Many people use the word wilderness to describe any piece of remote, rugged and undeveloped land.
However, since passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act, the word has been defined in very specific terms. Federal land officially designated by Congress as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. The existence of wilderness areas provides assurance that all wild lands will not disappear. Wilderness areas help to maintain gene pools to provide diversity of plant and animal life in our world. Wilderness areas are places of solitude where people can experience freedom from our fast-paced industrialized society and the crowding of people.