Map: 5 million acres of recommended wilderness thought under threat in expected USDA secretarial memorandum

WASHINGTON D.C. (June 5, 2026) — According to a report in The New York Times, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is preparing to release a secretarial memorandum that aims to open the door for destructive development and motorized vehicles on U.S. Forest Service “recommended wilderness,” among several measures that threaten to erode protection for some of the nation’s most intact forests.

Specifically, the new memo reportedly directs that all Forest Service recommended wilderness—5.18 million acres in all—be managed for “multiple use.” This would mean allowing motor vehicle access and other uses like timber harvest, which are inconsistent with wilderness management. The direction would conflict with the National Forest Management Act of 1976, or NFMA, and its implementing regulations, and would ignore that protection of wilderness and recommended wilderness is wholly consistent with the “multiple use” charter of the Forest Service.  

Paul Sanford, director of equitable access policy at The Wilderness Society, made the following statement about the memorandum: 

“Americans love national forests and other public lands for the freedom they afford us to hike, camp and explore. It appears this secretarial memorandum will be intended to lead the way to development, extraction and motorized activity in Forest Service recommended wilderness, some of the wildest natural areas left on our national forests. If that happens, it will be practically impossible to restore these forests back to wilderness-eligibility; it will detract from non-motorized activities like camping, hiking and horseback riding; and it will be a victory for the special interests that want to continue the march of sprawling development across the last wild and intact places on the map.”  

The 5.18 million acres of recommended wilderness that would fall under the memorandum collectively contains 3,325 miles of trails; 2.3 million acres that are among the most important places in the country for conserving biodiversity; 2.6 million acres that are among the most important places in the country for conserving wildlife connectivity; habitat for 30 endangered or threatened species; and 1.5 million acres that are among most important areas for providing clean surface drinking water to Western communities. 

Federal wilderness status is the highest level of public lands protection, and it can only be conferred by Congress. “Recommended wilderness” means that a place has been assessed by Forest Service staff as exceptionally intact, untouched by development and critical to wildlife and the broader ecosystem—in short, worthy of legislative protection. This recommendation is based on years of feedback from the public, state and local governments, including local elected officials, as well as best available science. In the meantime, it is managed by the agency in a way that retains that wilderness character. The Forest Service is known to be conservative when it comes to recommending new areas for wilderness and stewarding these lands to maintain their wildland values.  

If this secretarial memo opens the door for development, extraction and motorized activity in recommended wilderness areas, it would be practically impossible to restore them back to wilderness-eligibility. It would spoil the experiences of those who seek out non-motorized activities like camping, hiking and horseback riding, and sully the clear air, clean drinking water and untrammeled habitat that make these places so exceptional.  

This isn’t the only effort underway to reduce protection for the Forest Service’s wildest and most critical landscapes. The administration is in the process of rolling back the U.S. Forest Service’s 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which protects backcountry forests from roadbuilding and other development.  

Both fit with administration actions that have sown chaos at the Forest Service and worsened management of national forests at large, including firing thousands of tenured staff, proposing radical budget cuts and relocating agency headquarters to Utah, ground zero for the public lands sell-off movement. They are effectively dismantling the agency and its conservation policies, resulting in less access to public forests, less capacity to reduce intensifying wildfire risk and more threats to clean air, water and wildlife habitat. 

Contact: newsmedia@tws.org /  max_greenberg@tws.org