That’s where it pays to take the long view. In 1984 the New Hampshire Wilderness Act created the 23,000-acre Sandwich Range Wilderness on the southern front of the White Mountains. Despite the gains, there was a lot missing. On paper, its profile resembled a Rorschach test disfigured by large bite marks. (In an odd bit of planning, the Wilderness area’s boundaries weren’t drawn up until the act was passed into law.) The 2006 act filled in the missing pieces with a 10,800-acre extension. It’s now more circular, which biologists believe offers the greatest protective bang for the buck: the further flung the boundaries, the greater the protection for its core habitat. “We were very pleased,” says George Zink, a citizen-advocate whose efforts earned him the moniker Father of the Sandwich Range. “It also wasn’t anything any one of us thought was perfect, but designating Wilderness is politics and you have to be a politician.”

Just as it takes an act of Congress to create new Wilderness, an act of Congress is required to take it away. And the occasional make-good is necessary. The 1975 Eastern Wilderness Act created the 6,500-acre Bristol Cliffs Wilderness in Vermont. Lawmakers were stunned to find seasonal camps, private homes, and farms located within its boundaries. “One guy didn’t even know it was happening and suddenly he was living in the Wilderness area,” says Scott. The following year Congress shrank the area down to 3,775 acres—the largest adjustment in the act’s history. “A plain and simple error,” he adds.

The Bristol Cliffs snafu, however, illustrates the strength of the federal statute. “Once we get a boundary around a Wilderness area, that burden shifts,” says Scott. “Somebody someday might have a scheme and, however attractive it sounds, they face the burden of proof. That is the payoff.

“It’s a measure of security against a future that’s uncertain,” he continues. “It may seem completely implausible that the Wild River had any prospect of ever be i ng threatened. But who knows? Someday someone may cast a covetous eye on that place and want to do something. There’s now a statutory bar saying you can’t.”

Federal Wilderness may be the strongest, longest-lasting protection for public land, but it’s not the only legislative tool available to conservationists. In the 1970s a number of states established policies to protect Wilderness on state-owned land. Native Americans, who govern their tribal lands, passed similar protective measures. In The Enduring Wilderness, Scott’s 2002 history of the Wilderness preservation movement, he highlights New York State’s impact on national protection policies. The state created its first Forest Preserve in 1885 but efforts to neuter its powers sent voters in search of greater protection. Eight years after the Wilderness Act was signed into law, New York’s state legislature designated large swaths of the Adirondack Forest Preserve as state Wilderness. In 1984 the state added the “forever wild” clause to its constitution, clearly articulating expectations on state-owned lands.

While some state Wilderness areas lack the statutory clout of the federal imprimatur, they’ve still had a significant impact. A 2002 inventory found 2.6 million acres of state-designated Wilderness spread out over 74 separate areas. New York State alone, says Scott, has protected more than 1 million acres on its own. In all, nine states have enacted some form of protection on their lands—none in New England. “It would be great if other states enacted Wilderness protection statutes,” he adds.

“In some ways it’s an act of faith to designate Wilderness,” says Peter Smart of Friends of Sandwich Range. After all, the movement’s entire history can be measured in decades; it could be centuries before landscape-scale changes take root. On the ground, however, the pace is brisk. Citizen advocacy groups are already zeroing in on new lands to protect. In New Hampshire, Friends of Wild River would like to see a larger Wild River Wilderness with a better connection to the Caribou-Speckled Mountain Wilderness to the east. In the Sandwich Range, Flat Mountain’s roadless southern slope remains one of the biggest chunks of unfinished business for Wilderness advocates. “Did we get everything we thought we should?” asks Zink. “No. But we’re already talking about what we will do the next time the Wilderness issue comes up.”

In the meantime, there’s a victory that needs celebrating. In July, New Hampshire’s Wilderness supporters and its congressional delegation will gather at the Russell Colbath House on the Kancamagus Highway to celebrate the passage of the 2006 New England Wilderness Act. The day’s itinerary includes excursions into the new Wilderness areas to move the boundary markers.

“It will be nice to say thank you,” says Smart, “and not ask for something.”

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