I must have missed the news about US wilderness protection with the press excitement surrounding the G20 circle-jerk.
President Barack Obama signed legislation Monday setting aside more than 2 million acres as protected wilderness.
Obama called the new law among the most important in decades “to protect, preserve and pass down our nation’s most treasured landscapes to future generations.”
At a White House ceremony, Obama said the law guarantees that Americans “will not take our forests, rivers, oceans, national parts, monuments, and wilderness areas for granted, but rather we will set them aside and guard their sanctity for everyone to share. That’s something all Americans can support.”
The law — a collection of nearly 170 separate measures — represents one of the largest expansions of wilderness protection in a quarter-century. It confers the government’s highest level of protection on land in nine states.
