In 1969, the Alabama Conservancy (now the Alabama Environmental Council) launched a campaign to support an effort to create a wilderness area within the Bankhead Forest. That fall, the Alabama Conservancy, a group that was only two years old, took on the Sipsey proposal as a project.
Undaunted from being told by the Forest Service that the establishment of a wilderness area east of the Mississippi was impossible, the group persisted. Even though the Forest Service was against the idea of the wilderness, the Conservancy was able to convince the agency to issue a year-long moratorium on cutting timber and road construction in January 1970. As a result of the moratorium, the group of wilderness advocates set out to prove the Sipsey qualified as a wilderness area.
Beginning in early 1970, a Wilderness Feasibility Study Committee was formed and organized by Mary Burks, founder of the Alabama Conservancy. The all-volunteer group, which included some of Alabama’s finest scientists, studied and reported on every possible aspect of the proposed wilderness area and included conservationists like:
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Ornithology (birds): Tom Imhof, author of Alabama Birds
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Herpetology (amphibians): Mike Hopiak
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Ichthyology (fish): Mike Howell from Samford and Don Dycus from the Dept. of Conservation
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Botany (plants): Louise G. “Weesie” Smith and Blanche Dean
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History: Dale Carruthers
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Game wildlife: Charles Kelly, Director of Game and Fish for Dept. of Conservation
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Non-game wildlife: Dan Holliman, biologist from Birmingham-Southern College
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Trail and field parties: Jim and Ruth Manasco
The study not only helped secure the original Sipsey Wilderness designation in 1975; it was used to expand it in the 1980s.
Mary & Bob Burks
The launch of the Sipsey Wilderness campaign coincided with the first Earth Day in 1970. Within a year, thousands of petitions were signed, and the proposal was supported by Governor George Wallace and the Alabama Legislature, led by former congressman Ben Erdreich.
By April 21, 1971, Sipsey Wilderness legislation was introduced by Senator John Sparkman. It was the very first Eastern Wilderness bill ever introduced. West Virginia followed with their own bill, and thanks to the Alabama Sipsey campaign template, states introduced legislation throughout the East.
Four years later, the Eastern Forest Wilderness Act was signed into law by President Gerald Ford on January 3, 1975. Along with the Sipsey Wilderness, 15 additional wilderness areas were established totaling 206,000+ acres.
Per the quote from the senior Senator from Colorado — the idea Congress can support wilderness in the East was started right here in Alabama by a small grassroots organization called the Alabama Conservancy.