You're Looking at Wilderness .. the First Wilderness!

You're Looking at Wilderness .. the First Wilderness!. . Thanks, Aldo Leopold, for showing us the importance of wilderness., As a Forest Ranger, hunter and ecologist, Leopold saw the need to protect the wild lands he enjoyed and valued. Wilderness, to Leopold, was an area still wild enough and big enough to travel on horseback for two weeks without crossing any roads or seeing other signs of human development. He found that the Gila Forest was big enough and still wild enough to do this. In 1924, he persuaded the Forest Service to set aside 755,000 acres of the Gila so people in the future could have this experience as well. This became our country's first designated wilderness. ,

Wilderness areas are, first of all, a series of sanctuaries for the primitive arts of wilderness travel... I suppose some will wish to debate whether it is important to keep these primitive arts alive. I shall not debate it. Either you know it in your bones, or you are very, very old. , A. Leopold

Man always kills the thing he loves, and so we the pioneers have killed our wilderness. Some say we had to. Be that as it may, I am glad I shall never be young without wild country to be young in. Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map? , A. Leopold

The Wilderness Act of 1964 describes wilderness as a place where the land is affected primarily by the forces of nature, a place where humans are only visitors. To go into the wilderness, you will need to walk or ride on a horse or mule, just as people have always done. Wilderness gives you a way to step back in time, to experience the solitude and majesty of the natural world., Captions , Left: Aldo Leopold worked for the Forest Service in Arizona and New Mexico between 1909 and 1924. , Right: Aldo Leopold was also a noted philosopher, writer and teacher. His classic book A Sand County Almanac, published in 1949, is one of the most widely read and respected books about the natural world.