During the past several years, resource industries, state and local governments and communities nationwide have been buried under an avalanche of new species listings, appeals and litigation to stop development, water usage, logging, mining, grazing and recreational activities.

There have been vast amounts of legislation proposing new wilderness areas, heritage areas, scenic rivers, biological corridors, state and national parks or wildlife refuges, as well as management plans involving critical habitat, watersheds or ecosystems.

While many of these actions seem to be isolated incidents, a review of the Wildlands Project suggests that the actions are often well coordinated activities aimed, according to the Project’s text, at establishing a "regional reserve system which will ultimately tie the North American continent into a single Biodiversity Reserve."

To date, over 35 various environmental groups have been identified as members of the Project. These groups have petitioned for over 100 species to be listed as threatened or endangered suggesting that they are using the Endangered Species Act to promote political and social agendas rather than for conservation of truly threatened species.

Former Earth First! member and founder, Dave Foreman introduced the concept of the Wildlands Project in his book Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. In the introduction to the Wildlands Project, Foreman states "Our vision is continental...we seek to bring together conservationists, ecologists, indigenous peoples, and others to protect and restore evolutionary processes and biodiversity."

He called for "reserves established to protect wildlife habitat, biodiversity, ecological integrity, ecological service and evolutionary processes — that is vast interconnected areas of true wilderness." And described wilderness as the "home for unfettered life, free from industrial human intervention" with "extensive areas of native vegetation in various successional stages, off-limits to human exploitation" that includes "vast landscapes without roads, dams, motorized vehicles, power lines, over flights, or other artifacts of civilization." Over half the North American land mass is envisioned as making up this massive wilderness reserve system.

The Project calls on the establishment of systems of core wilderness areas, where human activity is prohibited, linked with biological corridors. Around these core reserve areas and their interlinking corridors, buffers are to be established. The buffer areas are to be managed to restore ecological health. All human activity associated with civilization — agriculture, industrial production, urban centers — will only be allowed to continue outside these buffered regions.

The central office of the Wildlands Project is located in Tucson, Arizona and serves as a clearinghouse and coordination point for implementing the project. Funds for the project are obtained through solicitations, advertisements and from grant-makers. It has public relations, publishing and research capabilities.

Member groups first recruit other activists, professional ecologists, sympathetic government agency personnel and others to assist in the development of proposals for the Wilderness Recovery Network at the regional and ecosystem level. Trust groups such as The Nature Conservancy are plugged into the proposals so that when gaps are identified within their reserve network, these areas can become priorities for land acquisition.

The Wildlands Project’s central Tucson office has at least 385 maps of large roadless areas available and has been working on the development of more detailed state maps to assist regional groups in their work.

The protected areas such as wildernesses and National Parks within the Big Outside (roadless) areas are identified as key core areas. Protected areas outside identified roadless areas are examined to see if they can "serve as beads in Biological Corridors linking Core Wilderness together."

Identified roadless areas that are not already protected with National Park, wilderness or other similar designations, are considered unprotected and given the highest priority for conservation. Unprotected roadless areas which are federal and state lands are targeted for future wilderness bills, heritage sites or other protective legislation. Private lands within these areas are given the highest priority for public agency or trust group acquisition.

Besides legislation and acquisition, these maps establish the priorities for appeals and litigation. As stated within Wildlands documents, "It is usually more important ... to stop an old-growth timber sale within a Big Outside area or in a corridor between two core areas than to stop an old-growth sale in a fragmented area far from potential cores or corridors. It is usually more important to establish a Wilderness Area that is part of a large complex, than one isolated in a matrix of intensive human use."

By 1994, the Wildlands Project had identified 38 areas in the western United States where minor road closures would create large roadless areas of more than a million acres. In total, these areas make up more that 75 million acres.

Once the core reserve areas (including currently protected lands and roadless areas) have been established, all USFS, BLM, state forest, military and other types of state, federal and local lands are to be examined for potential addition to the core reserve lands or to buffer areas. Gaps between core reserve areas have been identified, and the private lands that can serve as corridors to link these reserve areas have been targeted for acquisition by government and trust groups. As stated in the documents, this will be "especially crucial in the east."

Until all federal lands can be examined for inclusion into the reserve system, Wildlands documents state the following about their management:

Large predators are a central focus to the Wildlands Project. The Project especially keys to large wide-ranging predators like the grizzly and black bear, wolves, cougars, jaguars and lynx. In recent years, many of these groups have been involved in efforts to provide additional federal protection and recovery to grizzlies, jaguars and wolves.

Regarding the rest of the native plants and animals, Wildlands Project documents state that "perhaps 90 percent of the rest of biodiversity will also be protected." Members of the Wildlands Project have petitioned for the listing of over 100 species as threatened or endangered and have filed lawsuits for the listing of over 2,000 species.

Members of the Wildlands Project have been very active in litigating the shut down of livestock grazing, mining and timber activities. On March 3, 1995, 11 of the 35 known member groups had suits filed against the Department of Interior, Environmental Protection Agency or U.S. Department of Agriculture. Thirty-nine separate suits were filed by these 11 organizations.

One of the more aggressive organizations in the filing of citizen suits has been the Oregon Natural Resources Council. In March 1995, this organization had 16 active citizen suits regarding the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act and NEPA.

Many of the appeals, listings of threatened and endangered species, litigation, legislation, regulations and management plans at the state and federal level have been analyzed by natural resource industries as separate issues. After reviewing the Wildlands Project, its associated member groups, and the issues which they have been involved in the last four years, it becomes evident that many of the issues once thought to be independent cases are, in actuality, interrelated issues. To understand the foundation and logic for many of the issues we face today, one must understand the concepts and structure of the Wildlands Project.

The Wildlands Project has over 35 known activist groups now working on implementing the Project at the regional and ecosystem level. Some of the known members include: