One wilderness management expert notes, "Campsite impact assessments and monitoring methods range from photographic approaches to condition class approaches to a more intensive quantitative measurement of multi-parameters" (Glidden, 2005, p. 1). Managers had to develop methodologies to measure impacts of different areas, and staff must be able to implement these methodologies consistently. There are also many other assessments and needs programs that must be managed throughout the area. This means additional management and in-field staff, and it also means that to the public, their recreational opportunities may alter from time to time in specific wilderness environments. If too many people use areas of a wilderness, it could permanently damage the fragile ecosystem of the area, and so, that area may be closed to visitors, which negatively affects anyone who utilized the area for recreation, and now cannot. In addition, in redesignating these public lands as wilderness areas, it effectively removed some recreational opportunities from these areas, because motorized vehicles, concessions, and roads are banned in almost all wilderness areas (except for some exceptions in Alaska).

Finally, new methods of maintenance, regeneration, and needs assessment had to be developed for these areas, and guidelines had to be developed to help manage an entire new type of federal lands, split between the four agencies who maintain federal lands. (the four agencies are the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife.) the Wilderness Act sets out many guidelines, but the agencies had to actually develop the plans and methods used to analyze and manage their specific wilderness areas, and this has been an ongoing challenge to these agencies.

While the Act really took over eight years of planning to execute it, there were few who actually opposed it by the time it reached Congress in 1964. The Wilderness Society Web site...

However, there is a reason it took over eight years to come to fruition. Initially, many people called the idea of designating wilderness a "crazy idea" ("The Wilderness Act," 2008). Originally drafted in 1956 by Wilderness Society director Howard Zahniser, many legislators disapproved of the idea, and even the National Park Service opposed it. The Act was rewritten 66 times before it finally passed Congress, and opposition came from both sides of the House and Senate. It was first introduced in 1967 by Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, a Democrat, and U.S. Representative John Saylor, a Republican, illustrating the cross-section of Congress that supported the bill. In its final form, however, the Act passed with a great margin of votes, and the creation of designated wilderness areas began.
The Act is still current and binding legislation, and it still protects and ensures creation of wilderness areas throughout the United States. However, even with all these management measures, there is only approximately five percent of the American land protected under the Wilderness Act, and many experts believe it should be much more to ensure future generations can continue to enjoy unspoiled and undeveloped wilderness areas for years to come. Other laws can add wilderness in other areas, and other laws also affect wilderness areas, such as the Clean Air Act, which may have to be mandated in specific wilderness areas because of reduced air quality in the wilderness, which can affect the entire wilderness ecosystem.