In 1996, longtime Utah environmentalist Dick Carter established the High Uintas Preservation Council (HUPC), an organization which sought to “preserve and restore the integrity of the High Uintas ecosystem”, Utah’s most diverse wilderness area. Carter, along with a core group of board members and HUPC supporters, felt that the Forest Service was not doing enough to adequately protect the area from outside interests. Working to influence, and oftentimes to limit, the Forest Service’s actions in the High Uintas, the HUPC pursued two main goals: to increase the size of designated wilderness areas and to block further land development for logging, stocking, grazing, mining, and drilling for oil.

Over time it became difficult to replace outgoing board members and, as development continued into the High Uintas, the council bore an increasing challenge to gain traction with the Forest Service. As Dick Carter said in the organization’s farewell letter, “There is simply no room for a measured collaborative approach. We are simply not real players.” Carter’s method of citizen conservation, along with his goal to grow and support untouched wilderness areas, were discordant with the aims of a robust Forest Service which sought to strike a balance between preservation and development. After 15 years of working with the Forest Service and developing many protective initiatives, the HUPC officially disbanded in 2010.