Vol. X No. 41               WASHINGTON, D, C.           October, 18, 1926.

 
WILDERNESS RECREATION AREAS 
By W. B. Greely, 
I confess to considerable fogginess 
of mind in the past regarding the wilderness 
idea in National Forest administration. The 
conception of retaining sections of coun- 
try which cannot be penetrated by the auto- 
mobile and which offer opportunities for 
rugged and manly recreation through travel 
by canoe, horseback, or afoot is appealing. 
On the other hand, the dedication of National 
Forest lands in substantial quantities to 
a perpetual exclusion of economic uses, where 
commercial resources of large intrinsic val- 
ue are present, brings us face to face with 
cold facts.  We can not ignore the indus- 
trial and community relationships of the Na- 
tional Forests and the responsibility we 
would assume in undertaking to  withhold eco- 
nomic resources from use for all future time. 
We now have many large    areas that 
are still wilderness of the most approved 
sort through accidents of topography or 
remoteness. At the same time we are dealing 
in the main with regions of expanding pop- 
ulation, of growing community needs, of 
timber resources which are being depleted 
in the zones hitherto regarded as accessi- 
ble, and of general needs for industrial 
and social expansion. We know that timber 
and water and forage which were regarded as 
inaccessible fifteen years ago are now in 
demand or actively used. We know that this 
widening demand will flow back farther and 
farther into the National Forests and that 
existing conceptions of inaccessibility will 
 
fade away before it. We have made many pro- 
nouncements, first and last, as to the ulti- 
mate value of the physical resources in the 
National Forests when they are fully devel- 
oped. We have used this as an argument on 
many occasions to States and counties im- 
patient for more revenue. 
Our discussions of the wilderness 
policy have, at least in my own thought, been 
predicated on the supposition that a wild- 
erness area requires per se the permanent 
exclusion of all forms of economic develop- 
ment.   We have become accustomed to the 
wisdom of restricting or modifying customary 
forms of commercial use within reasonable 
limits for the protection of recreation and 
the natural conditions conducive to recrea- 
tion. We leave roadside strips in cutting 
timber or at least mark more conservatively 
in them; we leave natural conditions Around 
lakes and camp grounds and in canyons popu- 
lated by summer homes; we preserve beauty 
spots; we restrict grazing where it would 
interfere with camping and other forms of 
recreation and set aside meadows for saddle 
and pack horses.   Such adjustments, seldom 
involving large areas or large curtailments 
in the economic utility of the National For- 
ests, we believe desirable in promoting the 
greatest public service.   A "wilderness", 
however, means something big.    The with- 
drawal of wilderness areas, of proportions 
commensurate with the term itself, from the 
customary forms of economic use is neces- 
sarily a step to be taken only with a great 
deal of consideration. For the time being 
and even for many years to come, such with- 
 
I;' 
 
U.S. FOREST SERVICE 
(Contents Confidential)