“The Redrock Wilderness is already owned by all of the people of the United States and should be considered a national treasure like the Grand Canyon or the Statue of Liberty. The terrain cannot bear much use or development and the treasures it holds are too rare and special to be exploited. These lands and the wildlife that inhabit them deserve the protection that permanent wilderness designation would offer.”
-Rep. Maurice Hinchel (D-NY)

Few places on earth appeal equally to hikers, campers, geologists, ecologists and archaeologists. But the plateaus, canyons and rivers proposed for wilderness designation in Utah fit the bill. There are nine million acres of Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land proposed for wilderness. In Utah, conservationists simply call it the Redrock Wilderness, and it holds secrets about the birth of humanity, the earth's adolescence and the placidity only the desert can provide.

About Redrock: Geology and Ecology
The Redrock Wilderness comprises two main regions of Utah: the Colorado Plateau and the Basin and Range. Both areas are ecologically similar, but their geology (both past and present) is very different.
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Citizens Take Over Where BLM Fails
When the BLM recommended only a fraction of what conservationists in Utah knew was eligible for wilderness designation, 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.
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"Bureau of Livestock and Mining"
The BLM is sometimes called the "Bureau of Livestock and Mining." It's a title it often deserves. The agency was created from the marriage of the General Land Office and the Grazing Service, and it wasn't until 1976 that the agency had to consider land as potential wilderness, not only as a means to commercial gain.
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What is a Wilderness?