About the Wilderness Coalition
The
mission of the
The
West Virginia Wilderness Coalition was formed in 2001, as a partnership of the
West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, the Wilderness Society and the West
Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, with the goal of protecting threatened
roadless areas of the Monongahela National Forest through Congressional
Wilderness designation. After
years of hard work, we finally reached a major milestone with the passage of the
Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009.
Included in the measure was the Wild Monongahela Act, which protected
over 37,000 acres of the Monongahela’s special wild places as Wilderness. This
legislation represented the first Wilderness protections for West Virginia’s
federal public lands in over 25 years, and was backed by diverse constituencies
including religious organizations, hunters and anglers, organized labor groups
and hundreds of small businesses. As
we celebrated this monumental victory, we looked to our next initiative for the
Monongahela’s unprotected wild lands, building strong new alliances with a
variety of user groups and stakeholders to establish new protections through
Wilderness or non-Wilderness designations.
The Coalition is currently an active partner in the collaborative
Birthplace of Rivers
National Monument initiative. The potential National Monument would be
the first of its kind in the East, and would solidify protections for an
important complex of lands surrounding the existing Cranberry Wilderness.
While no additional Wilderness would be designated as the result of the
monument's creation, the Coalition advocates for statutory protections for the
area generally managed for backcountry preservation or spruce restoration,
allowing these activities, as well as all existing recreational uses to continue
in perpetuity.
Coalition
Staff
[email protected]
304-645-0949
West Virginia Wilderness Coalition
PO Box 2352 Elkins, WV 26241