For decades, federal agencies like the U.S. Forest Service, National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service, and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have relied on well-established Wilderness policies to identify and manage America’s wildest public lands. These policies have helped balance conservation, recreation, public access, and other land management needs while protecting places that still feel truly wild.
As mentioned in our action alert, the BLM is currently taking comments on three different policy manuals. Each of them deals with a different type of designation, but all of them deal with how BLM is to manage lands to protect “Wilderness characteristics”.
The building blocks for Wilderness protections: “Wilderness characteristics” or “Wilderness qualities” are those that make a landscape eligible to be designated as Wilderness by an Act of Congress. These include intact landscapes without roads or noticeable development that possess outstanding opportunities for solitude or non-motorized recreation such as hiking and horseback riding.
The BLM policies that apply to the three land designations described below—each now under a federal review—help BLM manage landscapes with these Wilderness characteristics. Weakening or eliminating these tools could leave some of our most undeveloped public lands vulnerable before thoughtful, informed decisions about their future can be made.
Three types of Wilderness Quality Lands Under a Policy Review
Designated Wilderness areas have the most durable protection for public lands because they are established by an Act of Congress and can only be undone with another Act of Congress. They are established under the Wilderness Act of 1964 and are part of the National Wilderness Preservation System.
These national public lands are permanently protected from new extraction and roads, and must be managed to preserve their Wilderness character for future generations, while continuing to be available for non-mechanical forms of recreation and travel such as horseback riding and hunting.
Examples of BLM Wilderness in California: Cadiz Dunes Wilderness in the Mojave Desert and the King Range Wilderness on California’s remote “Lost Coast”.
King Range, Bob Wick
Wilderness Study Areas are places that the BLM has determined to have Wilderness characteristics as described above in the Wilderness Act. Until Congress makes a decision about whether or not to permanently protect these places as Wilderness Areas, agencies manage Wilderness Study Areas to ensure that they continue to remain suitable for Wilderness designation and, in the meantime, support a wide range of recreation including hunting and fishing, horseback riding, camping, hiking, climbing, and exploring.
Examples of BLM Wilderness Study Areas in California: Volcanic Tablelands WSA north of Bishop and the Merced River WSA located in the Sierra Nevada foothills near Mariposa. 
Merced River Wilderness Study Area, Steve Evans
Lands with Wilderness Characteristics: When BLM identifies Wilderness Characteristics in a region, their existence and public pressure can cause them to make a commitment to use land management plans to protect or maintain those characteristics. This is the least durable designation, because it is established by BLM and can be modified or eliminated by BLM.
Examples of BLM Lands with Wilderness Characteristics in California: Sacramento River Bend region near Red Bluff and Joaquin Rocks near Coalinga.
Sacramento River Bend, Bob Wick
Note: The administration has launched additional attacks to other Wilderness-related standards not described above, but all these policies help agencies fulfill their legal obligations, provide consistency for staff across field offices and states, and support informed decision-making on the public landscapes we love. Changes to this successful model threaten millions of acres of lands loved by Californians and beyond.
