Excerpts:

Environmentalists aren’t the only Americans who support preserving wild areas on federal land.

Representatives of hunting, tourism and religious interests from four conservative Western states came to Boise Thursday to voice their support for a new U.S. Bureau of Land Management policy allowing for the establishment of wild lands. They spoke to the media via a teleconference hosted by the Wilderness Society.

Excerpts:

Some key elected officials in the Land of Enchantment are standing behind Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on a new policy to protect potential wilderness in the West.

Salazar's plan allows the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) to make a list of lands Congress might want to protect as federal wilderness, which means keeping industry and other uses off those lands until Congress can make the final call.

The reversal strikes a Bush-era decision that left huge amounts of public land vulnerable to damaging oil and gas exploration

Excerpts:

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's decision last week to reverse a Bush-era wilderness policy should be a relief to those who favor a balanced and sensible approach to wildland preservation.

The move, announced Thursday in Denver, supersedes a flawed 2003 decision and returns to the federal Bureau of Land Management the authority to identify and suggest new areas for permanent protection.

Excerpts:

The Interior Department reversed a Bush-era policy on wilderness on Thursday, restoring the authority of its Bureau of Land Management to identify and recommend new areas for protection.

Since 2003, the department has excluded wilderness as a criterion it applies in managing federal lands for the public benefit.

Seven years ago, former Interior Secretary Gale Norton used an unprecedented interpretation of federal law (dubbed the "no more wilderness" policy) to remove federal protections from 500,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management lands in Colorado, and millions more across the West, making them vulnerable to activities such as mining, drilling and off-highway vehicle overuse and abuse. These public lands are vital winter range for mule deer, elk, bighorn sheep, mountain lions and other species.