Group seeks to save wilderness areas

An environmental group is launching a national campaign today aimed at preserving wilderness areas, but the cause may already be lost in Iowa. Mike Matz, executive director of the Campaign for America’s Wilderness, says there are -no- federal wilderness areas in the Hawkeye State.Matz says Iowa’s total lack of any protected wilderness lands should be reason enough for Iowans get involved in saving what’s left in other states. He says Iowans have to go someplace else to see a wide, unspoiled piece of land as it would have appeared a century or two ago.Before Iowa was settled by Europeans, about 70-percent of the state was covered in native prairie and tall grasses. Now, only about one-tenth of one-percent of Iowa is grassland. He says seven out of every eight acres of federal wilderness land lacks permanent protection — places like the California High Sierras, canyons in Idaho or Alaska’s Far North region.With seven-million miles of road in the U-S, Matz says there is no longer anywhere in the country a person can go where they’re not within 20 miles of a road.