Abstract
To respond to the sprawl of destructive developmental projects, getting natural land into a protected status is an essential strategy. Many laws in Taiwan have adopted this strategy, including the National Park Act, Cultural Heritage Preservation Act, Wildlife Conservation Act, Forestry Act, and Wetland Conservation Act. However, a wilderness law which is based on a wilderness philosophy does not exist in Taiwan. The purpose of this article is to explore the philosophy and regulation of the U.S. Wilderness Act and what Taiwan can learn from it. The wilderness philosophy, which values wilderness and regards wilderness preservation as an ethical norm, gradually emerged and influenced American law, eventually resulting in the Wilderness Act of 1964. This Act established the National Wilderness Preservation System and required agencies to systematically review specific areas as to their suitability for preservation as wilderness. For the areas that are designated as wilderness areas, the Act mandates agencies to protect their wilderness characters and prohibits or regulates commercial enterprise, roads, mechanical transports, and structures or installations for preserving the natural characters of the wilderness areas forever. Although Taiwan has had diverse land preservation laws, the U.S. Wilderness Act provides valuable insights. First, overall speaking, Taiwan’s land preservation laws stress the uniqueness, representativeness, or importance of scenery, geology, ecosystem, species, and culture in terms of designation criteria and are different from the U.S. Wilderness Act, which focus only on whether an area is wilderness and does not require extra qualities. Therefore, adopting a wilderness law will bring Taiwan additional capacity of land preservation. Second, the U.S. Wilderness Act prohibits large-scale development but opens access to