More than across the U.S. are protected in – together an area slightly larger than the state of California. For the most part, these places have been left alone for decades, in keeping with the ’s directive that they be “untrammeled by man.”
But in a time when lands are experiencing the effects of climate change and people are renewing their understanding of Indigenous knowledge and stewardship practices, protecting these places may require action, not inaction.
New Mexico’s , where the Chihuahuan Desert converges with the Rocky Mountains, was the first to receive a formal wilderness designation in 1924. Now, all but six U.S. states contain wilderness. In Minnesota, the protects more than a thousand lakes and several hundred miles of streams. In Florida, the marshes and saltwater bays of the are home to flamingos, manatees and alligators.
These diverse ecosystems are the country’s most protected lands, where human activity . resource extraction such as logging and mining; developments such as the building of roads and structures; by planes and helicopters; and mechanized equipment such as chain saws. People can walk, ride horses, canoe, fish and camp temporarily in these areas, but .
Yet, research my colleagues and have conducted indicates that this approach .
First, the – as wildlands that – conflicts with the growing understanding that many wilderness areas were and remain part of the , who in fact tended those lands for thousands of years.
And second, as climate change and other ecological stressors affect wilderness, some forms of human intervention could help sustain the very ecological qualities that led to these areas being so strictly protected.
Indigenous influence on landscapes
Many wilderness areas have long histories as homelands where Indigenous peoples lived, hunted and gathered.
In Alaska, the Inland Dena’ina people marked vast trail networks by , including by scarring bark and cutting limbs. Many of these marked trees can be found within , two-thirds of which is designated wilderness.
In Washington’s , gathered to pick and then burn the area’s huckleberry fields, a practice that increased the abundance of both plants and berries.
In the Southwest, Indigenous peoples to be more palatable than wild agaves; researchers have found four of these domesticated species in six wilderness areas.
These lands may seem wild to some, but as Indigenous ecologists Robin Wall Kimmerer and Frank Kanawha Lake observed in 2001, “.”
Ecological stressors intensify
The Wilderness Act’s strict rules are not able to protect wilderness areas in the U.S. from new and unprecedented ecological stressors.
For instance, many wilderness areas are experiencing uncharacteristically severe wildfires. These events are a result of climate change, fire suppression and the prevention of traditional Indigenous forest management practices, including burning. Together, those forces have resulted in large-scale disruptions of historical cycles of fire, in which wildfires were often more frequent but less severe.
Scholars from catastrophic fires, though it remains controversial in wilderness as human intervention. Government policy allows lightning-ignited wildfires to burn in federal wilderness areas in certain circumstances, but most of these fires are still suppressed – a human intervention that is widely accepted.
In California’s and wilderness areas, recent intense wildfires have killed unprecedented numbers of giant sequoias, a species that historically thrived because of more frequent, less-intense fires. The 2020 Castle Fire is estimated to have – or 10% to 14% of all sequoias in the Sierra Nevada – many of them in wilderness.
In New Mexico’s , repeated intense fires have killed entire forests, transforming these lands into shrublands. Models indicate that to this type of change.
The absence of fire can also be a problem for wilderness ecosystems. In the , researchers anticipate unless fire is reintroduced – with the potential for these forests to disappear within 150 years.
Helping fire resume its natural role on the landscape – through prescribed burning or letting natural fires burn, overseen by firefighters and land managers – isn’t easy. Tree-ring histories and archaeological, paleoecological and ethnographic records show that frequent burning of resting areas and campsites by the Anishinaabe people along commonly traveled waterways . But the wilderness-protection group Wilderness Watch says that prescribed burning by federal land managers today constitutes “ on Wilderness to try to create managers’ desired conditions rather than allowing nature to shape the area.”
And fire isn’t the only concern. A combination of climate change, invasions by a nonnative fungus called and outbreaks of have led to . An iconic tree that can live between 500 and 1,000 years, whitebark pines are in the West, where they , help regulate snowmelt and reduce soil erosion.
For the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, whitebark pines are culturally significant, with their . The tribes have declared they feel a responsibility “,” and developed a in Montana, which includes the . But in federal wilderness, their approach – active tending through prescribed fire and replanting – would likely .
Reimagining federal wilderness management
Within tribal wildernesses, Indigenous nations , as seen in the Mission Mountains Tribal Wilderness. There, members of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes are guaranteed the right not only to use the resources by hunting and fishing but also to connect with the landscape through cultural, spiritual and religious practices.
In recent years, managers at several federal wilderness areas have worked to include tribes in decisions about how these lands are stewarded. In California, gives the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria a voice in the management of native tule elk at , most of which is part of the . In 2024, after pressure from the tribal community and others, the National Park Service began that prevented the tule elk from roaming freely and introduced new signs and interpretive programs that incorporated traditional ecological knowledge.
The long-debated question of how to best steward wilderness is increasingly urgent. In addition to its “untrammeled by man” provision, the Wilderness Act also says wilderness areas should be “.” So the question remains whether people should leave small slices of nature entirely alone, even as humans alter the conditions of the planet, or whether some careful actions could help protect these precious places for generations to come.
, , , , and contributed to this article.
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