Tuesday, February 7th, 2012
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1964 / Washington, D.C.

Free Range

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A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

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Published In
Book of Nature
About the Text

From the Wilderness Act. The definition (section 2(c) of public law 88-577) preserves as wilderness more than nine million acres of the American landscape. The act was subjected to eighteen public hearings over a span of eight years before President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law on September 3, 1964.

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.

George Washington Carver

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LQ Podcast:
Peter Ackroyd
Author and translator Peter Ackroyd talks with Aidan Flax-Clark about his new retelling of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur and discusses a little bit about his most recent book of London history, London Under.
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Lewis H. Lapham is Editor of Lapham's Quarterly. He also serves as editor emeritus and national correspondent for Harper's magazine.
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