Wilderness advocates will gather next week in Salem, Mo., to plan the next steps of an effort to win federal protection for 50,000 acres of public land in Missouri's Mark Twain National Forest. Currently, 4 percent of the Mark Twain forest is designated wilderness, meaning it is free of roads, all-terrain vehicles, mining and logging, but open to hiking, camping, fishing, horseback riding, hunting, canoeing and picnicking. The additional acres would bring to 7 percent the amount of land in the state with that kind of protection.

Missouri's last wilderness designation was 24 years ago. The first was in 1976.
The coalition's proposal is for seven wild places that advocates say are vulnerable — Big Spring, Lower Rock Creek, North Fork, Smith Creek, Spring Creek, Swan Creek and Van East Mountain. The areas were identified by conservation groups years ago, and, until recently, had special protection as "sensitive areas" under a settlement agreement with the U.S. Forest Service.
But the 2005 Forest Service plan dropped the sensitive area status, prompting conservationists to seek federal wilderness protection. The wilderness areas are very popular with the public and heavily used. But the biggest hurdle may be winning over the congresswoman for southeast Missouri where five of the proposed wilderness areas are located.

In 1976, Missouri's first wilderness legislation was passed, designating Hercules Glades in Taney County and the Mingo Swamp in Wayne County. Between 1976 and 1984, about 100,000 acres, most of them in the southern Ozarks, were declared wilderness areas. Almost 64,000 acres of Missouri's wilderness areas are already in the Mark Twain National Forest. Besides Hercules and Mingo, the state's other existing wilderness areas include Bell Mountain, Rockpile Mountain, Devil's Backbone, Paddy Creek and Irish Wilderness.