Take a Hike!

September is National Wilderness Month.

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The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, part of the National Landscape Conservation System.

Photo: Eric Foltz / Istock

By Dan Shapley

President Obama has declared September to be National Wilderness Month. If you needed an excuse, there it is. Go outside and enjoy nature!

And, if you have children in your life, invite them to join you. Children spend less and less time outdoors, but benefit greatly from experiences in nature. We all do.

This month marks the 47th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, which has led to the protection of nearly 110 million acres of public lands set aside for future generations to enjoy. The act also contains language that stands with "the pursuit of happiness" among the poetic gems of our political discourse: "A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape," the act reads, "is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."

If you're moved to political action by a love of the outdoors, William H. Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society, is among those who would urge you to tell your representatives to preserve conservation programs and wilderness areas. Congress today, he warns, has cut spending on conservation programs and threatened to privatize more public lands, and the Obama Administration has recently moved to approve several oil drilling and pipeline projects that threaten wilderness areas.

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