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Show LEGAL ASPECTS OF MINERAL RESOURCES EXPLOITATION 763 with by the dedicated Pinchot conservationists. If that was not enough, Secretary Lane's later hassle with Navy Secretary Daniels over the naval reserves did little to improve the Department's public image. The final blow came with Secretary Fall's involvement in Teapot Dome. It is fortunate that the office eventually came into the capable hands of Secretary Ray L. Wilbur in the Hoover administration. Since that time, Interior has earnestly functioned at a level of efficiency far beyond what its early history might have predicted. As part of the period of aggressive management, the post-war years saw the introduction of the concepts of multiple-mineral development and multiple surface use as part of the conservation program for mineral land. The war against dormant and fraudulent mining claims and oil and gas leases which violated provisions of the Leasing Act was a major aspect of the program of the Bureau of Land Management. There emerged in the fifties quite a different concept of conservation-the notion that man must, before it is too late, put aside areas of wilderness, even though this means an end to the traditional forms of exploitation which had "closed" the western frontier. This was hardly a new concept, however, for as Roderick Nash has recently recounted, the preservationists have a long and interesting role in the conservation movement in this country.441 Their success in molding public opinion resulted in the enactment of the Wilder- ness Act in 1964,442 atfer lengthy congressional hearings in which its advocates defended attacks from the mining industry as well as many professional conservationists in government circles. The act provides that national forest lands classified as "wilderness" under the act remain subject to the Federal mining and leasing laws until December 31, 1983. Any mining patent issued after passage of this law and subject to valid existing rights at the time of passage must, however, contain a reservation to the United States of title to the surface. After January 1, 1984, minerals in all wilderness lands are withdrawn from all forms of appropriation under the mining and leasing laws. Access to the forest wilderness areas is subject to reasonable regulation by the Secretary of Agriculture.443 Wilderness areas within national parks, national wildlife refuges and game ranges are within the jurisdiction of the Department of the Interior. It is ironic that the preservationists are now faced with a demand for mass public recreation which may eventually destroy the very things they have wanted to perpetuate. As Mr. Nash puts it: "Having made such remarkable gains in the public's estimation in the last century, wild country could well be loved out of existence in the next."444 441 Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind (1967) . A bibliography of wilderness literature appears at 237-46. 442 78 Stat. 890 (1964), 16 U.S.C. § 1131 (1964). The 1964 legislation established a wilderness preservation system of around 9.3 million acres. Committee hearings are currently being held on proposals to add additional land in New Jersey, Florida, Massachusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Maine. Des Moines Register, June 17, 1968, p. 12. 443 36 C.F.R. § 251.82-251.84 (1968) . 441 Nash, supra note 441, at 235-36. |