The BLM is required to inventory lands to determine whether they possess wilderness characteristics. The BLM Land Use Planning Handbook (H-1601-1) states that the BLM must consider the management of lands with wilderness characteristics (LWCs) during the land use planning process. The criteria used to identify these lands are essentially the same criteria as identified in the recently-released BLM Manual 6301.

In addition to the inventory requirements in H-1601-1, on December 22, 2010 the Secretary of the Interior released Secretarial Order 3310, Protecting Wilderness Characteristics on Lands Managed by the Bureau of Land Management. This Secretarial Order emphasizes the need to protect wilderness characteristics where they occur on BLM-administered land, and directs the BLM to regularly maintain its wilderness resource inventories. Secretarial Order 3310 further directs the BLM to protect LWCs through the land use planning and other decision processes unless the impairment of those characteristics is determined to be appropriate and consistent with other laws and resource management considerations. To address this Secretarial Order, the BLM has released manuals 6301, 6302, and 6303; these manuals implement the Secretarial Order and were therefore used to focus the BLM’s inventory and analysis of LWCs in this document.

The inventory process utilized by the Cody and Worland Field Offices is consistent with the process for conducting inventories for LWCs on BLM lands outlined in Manual 6301. Section 201 of FLPMA requires the BLM to maintain an inventory of all public lands and their resources. The process outlined in Manual 6301 includes the following review steps:

1. an analysis of roads and other impacts to naturalness;

2. an analysis of wilderness characteristics; and

3. a boundary delineation process to define the area with wilderness characteristics and to exclude substantially noticeable human-caused impacts.

Inventoried areas that meet the size, naturalness, and the outstanding solitude and/or the outstanding primitive and unconfined recreation criteria are described as LWCs. A detailed discussion of the process the BLM used in the inventory appears below.

The BLM performed an inventory of lands in the Planning Area to determine if any BLM-administered lands had wilderness characteristics. Wilderness characteristics are resource values that include naturalness, outstanding opportunities for solitude, and outstanding opportunities for primitive and unconfined recreation. Areas evaluated for wilderness characteristics generally occur in undeveloped locations of sufficient size (usually at least 5,000 acres) to be practical to manage for these characteristics. Smaller areas are considered if they are contiguous with designated Wilderness or WSAs, or are of a manageable size.

As the basis for this inventory, the BLM reviewed comments made during public scoping and recommendations developed during an internal review of multiple-use lands in the Planning Area. In addition, the lands considered included areas recommended as part of the “Wilderness at Risk: Citizens’ Wilderness Proposal for Wyoming BLM-administered Lands” submitted to the BLM by the Wyoming Wilderness Association in February 2004 (Wyoming Wilderness Coalition 2004). The Citizens’ Wilderness Proposal promoted the designation of approximately 1.1 million acres of BLM-administered lands for wilderness statewide, of which approximately 283,709 acres are in the Planning Area. In addition to the Citizens’ Wilderness Proposal, the BLM considered a Biodiversity Conservation Alliance proposal for a formal wilderness inventory of lands in the McCullough Peaks area.

The BLM analyzed the Planning Area to determine which, if any, lands met the wilderness characteristics criteria. As part of the analysis, the BLM evaluated whether the areas were of a sufficient size; were in a natural condition; and possessed outstanding opportunities for solitude or presented opportunities for primitive and unconfined recreation (see an example inventory form in Appendix S). The inventory identified 51 LWCs in the Planning Area (Map 63). Table 3–46 lists the acreage and other resource values for each area. The final evaluation forms are available for public review at the WFO and the CYFO and on their respective websites.

At present, the BLM manages LWCs in accordance with the current RMPs. No specific management for retention of wilderness characteristics exists under the current RMPs. Current management for LWCs appears in Table 3–47.

Secretarial Order 3310 and Manual 6302 establish the BLM’s approach for considering LWCs in land use planning documents (e.g., RMP revisions), and provide guidance on when to manage LWCs as administratively designated Wild Lands. The guidance states that “the BLM shall protect LWCs when undertaking land use planning by avoiding impairment of their wilderness characteristics unless the BLM concludes, as part of its decision-making process, that impairing wilderness characteristics is appropriate and consistent with applicable requirements of law and other resource management considerations… Where the BLM concludes, through land use planning, that protection of wilderness characteristics is appropriate, the BLM shall designate these lands as Wild Lands.” The decision making process the BLM uses to evaluate LWCs during the preparation of land use plans are the management alternatives (see Chapter 2 of this document for potential management actions for LWCs in the Planning Area). Under Manual 6302, in determining whether impairment is appropriate BLM should consider factors such as the quality of the LWC resources and non-LWC resources and/or uses, the impact of allowing various uses on the LWC parcel, and valid existing rights. Valid existing rights may be present within the LWCs.

In making Wild Land designations, BLM will consider, as outlined in Manual 6302, manageability and resource values and uses including, but not limited to, the following:

Table 3-46 provides information on other resource uses and values within each LWC.