Regional public land leaders discuss the legacy of wilderness at Denver’s Central Library

DENVER – In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, regional leaders of the federal agencies that manage and care for America’s wilderness lands will highlight the act’s legacy for Colorado and the region in a panel discussion Tuesday night, Sept. 23 at the Denver Central Library.

The panelists will include Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Colorado State Director Ruth Welch, National Park Service (NPS) Intermountain Region Director Sue Masica, and U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Regional Forester Dan Jirón.  The event runs from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the 7th floor Training Room of the main library at 10 W. 14th Ave. downtown.

 

Scott Miller, senior regional director for the Southwest Region of The Wilderness Society, will moderate the panel discussion. Attendees will have opportunities to ask questions of the panel members.

 

The Central Library's Vida Ellison Gallery currently is showcasing the exhibit "The Legacy of Wilderness" in recognition of the 1964 Act.

 

Throughout the state, BLM Colorado manages five Wilderness Areas totaling approximately 211,000 acres and 54 Wilderness Study Areas totaling approximately 550,000 acres through the agency’s National Landscape Conservation System. The BLM's National Landscape Conservation System, also known as its National Conservation Lands, contain and highlight some of the American West's most spectacular public lands so they may be protected, conserved, or restored. 

 

The NPS Intermountain Region (IMR), the largest in the Park Service, consists of 91 parks, monuments, recreation areas and other units in eight states: Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. Together they comprise more than 11.1 million acres of federal land, including more than 1 million acres of designated wilderness in a dozen IMR parks, four of them in Colorado. About one-third (28) of the region’s parks contain either designated wilderness or wild lands proposed, recommended or eligible for wilderness designation. Together, these wild park lands total more than 7.6 million acres and are managed as wilderness.

 

The U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region, consisting of 24 million acres of national forests and grasslands in Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska and Kansas, includes 46 Wilderness Areas totaling 4.5 million acres. Colorado contains 36 of these Wilderness Areas totaling more than 3 million acres.  

 

This month marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Wilderness Act, which established a National Wilderness Preservation System to be “administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use as wilderness, and so as to provide for the protection of these areas, the preservation of their wilderness character, and for the gathering and dissemination of information regarding their use and enjoyment as wilderness.”

 

###