EDITOR'S PAGE

WHEN CONGRESS once again takes up the subject of federal wilderness designation for Arizonaquite possibly this month the legislators cannot complain of a lack of information. Along with the official reports of the Bureau of Land Management and other government agencies, senators and representatives can refer to a detailed, 287-page document titled "Arizona Wilderness," published by the Arizona Wilderness Coalition. To supplement that volume, the Wilderness Society recently released an exhaustive report by biologist David E. Brown: "Ecological Values of Bureau of Land Management Wilderness Study Areas in Arizona." Development of a National Wilderness Preservation System has gradually progressed over the quarter century since passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964. The monumental Arizona Wilderness Act of 1984 built on earlier measures to bring the state's designated federal wilderness to 2,037,265 acres (see the March 1986 Arizona Highways) an impressive start, yet only 2.8 percent of the state's total area. Most of those lands are within national forests and parks; some are in areas administered by the BLM. The first two categories were identified for review in the original 1964 act. Comparable BLM studies were not mandated until 1976, when the Federal Land Policy and Management Act was approved. The completed BLM recommendations (encompassing 978,603 acres) now form one of four different Arizona wilderness proposals awaiting Congressional consideration. The other three are a Senate bill (883,340 acres) introduced by Arizona Senators Dennis DeConcini and John McCain; a House of Representatives measure (including approximately 1,450,000 acres of BLM land) sponsored by Morris Udall of Arizona's Second Congressional District; and the comprehensive proposal submitted by the 40 organizations that compose the Arizona Wilderness Coalition, involving 2,131,411 acres of BLM land. As Arizona's rapid development and the accompanying incursions into its backcountry by machines (notably offroad vehicles) continue, the need for effective protection of its remaining wild lands is ever more apparent. By Congressional definition, a wilderness is an area "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." For any region of expanding population, the spiritual and recreational values of wilderness are obvious, but in Arizona there are special ecological considerations.Writes Brown: "Arizona's great natural diversity makes it unique in that no other state possesses biotic communities ranging from alpine tundra to representative examples of all four North American deserts." Here are the habitats of an astonishing variety of plant and animal life, including many endangered species. As roadless areas shrink, these habitats are destroyed. Despite recognition by the BLM and the Arizona senators that additional wilderness should be preserved, their recommendations are disappointingly modest. The Udall bill is much better; but it is the Wilderness Coalition that has advanced not only the boldest proposal but one supported with carefully reasoned argument and persuasive analysis, area by area. It is urgently to be hoped that Congress will recognize that effort by giving careful attention to the Coalition's recommendations on the 25th anniversary of the Wilderness Act. -Merrill Windsor