SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Tomorrow is the 15-year anniversary of the California Desert Protection Act. The legislation protects 7.7 million acres of California desert and remains the largest wilderness and national park bill in the history of the lower 48 states. When President Bill Clinton signed the act, baby desert tortoises crawled on his desk to symbolize the protection being brought to the area.
Doug Scott, policy director for the Campaign for America's Wilderness, says the tortoises signified a species that couldn't run away from development and therefore needed federal protection.
"The miracle of the California Desert Protection Act was the stepping out before development had totally torn up the desert to protect these really outstanding places."
Laurel Williams, with the California Wilderness Coalition, says it was always the intent to revisit the areas left out of the original Act and seek protections for those areas.
"Many of those places have stopped being used for mining or the private in-holdings have been purchased and donated for conservation. Today, we're actually re-looking at these areas for wilderness designations."
The landmark legislation protected millions of acres of wilderness, established Death Valley and Joshua Tree national parks as well as the Mojave National Preserve. More information is available at www.leaveitwild.org.
