Following the 1964 Wilderness Act, a federal land management act required the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to inventory all roadless areas for potential wilderness designation. Until Congress made a final decision, suitable lands were to be managed as Wilderness. But in Utah, the BLM seemed to have other goals in mind. In 1980, the agency completed a plan that focused on commercial and industrial development. Out of 23 million acres, the BLM designated only 2.5 million as potential wilderness.

When the BLM recommended only a fraction of what conservationists in Utah knew was eligible, citizens decided to take matters into their own hands. Forty citizen groups formed the Utah Wilderness Coalition (UWC) and began to develop an alternative to the BLM's proposal. Formed in 1985, the UWC has grown to include 240 local, regional and national organizations and individuals. UWC's proposal is the result of several years' work in the field, mapping boundaries of proposed areas and documenting wilderness characteristics. Where the BLM reported 2.5 million eligible acres, the citizens charted 9.1 million.

Three main threats stand in the way of wilderness designation for all 9.1 million acres. First, to adhere to Bush's National Energy Plan, the BLM is "streamlining" the mining and drilling permit process on existing claims and leases. Second, Utah county officials are using an obscure mining law from 1866 (intended by Civil War-era lawmakers to give prospectors easy access to their claims) to create roads and grant private interest groups the right-of-way over public land. Finally, extraction and a growing number of off-road vehicles are scarring delicate desert soils. And rather than strictly enforcing wilderness regulations, the BLM has focused on exploration and development.

Tourism--not resource extraction--is one of the largest and most important economic activities of Utah's economy. And the tourism industry is dependent on maintaining the wilderness quality of Redrock. According to the 2001 Utah Economic Report to the Governor, 2000 revenue from tourism in Utah was $4.25 billion, while the production value of oil development was only $640 million. Mining-related employment (including oil and gas development) was less than 1 percent of Utah's total non-agricultural jobs. Continuing to destroy Redrock's wilderness quality will cause far more harm to Utah's economy than the small amount of revenue generated from oil and gas development.

Unlike the BLM, the general public seems to realize the importance of Redrock. A recent poll of Utah residents conducted by Wirthlin Worldwide revealed that seven of ten Utah residents favor designating undeveloped BLM lands as wilderness. In 1995, pro-wilderness speakers outnumbered their opponents at each of five regional hearings to gauge public opinion on wilderness designation. Of the more than 22,000 opinions received by the Utah governor's office during the hearings, more than 70 percent supported the citizen's wilderness proposal.

Congress has also recognized the importance of Redrock. In 1989, the citizen's first proposal of 5.7 million acres was introduced into Congress as America's Redrock Wilderness Act. After the citizen's second inventory, an expanded bill that encompassed 9.1 million acres was re-introduced into Congress in 1999 and again in April 2001, with a record number of cosponsors. America's Redrock Wilderness Act is now in the 107th Congress. It now has 162 cosponsors in the House and 17 in the Senate, and has a good chance of passing. In the past decade, Congress has voted down every compromising, anti-wilderness proposal for Utah's canyons and deserts. Redrock is a fragile and stunning wilderness that must be preserved for all future generations. Once it's gone, we can never get it back. And if the BLM won't do its job, the public will.

More about Redrock
The Colorado Plateau and Utah's Basin and Range
"Bureau of Livestock and Mining"
What is a Wilderness?