How protecting wilderness could mean purposefully tending it, not just leaving it alone

How protecting wilderness could mean purposefully tending it, not just leaving it alone

Smoke rises on June 25, 2025, from the Tractor Trail Fire near Tok. (Photo by Matt Snyder/Alaska Division of Forestry) More than 110 million acres of land across the U.S. are protected in 806 federally designated wilderness areas – together an area slightly larger than the state of California. For the most part, these places have been left alone for decades, in keeping with the 1964 Wilderness Act’s directive that they be “untrammeled by man.” B…