MISSOULA – Glacier National Park’s superintendent said Monday he wants most of the park to be designated as wilderness as part of its centennial celebration in 2010.
Speaking at a forum at City Club Missoula, Chas Cartwright said he disagrees with those who fear the designation would severely restrict the way the land can be used.
“Wilderness designation will not change how we manage Glacier,” he said. “Right now, all of those lands that are recommended as wilderness are managed as if they are wilderness.”
Cartwright said he wants formal protection for 975,000 of the 1.013 million acres the park covers — or roughly 90 percent — in part because it would provide a permanency that doesn’t come with national park status.
The idea of wilderness designation for Glacier has been stalled since the late 1960s, shortly after the passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964. But Cartwright said he hopes a recent upswing in designation activity coupled with the coming of Glacier’s centennial will change that.
“I have a hard time finding anybody that doesn’t believe that Glacier is primarily known for those wild or wilderness values,” he said, adding that any controversy is “really embedded in people’s perception about what wilderness means.”