that Congress followed this advice, passed the Wilderness Act in 1964 and set about establishing legal wilderness, beginning with 5 million hectares in 54 units. (Those figures are now more than 43 million hectares in more than 600 units.) What ORRRC called for has been put in place, possibly more extensively than in the wildest dreams of the report's authors. But, when you think past counting hectares and numbers of units, has the ORRRC recommendation really been enacted?

Size Matters

Among the criteria for establishing wilderness, ORRRC Study Report 3 suggested that the criterion of size was the most critical. The need for large areas was debated long and hard; the report called for units of at least 43,000 hectares. Among the 600-plus units today, many are much smaller. The report authors feared that "when small administrative units now surrounded by comparable wild land eventually have roads extended to their boundaries, they will present an entirely different aspect." For many wildernesses, this is exactly what occurred.

Another recommendation was "that a standard policy for the establishment and management of wilderness areas--including a definition--be adopted by federal agencies administering wilderness lands, to strengthen public understanding and guide administration of such areas." As the Pinchot Institute Wilderness Stewardship Panel observed in its September 2001 report, "the need to forge an integrated and collaborative system across the four wilderness management agencies" is fundamental. The panel believed so strongly in this need that it recommended eight principles to guide wilderness stewardship, because no framework currently exists within or across the agencies having responsibility for federal wildernesses.

Finally, in its recommendations directed specifically at the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture the ones specifically given responsibility for wilderness stewardship in the Wilderness Act--the panel said, "The secretaries should issue joint policies and regulations specifying common interpretations of law, and thus provide broad guidelines for the stewardship of wilderness." It's time for these public officials to accept their responsibility and get on with the task that the ORRRC authors envisioned 40 years ago.

Environmental Concerns

Several other issues raised in the ORRRC report are being played out today. The authors recognized that the values of wilderness arise from the special environment that is wilderness. They recognized the recreational and other direct values that accrue to wilderness visitors. They noted that the two strongest motives for wilderness use are escape or change from the highly complex urban existence of most people, and an attraction to natural beauty inherent in many untrammeled areas.

The authors also wrote of the two types of values of wilderness that accrue to society, even absent recreational use. First, there are the values of benefits such as clean air and water, and of scientific value arising from relatively undisturbed places. Second, there are the values that arise because some people's reactions to nonwilderness experiences are conditioned by knowing that wilderness exists. An important related issue today, and described by the Pinchot Panel, is the need to inform a radically different citizenry than 40 years ago about the values of wilderness. If wilderness is to continue, an informed citizenry will be necessary.

The ORRRC authors recognized another issue of our day when they asked, "Can wilderness be restored?" Many of the philosophical and practical issues underlying our current debates on issues of wilderness restoration and rehabilitation were addressed in the report. The report authors also broached the idea of diversity of landscapes and ecosystems, bringing the issue of environmental diversity to us long before the present diversity movement. They argued that, to achieve diversity, we would need to establish wilderness in the northern and southern Great Plains, and in Maine. These wildernesses would have to be largely acquired from private lands, they would be difficult to obtain and it would take a long time for their restoration to wilderness character. This, of course, is a debate many of us know today.

An issue as true today as it was in 1962 is the need for great attention by land managers to the maintenance of wilderness environments. What the Pinchot Panel found 40 years later is that the agencies attach quite different importance to wilderness stewardship, locate wilderness responsibility at different levels of the organization from one agency to the next and provide scant monetary and personnel resources to the stewardship of more than 43 million hectares of the public estate that's in wilderness status. While some wildernesses have conscientious stewards, others have been neglected, and still others are treated as if they simply aren't wanted and aren't part of our American heritage.

Culture of Stewardship

As the Pinchot Panel found recently, the ORRRC authors recognized that agency cultures greatly affect how wilderness stewardship is practiced. Wildernesses are special places devoted to the intersection of wildness and naturalness. They aren't recreation areas, although some forms of recreation may be permissible in them. Nor are they lands just waiting to be developed and currently held in a wilderness land bank. Instead, they're part of an extensive multiple use of lands. As the ORRRC authors realized, "The values of wilderness tracts depend on the existence of sharp contrast between wilderness tracts and the rest of the country. Within this framework, therefore, the aim of minimum interference is not only appropriate but essential." Wilderness isn't land on which the normal set of management tools and techniques are to be applied wantonly or simply because that's the way a given agency handles other lands. Wilderness demands a focus on the special nature of wilderness and its wildness and naturalness.

In this year of the 40th anniversary of the ORRRC report, we should celebrate the vision of its authors and the actions it produced. In regard to wilderness, we should also recognize our failure to heed what they envisioned, and commit ourselves to forging an integrated and coordinated system of wildernesses.

NOTE FROM THE EDITORS: Throughout the year, Parks & Recreation has highlighted sections of Outdoor Recreation For America in an effort to bring a valuable spotlight to the history of our profession and our community. We hope you have taken to heart what our history provides and used its offerings to better yourself, your community and our parks.

Perry Brown, Ph.D. is Dean and Professor, School of Forestry, and Director of the Montana Forest and Conservation Experiment Station at the University of Montana-Missoula. He has also served on the faculties of Utah State University, Colorado State University and Oregon State University. He has served informal advisory appointments with the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management. He chaired the Pinchot Institute's National Panel on Wilderness Stewardship.