It’s unfortunate that two UCLA biologists recently questioned the value of the 1964 Wilderness Act in a May 7 Desert Sun opinion essay titled, “Is the Wilderness Act Still Protecting Nature?”The United States Congress passed the Wilderness Act 60 years ago and President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Wilderness Act into law Sept. 3, 1964, to “preserv[e] the wilderness character” of an initial National Wilderness Preservation System of 54 wilderness areas totaling 9.1 million acres, including the San Jacinto and San Gorgonio wilderness areas near Palm Springs.Today, in a tremendous conservation success story, the National Wilderness Preservation System has grown to protect over 800 wilderness areas totaling over 111 million acres in 44 states and Puerto Rico, making it America’s most essential law to preserve biodiversity and protect the genetic diversity of thousands of plant and animal species, including threatened and endangered species like desert tortoise, peninsular bighorn sheep, yellow-billed cuckoo, whitebark pine, California condor and Sierra Nevada red fox. In fact, America’s National Wilderness Preservation System protects over 150 distinct ecosystem types across the country. In this regard, questioning if the Wilderness Act is still protecting nature seems odd, especially considering that the world is in the midst of a biodiversity and extinction crisis.The protections of the Wilderness Act include a ban on logging, mining, roads, buildings, structures and installations, motorized and mechanized equipment and more. The authors of the Wilderness Act sought to secure for the American people “an enduring resource of wilderness” to protect these wilderness areas as places “untrammeled” or unmanipulated by modern society, as a refuge for wildlife, and where the ecological and evolutionary forces of nature can continue to play.One of the main complaints from the two UCLA biologists was that they aren’t allowed to violate the Wilderness Act to conduct whatever research they want in designated wildernesses. Wilderness areas are not closed to scientific research, of course, but only to those kinds of research projects that damage wilderness character and violate the Wilderness Act.In this regard, these two UCLA biologists are little different from other interest groups that want to violate or weaken the Wilderness Act for their own personal activities. A handful of mountain bikers have tried to weaken the Wilderness Act in Congress for years to allow their mechanized machines in wilderness. Some rock climbers are now pushing Congress via the so-called Protecting America’s Rock Climbing Act to allow them to deface wilderness rock faces by pounding in permanent bolts and pitons rather than using only removable climbing protection. Trail runners want exemptions from the ban on commercial trail racing. Drone pilots and paragliders want their aircraft exempted from Wilderness Act protections. Recreational pilots want to “bag” challenging landing sites in wilderness. The list of those seeking to exempt their activities from the Wilderness Act is long and growing.

Rather than weaken the protections that the Wilderness Act provides, what we now need on this 60th anniversary of the Wilderness Act is a reinvigoration of humility and restraint toward wilderness. Rather than divvying up our priceless wilderness heritage, with a slice of the wilderness pie going to any interest group that believes its own activities should be allowed regardless of the damage to wilderness or the Wilderness Act, we need to remember that designated wildernesses have deep values far beyond our human uses of them. Our species can still visit wildernesses, of course, but our uses of wilderness must not degrade the wildness of the area, with all of its intangible values. Scientists can continue to conduct research in wilderness, but only if they design their research so as to not harm wilderness.We must re-learn to practice the humility and restraint toward wilderness that the architects of the Wilderness Act believed in 60 years ago. Only then can the Wilderness Act—and the wilderness areas it preserves—survive for another 60 years into the future. That goal will not be accomplished by chopping it up like pieces of a pie.

Kevin Proescholdt is Wilderness Watch’s conservation director. Kevin has studied and worked with the 1964 Wilderness Act since 1974. Among his wilderness publications is “Troubled Waters: The Fight for the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness,” which, among other things, tells the story of the only time the 1964 Wilderness Act has been substantively amended. He can be reached at kevinp@wildernesswatch.org.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: The Wilderness Act is still protecting nature, if we allow it