(Upon signing of the Wilderness Act, 1964) "If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it."
-President Lyndon B. Johnson


Pinnacles National Monument prides itself on 16000 acres of wilderness within a relatively small area of land in central California. All new wilderness must be legislated by congress and signed into law by the president. These are wild places where man is a visitor who does not stay, thereby letting natural processes function without human influence. The Thoreau quote, ”In wildness is the preservation of the world,” seems to sum up the essence of wilderness in the National Park Service. As the NPS and public push for wilderness designations to let natural processes function and allow humans non-motorized recreation, we also need to protect the land from NPS projects and activities compromising the designation.

In 2000 the Pinnacles boundaries were expanded to include adjacent BLM land. This expansion gave Pinnacles 8,000 acres of new land to manage. BLM wilderness study areas (WSAs) were already in place and digitized into GIS. The WSAs had past surveys and analysis to determine if these areas were suitable for wilderness designation. 2200 acres of land was in WSA and the GIS land tracks were passed on to the Washington, D.C. office for designation possibility. After careful review and presented to congress, 2700 acres of wilderness land were added as the Big Sur Wilderness and Conservation Act was signed in December 2002. In addition to Pinnacles, the bill set aside land in the Ventana area of the Los Padres National Forest, the Silver Peak Wilderness as federally protected wilderness.

The northern part of the park received the large amount of new wilderness, and the updated wilderness is one continuous large polygon measuring approximately 16000 acres. A new GIS layer was created using the congressionally designated map and old wilderness areas. Now our NEPA representative can easily query the GIS to see where wilderness areas may come in conflict with projects and have numbers for reports at her fingertips. The GIS data will figure prominently into the soon to be written Wilderness Management Plan. A map was created for public display on the Pinnacles web page (http://www.nps.gov/pinn) that highlights where the new wilderness areas are located within the boundary.

Vegetation mapping crews are presently mapping the composition of the 2000 BLM land additions and a new vegetation GIS map will arise. Other data such as invasive weeds, lichens, amphibians, rodents, moths, butterflys, and birds are being collected for better management and understanding of the wilderness. The Pinnacles wilderness is home to one of the highest diversities of bee species in the world. The densest reported nesting population of Prairie Falcons primarily falls within the wilderness. With GIS layers of past and present wilderness in our park database along with associated metadata we can track over time the health of these lands. The updated wilderness map boundaries are an important piece of information for resource managers therefore ensuring quality wilderness management and research.

"Without enough wilderness America will change. Democracy, with its myriad personalities and increasing sophistication, must be fibred and vitalized by the regular contact with outdoor growths -- animals, trees, sun warmth, and free skies -- or it will dwindle and pale."
--Walt Whitman