The National Wilderness Preservation System holds and protects
millions of acres in the United States from human development.
But of what value is this, really?

University of Georgia scientists are helping spearhead a
national study to help elected officials, regulatory agencies
and land policymakers answer this question.

The Debate

When natural areas such as a wilderness are preserved, there is
often a debate on whether the preservation is worth lost jobs
and income that might come from commercial development.

“What do we get back in return for preservation?” said John
Bergstrom, an economist with the UGA College of Agricultural and
Environmental Sciences. “What are the benefits?”

This study is a collaborative effort between UGA and the U.S.
Forest Service office in Athens, Ga. It will include the
studies, opinions and inputs of economists, sociologists,
ecologists, philosophers and preservation experts across the
country.

There are benefits for developing and for not developing natural
areas. “There are tradeoffs,” said Bergstrom, who is leading
UGA’s part of the project.

The project will identify the social, economical, ecological and
ethical values of the land already under the NWPS. This includes
644 land units, totaling nearly 106 million acres.

Georgia has 485,000 acres protected in the north, southeast and
coastal parts of the state. The Okefenokee National Wildlife
Refuge is the largest of these areas, encompassing 396,000 acres
of the 438,000-acre swamp.

Combine Past with Future

Trying to determine the value of land preservation is nothing
new, Bergstrom said. But this year-long project will collect all
the information from the past and combine it with new studies.

The final product will be a reference book that can be used by
anyone looking for the tradeoffs and values of current and
future land preservation projects.

Say the water supply of a large city begins in the small streams
that flow through a natural area north of the city. But this
natural area has been developed increasingly. This development
has economic benefits for the area but will increase sediment
and waste products in the water on its way to the city. City
officials figure the increased cost of treating the “developed”
water is around $6 billion.

Would it better to move forward with development and spend the
money for water treatment? Or, would it be better to buy the
land and set it aside as protected preserve.

New York City officials decided, in 1997, it made more sense to
buy the land and preserve it.

“We can use this project to learn more about the economic and
environmental values of natural areas in general, whether
they’re wilderness areas or not,” he said. “There’s a lot of
concern about the loss of natural areas.”

With this information, he said, state and local governments
could see the benefits of setting aside natural areas and better
understand what is gained and lost.

On the other hand, the project could tell in a more precise way
how much is being lost because a preserved area is not being
farmed, mined or used to build houses.

In 1964, Congress passed the Wilderness Act, which restricted
grazing, mining, timber cutting and mechanized vehicles in
protected areas. It began with 9.1 million acres. Now, 4.4
percent of the continental United States is protected as
wilderness. Alaska contains about 60 percent of the total
protected land areas in the United States.