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Home > What We Do > Wilderness > What is Wilderness?

What is Wilderness?

Wilderness Management

Wilderness is a special place where nature dominates and you are the visitor. These wildlands serve as important habitat for wildlife species, protect natural resources, and act as biological reserves for native vegetation and animal species.

In wilderness, natural forces and conditions dominate the landscape. Wilderness areas are public lands set aside by Congress to remain wilderness forever. The area is managed to retain its primeval character and influence while providing opportunities for primitive recreation and solitude.

There is currently 508,829 acres of designated Wilderness in Clark County. In 2002, the Clark County Conservation of Public Land and Natural Resources Act was signed into law. Through this Act, Congress designated 17 new Wildernesses in Clark County, Nevada as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System and expanded the existing Mt. Charleston Wilderness.

Wildlands in Southern Nevada have been entrusted to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Forest Service (USFS), and the National Park Service (NPS). These agencies also manage and monitor Wilderness Study Areas and Proposed Wilderness under their jurisdictions, including a 1.4 million acre Proposed Wilderness on the Desert National Wildlife Refuge. The U. S. Forest Service is also directed to fully comply with the elements of its 10-year Wilderness Stewardship Challenge for all designated Wilderness on National Forest lands.

We We Are

The Federal Managers of the Southern Nevada Agency Partnership (SNAP) directed the four agencies to conduct interagency Wilderness management planning and stewardship and to form a Wilderness Interagency Team. The SNAP Wilderness Team was established to develop a coordinated recreational and educational effort for an improved visitor experience on backcountry federal/public lands in Southern Nevada.

“If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them something more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it."— President Lyndon B. Johnson, on the signing of the Wilderness Act of 1964

Last Updated 03/06/2012

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