SPARE America's Wildlands

What's Been Lost? What's Being Saved?

The American landscape was once a vast expanse of magnificent wildlands stretching from coast to coast. Early settlers viewed the wilderness as an enemy to be conquered, and industrialists later saw it as an endless supply of resources to be exploited. The result has been the decimation of our nation's wildlands. Today, we're left with the remnants of our wilderness heritage.

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where Nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike."

- John Muir

What's been lost? | What's being saved?

What's Been Lost? A Snapshot:

• More than 90 percent of America's native old-growth forests has been logged.

• More than half of the National Forests (52 percent) has been logged, mined, or drilled for oil and gas.

• More than 60 million acres of undeveloped National Forests (30 percent) are without protection from logging, mining, oil and gas drilling and other threats.

• Between 1992 and 1997, logging and associated roadbuilding in our National Forests cost taxpayers $2 billion.

• More than 90 percent of America's native prairies has been lost to cultivation. More than 99 percent of the tallgrass prairies is gone.

• More than half of America's wetlands that were here 200 years ago has been drained or developed and the nation continues to lose more than 100,000 acres of wetlands per year.

• Development and sprawl are consuming 1 million acres of farmland per year.

What's Being Saved?

More than 100 years ago, the American conservation movement was born and the first National Parks and forest reserves were created. Thirty-five years ago, in 1964, the National Wilderness Preservation System was created to ensure the permanent protection of some of our publicly owned federal lands. Today, the wilderness system encompasses more than 100 million acres, from an 8.7-million-acre area in Alaska to a two-acre tract on Wisconsin Islands in Green Bay.

But despite this progress, we continue to lose ground -- and forests, mountains, marshes and other wild places faster than they can be restored or rescued. In fact, the rate of wildlands destruction is increasing, primarily because the number of threats has risen dramatically.

Photo courtesy Scott T. Smith

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