| Show director gives procedure for 1 inventorying potential wilderness After six months of gathering and analyzing the public's ideas on wilderness the Department of the Bureau Land Management last week issued procedures ifor Inventory Ing wilderness values on the public According to Paul L. Utah state these procedures provide formal guidelines for iden- areas with potential for in- elusion by Congress in the National Wilderness Preservation The Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 requires that an Inventory be made of the public lands to determine existence of all tracts of more than and having wilderness These areas will become Wilderness Study Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus feel that the ex- public involvement in drawing up these procedures has given us real foresight into what we and the public want from the Inventory When the inventory is the BUreau evaluate Wilderness Study Areas through its multiple-use planning and make recommendations through the Secretary and the President to Congress on areas suitable for inclusion in the National Wilderness preservation or not suitable because of other public Only Congress can designate an area as During the evaluation of Wilderness study Areas and until Congress makes final most existing activities such as mineral wildlife livestock lire and off-road vehicle recreation can continue so long as the wilderness designation potential is Guidelines for this Interim required by the will be Issued by the Depart- ment and later this year and will undergo further public review before they are final prepared draft procedures covering the entire wilderness review process and submitted these to the public at 60 workshops held across the The Bureau received more written Bureau of Land Management director Frank Gregg said all of these comments were carefully considered in formulating the inventory An analysis summary of all the com- ments received and the Bureau s response will be mailed to all of those who The comments will the development of wt- Of all the Inventory Issues the proposed definition of a received far and away the most written the majority of which protested that if this definition were too many areas would be made a minor change In the definition to make it conform strictly to the ordy definition used by Congress in the legislative history of the Wilderness According to of greater im- to public land users is whether an area truly has wilderness charac- In the first A acre area must meet the characteristics criteria of the Wilderness Act before It can be Iden- Wied as a Wilderness One of the concerns expressed In the comments was that the public should be able to participate fully In the review process since subjective values will have to be used in the Inventory Judgments must be made as to what constitutes outstanding and na ura ness Sc c Plic Decisions will not be made simply by an in ernal deter- ye but rather with strong u menders m ine The f procedures give op- for the fullest possible public involvement in the including participation In the inventory public review of selections of areas with wilderness he added tie cs on that would not qualify for Gregg said that the Bureau has devoted a great deal of study to these concerns and that the procedures TOW provide for quickly Identifying lands that clearly and obviously do not meet criteria for These through public review and will be removed as soon as from the management limitations imposed by the Federal Policy and Management Act to protect wilderness values during the review he pointed The are spelled out In a wilderness Inventory Handbook available from Bureau of Land Management The handbook covers the wilderness inventory guidelines for other aspects of the wilderness program will be provided in separate |
