NATIONAL PARKS TRAVELER • January 24, 2025
Given President Trump’s first-day pronouncements, the likelihood of new wilderness designations appears to be fading. Where opportunities were once ample in Alaska, for example, Trump sent a message in a Day 1 Executive Order that was the opposite of prioritizing land for protection from development. That means a nation that once swore to take heed of the ideals of Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Aldo Leopold — to protect its wildest places to ensure future generations have “a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it,” as President Johnson said when he signed The Wilderness Act into law in 1964 — no longer sees value in unbridled nature.