Message to the Congress Proposing Establishment of New National Wilderness Areas.

To the Congress of the United States:

Everywhere in America, we seek the horizons where escape is free and where despair can never catch up. We sense that our wilderness, more than a concept, is an experience, where we may find something of ourselves and of our world that we might never have known to exist.

Wide-winged birds soaring over remote treetops can set our dreams in new directions. Serrated cliffs can tell us about our geological past. Mountain flowers beside woodland trails can teach us vital lessons about our ecological relationships. Sea winds blowing across lonely beaches can refresh us for new accomplishments.

It is a prime objective of government to balance the use of land sensibly to ensure that the world of nature is preserved along with the world of man.

"A wilderness . . ." according to the epochal Wilderness Act of 1964, "is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." Within the National Wilderness Preservation System established by this act, the first 9.1 million acres of our country were set aside, to be conserved, unimpaired, in their natural state.

Today, I am proposing to the Congress 16 new wilderness areas which, if approved, would add 3.5 million acres to our wilderness system. This is the largest single incremental increase in the system since passage of the act.

Five would be located in our National Wildlife Refuge Areas. They are the Brigantine National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey, the Blackbeard Island National Wildlife Refuge in Georgia, the Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge in Florida, and the Lostwood National Wildlife Refuge and the Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge in North Dakota. A sixth area, administered by the National Park Service, would be within the Cumberland Gap National Historical Park on the borders of Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky. These six additions would add 40, 257 acres to the Wilderness Preservation System.

In the Western States, in units administered by the National Park Service, my proposals today would designate as wilderness 2,016,181 acres in Yellowstone National Park, 512,870 in the Grand Canyon complex, 646,700 acres in Yosemite National Park, and 115,807 acres in Grand Teton National Park.

I further propose for inclusion in our National Wilderness Preservation System an additional 216,519 acres in some of the most beautiful regions of our country. These would include designated areas in the Great Sand Dunes National Monument in Colorado, the Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park in North Dakota, the Badlands National Monument in South Dakota, the Guadalupe Mountains National Park in Texas, the Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico and the Haleakala National Park in Hawaii.

The 1964 Wilderness Act further directed the Secretaries of Agriculture and of the Interior to review federally owned lands which they administer and to report to the President, who transmits to the Congress their and his recommendations for those areas which qualify as wilderness as defined by the act. This wilderness review process, to be conducted in three phases, was to be completed by 1974.

Beginning in 1969, I accelerated this program, and on April 28, 1971, I forwarded to the Congress 14 new wilderness proposals which, when enacted, would substantially increase the acreage added since passage of the Wilderness Act. I warned that we would need a redoubled effort by the Departments of Agriculture and the Interior in completing the review process and prompt action on these proposals by the Congress.

On February 8, 1972, I transmitted a second package of 18 new wilderness proposals to the Congress, which, if enacted, would designate 1.3 million additional acres as wilderness. At that time I reported that the September, 1974 statutory deadline for reviews could and would be met. I also pointed out that the majority of the wilderness areas recommended to date had involved western lands. Therefore, I directed the Secretaries of Agriculture and Interior to accelerate the identification of areas in the Eastern United States having wilderness potential.

The Congress has now received 78 wilderness proposals which would add 5.8 million acres to the original 9.1 million acres designated by the Congress.

To date, however, the Congress has acted on only 35 proposals, approving 1.7 million acres for inclusion in the system. This leaves pending 43 wilderness proposals encompassing 4.1 million acres.

I now urge the Congress--in this centennial year of our National Park System-to act quickly in favor of these new proposals as well as the ones already pending.

I am aware of the commercial opportunities in potential wilderness areas such as mining, lumbering, and recreational development. I believe we must achieve a sensible land use balance-America can have economic growth and the unspoiled nature of the wilderness.

Increasingly, in fact, the preservation of these areas has become a major goal of all Americans. The process of developing wilderness proposals is now exemplifying public participation and cooperation with the governmental process. Commercial and conservation groups--and individuals from all over the country--have, through public hearings and direct contact with government agencies, done much more than is generally realized to contribute to the wilderness program.

I believe the value of this cooperative effort between the public and their government officials is reflected in the wilderness proposals I am proud to submit today. This is an excellent example of the responsive way in which our government is meant to work.

The first man on earth, according to the scriptures was placed in a natural garden, and he was charged "to dress it and keep it." Our own great naturalist John Muir said that our "whole continent was a garden and . . . seemed to be favored above all the other wild parks and gardens of the globe."

The addition of these new areas to our national wilderness system will help to keep it that way.

RICHARD NIXON

THE WHITE HOUSE,

September 21, 1972.