Ronald Reagan signed more wilderness protection laws than any other president. His last of 43 was the law designating 1.7 million acres of wilderness in the North Cascades and Washington’s two other national parks, signed 15 years ago this week. It is an anniversary worth celebrating.

Thanks to that law, 634,614 acres of backcountry in the North Cascades Park Complex are protected as wilderness "where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man."

In a world ever more densely populated, mechanized and noisy, wilderness areas are preserves of nature and sanctuaries for people — wild havens beyond road end and engine whine. In the North Cascades, backpackers find wilderness adventure, but wilderness is not just for them. Many more savor wilderness from its edges. The wild backdrop makes a fishing trip on Ross Lake or a drive across the North Cascades Highway a world-class experience for young and old alike.

It once seemed wilderness areas could preserve themselves. But wildlands steadily dwindled, gnawed by development. Alarmed, Congress enacted the Wilderness Act 40 years ago next Sept. 3.

Aware of constant threats to overdevelop or invade parks (like the repeated efforts by logging corporations to invade Olympic National Park), Congress included national parks among the public land that can be protected. One senator explained that preservation "becomes a statutory requirement with congressional approval, not just a bureau policy that can be set aside with a stroke of someone’s pen." Wilderness designation strengthens the hand of the good administrator and steadies the hand of the weak one.

The 1988 Washington Park Wilderness Act passed with exemplary speed: introduced in March with committee hearings that summer, the bill arrived on President Reagan’s desk in rapid order. Quick congressional action does not just happen; it takes bipartisan collaboration, long the hallmark of our congressional delegation. The 1988 wilderness law was the work of Sens. Dan Evans (R) and Brock Adams (D), and Republican Reps. Rod Chandler and John Miller, as well as Democrats Al Swift and Norm Dicks. They built on earlier park-protecting work by Reps. Thomas Pelly (R) and Lloyd Meeds (D), and Democratic Sens. Henry Jackson and Warren Magnuson.

The work to preserve Washington’s enviable heritage of wilderness is not done. Similar bipartisan work is needed to get the Wild Skykomish Wilderness bill to the White House.

The "Wild Sky" bill will protect 106,000 acres of wilderness, much of it lower-elevation old-growth forest and salmon habitat. It is the southern end of a wilderness expanse extending from the North Cascades park wilderness south of Highway 20 to the Lake Chelan-Sawtooth, Glacier Peak and Henry M. Jackson wilderness areas — at 1,235,000 acres, Washington’s largest unbroken block of wilderness.

Democratic Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell showed their clout in gaining Senate approval of the 106,000-acre Wild Skykomish Wilderness bill a year ago, but it died in the Republican House. It will pass the Senate again soon. Reps. Rick Larsen (D) and Jennifer Dunn (R) are championing the House bill, with support from all of our state’s other Democrats in the House, but not the other two Republicans.

It is time for our House delegation — particularly the Republicans — to put their shoulders to the wheel and get this done. The Republican Senate candidate, Rep. George Nethercutt, has yet to declare himself on this popular, Bush administration-endorsed legislation. The House will act, but only if Dunn and Nethercutt exert their influence.

A great Republican conservationist, President Teddy Roosevelt, urged Americans to conserve resources not merely for people now alive, but for "the number within the womb of time, compared to which, those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to … unborn generations bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations."

Preserving wilderness is an act of humility, choosing as a society to restrain our human tendency to sprawl across and use up wild landscapes and natural resources, in order to serve the needs of those still "within the womb of time."

Doug Scott, an historian of wilderness preservation, is policy director of the Campaign for America’s Wilderness and lives in Seattle. John Leary directs the Wild Washington Campaign.

For more information, visit www.wildernessforever.org and www.wildwashington.org.