Unnamed Resolution in Support of the U.S. Wilderness Preservation System

WHEREAS, It is a moral obligation of a civilized people to administer its resources on a multiple-use basis in order to secure to itself and to future generations certain important benefits; and

WHEREAS, The creation of a Wilderness Preservation System would be an important step in securing to the public, on a sustained basis, the maximum recreational, scenic, scientific, educational and historic values from specified areas;

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the American Society of Mammalogists, meeting in Washington, D.C., June 24, 1959, endorses the adoption by the Congress of a national policy and program such as that embodied in the proposed Wilderness Preservation System, and urges the 86th Congress for this purpose (1) to strengthen the currently introduced Wilderness Bill on which extensive hearings have already been held, notably those provisions of Section 3( c) that make it possible that those values intended to be secured in perpetuity may be jeopardized by fiat decision; and (2) to enact this strengthened measure as promptly as possible; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that copies of this resolution be provided to the Chairmen of U.S. Senate and House of Representatives Committees on Interior and Insular Affairs, the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior, and the heads of the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the Fish and Wildlife Service.