From the spine of the Continental Divide to the canyon country of the Western Slope, Colorado's wilderness quality lands offers rugged scenery and crucial wildlife habitat. The existing 3.4 million acres of designated wilderness are primarily high peaks within our National Forests. Nearly seven million acres of wilderness quality lands are still unprotected, including many lower-elevation, wildlife-rich canyon lands managed by the BLM, and lower elevation roadless areas on our National Forests. Protecting key ecosystems in the lower elevation range (between 4,000 and 9,000 feet) will greatly expand the life zones, wildlife habitat, recreation seasons, and plant communities protected in Colorado.

In 1980, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) determined that of the more than 8 million acres of agency lands in the state, only 801,000 acres were of wilderness quality. These 801,000 acres have either been designated as wilderness or are being protected as Wilderness Study Areas (WSAs) until Congress decides whether to permanently protect them under the Wilderness Act.

While the BLM was inventorying agency lands, citizens set out on their own to inventory and document the wilderness characteristics of these lands. This project resulted in a wilderness proposal, first released in 1994, that identified 1.3 million acres of BLM lands suitable for wilderness designation, as well as 300,000 acres of adjacent national forest lands. Included in this 1.6 million acre proposal  are many of the state's most beautiful and most ecologically diverse regions, ranging from Colorado's lowest elevations -- along the Dolores River Canyon in far western Colorado -- to Colorado's highest elevations -- atop Handies Peak, a 14,000-foot peak in the San Juans.

The recently-updated Colorado's Canyon Country Wilderness Proposal describes the wilderness values of 63 distinctive areas, and calls for the permanent protection of these lands as wilderness. These areas include critical winter range for big game such as elk, deer, and mountain lion, as well as slickrock canyons that are never snowbound, providing year-round accessibility for hikers, backpackers, hunters, and other non-motorized recreationists. These special lands offer protection for the intermittent springs and streams upon which our desert bighorns and other wildlife depend, and provide important revenue to support Colorado's hunting, fishing, recreation and tourism economies.

Citizens have been reviewing BLM wildlands for over 40 years, even before the enactment of the Wilderness Act in 1964. In the interim, many spectacular roadless areas have felt the bite of the drill bit and the roar of the bulldozer.

On September 12th, wilderness supporters celebrated Congresswoman Diana DeGette's re-introduction of the Colorado Wilderness Act, a bill which proposes to protect Colorado's unique and threatened Canyon Country Wilderness.

» Watch the press conference.

» For more information on these areas, go to the Colorado's Canyon Country Wilderness Proposal web site.