Wilderness

Wilderness designation is our top priority. We work in collaboration with our conservation partners as part of wilderness campaigns to encourage Congress to legislatively designate new Wilderness areas. We also work to ensure proper management of areas already designated as Wilderness; to ensure these places are indeed going to remain an enduring legacy of wilderness, untrammeled by man.

From our Broadwalks to our Broadbands, we work to connect our members with wild landscapes, to educate them about the issues and ecological processes, to introduce them to new places and partners, and ultimately to empower and enable them to take action and voice support for wilderness protection.

Broads also works to protect wild public lands. This can include a broad spectrum (get it?) of lands that may never become Congressionally designated Wilderness but are deserving of some level of care and protection. It means working with decision makers to ensure that wild public lands stay that way while awaiting wilderness designation or other protective measures. This would include Wilderness Study Areas that agencies have identified as having wilderness character and recommended as wilderness but that have not yet been included in legislation to be considered by Congress. It also includes the millions of additional acres across the nation that citizen’s have inventoried and identified as having wilderness character that our agencies failed to recommend.

It also includes spectacular places such as the Roan Plateau in Colorado or the Valle Vidal in New Mexico where previous land uses have left scars and infrastructure that would preclude qualification for Wilderness designation, but where spectacular scenery, wildlife habitat and recreational opportunities should trump development and destruction.

Great Old Broads for Wilderness advocates for protection of these places and sensible management that protects their wild character and values. Ultimately, our actions are guided by what is best for the land; what is best for Mother Earth.

As of 2010, there are nearly 110 million acres permanently protected as Wilderness in the United States.

What is Wilderness?