These efforts should seek to ensure that vital eco-
system components are restored, especially in areas 
where wildlife travel corridors and native fish and 
wildlife populations have been damaged or elimi-
nated. Restoration efforts should seek to ensure and 
maintain genetic interchange, biological diversity, 
and restoration of native species diversity through-
out the Northern Rockies Bioregion. 
(14) Federal agencies entrusted with managing 
the natural resources of the Northern Rockies Bio-
region operate under contradictory congressional 
mandates, and thus are in dissension over manage-
ment policies which involve common resources and 
greater ecosystems. Existing agency structures and 
regulatory mechanisms have proven unsatisfactory 
for responsible management of nationally important 
ecosystems on public lands. Existing laws and regu-
lations have not been sufficient to establish and 
maintain agency accountability for public resources. 
(15) This Act does not affect lands that are in 
private ownership. 
SEC. 3. PURPOSES. 
(a) DESIGNATIONS.—The purposes of this Act are— 
(1) to designate certain National Forest System 
lands and Federal lands under the jurisdiction of the
Bureau of Land Management in the States of Idaho, 
Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming as 
components of the National Wilderness Preservation 
System; 
(2) to designate certain National Forest System 
lands in the States of Montana, Oregon, and Idaho 
as national park and preserve study areas; 
(3) to designate certain National Forest System 
lands and watercourses in the States of Montana, 
Idaho, and Wyoming as components of the National 
Wild and Scenic Rivers System; 
(4) to establish a pilot system of National 
Wildland Restoration and Recovery Areas and a 
Wildlands Recovery Corps to help restore biological 
diversity and native species; and 
(5) to establish a system of biological con-
necting corridors between the core ecosystems in the 
Northern Rockies Bioregion. 
(b) PURPOSE OF DESIGNATIONS.—The designations 
made by this Act are made in order to— 
(1) promote, perpetuate, and preserve the wil-
derness character of the land; 
(2) protect water quality, watersheds, and wild-
life habitat, including that of species listed as threat-
ened or endangered under section 4(c) of the Endan-
gered Species Act of 1973 (16 U.S.C. 1533(c)); 
(3) protect the ecological integrity and con-
tiguity of major wild land ecosystems and their 
interconnecting corridors identified by the United 
States Fish and Wildlife Service, and other sources; 
(4) protect and maintain biological and native 
species diversity; 
(5) promote and ensure interagency cooperation 
in the implementation of integrated, holistic eco-
system management and protection of the eco-
systems and corridors covered by this Act based 
upon principles from conservation biology; 
(6) preserve scenic, historic, and cultural re-
sources; 
(7) promote scientific research, primitive recre-
ation, solitude, physical and mental challenge, and 
inspiration for the benefit of all of the American 
people; 
(8) avoid the misinvestment of scarce capital in 
lands of marginal timber value; and 
(9) promote ecologically and economically sus-
tainable management in the Northern Rockies Bio-
region.