Saving our public lands

[AK Granola]

I don’t know if this post will be allowed, but I think we are seriously looking at some upcoming withdrawal of public lands, changing those to commercial use or even selling them off to wealthy private owners. It’s something backpackers and other outdoor users need to think about, whatever their political bent. I don’t know what tools are at our disposal at this point, but some organizations might be better equipped, or better to become equipped, to fight the inevitable land grab. Natural Resources Defense Council? Wilderness Society? Not sure who has the most legal clout for a serious fight. Any suggestions?

I’m kind of glad that, even though I’m an Alaskan, that I never got to see and love ANWR because it will no doubt be a day one and done. I can’t even think about the dismantling of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts. But if the land is gone, that’s forever.

[Dan]

I’m very supportive of preserving public lands, and for encouraging low-impact recreation, but I’m finding that it’s pretty hard to know the best way to support efforts in that direction. There are so many non-profits that all claim to be working on related issues, people come knocking on my door all the time to ask for signatures and donations and often I’ve never even heard of the group before. Sometimes they are a familiar big picture “environment” group, and claim to do everything. Other times they are an obscure specific group, e.g. for water-quality issues, anti-extraction, etc. When I ask what their group actually does, it always boils down to lobbying and I just can’t imagine it’s terribly effective to be supporting a bunch of different small lobbying groups. And honestly, sometimes I’ve made donations to an organization, and then later learned that they were getting involved in something that annoyed me, like anti-GMO activism or something like that.

[Paul Wagner]

Thanks for posting on this topic.  I fear that we will soon seen many of our federal lands, particularly in the Mountain West, turned over to local authority.  And that will likely lead to fewer lands reserved as wilderness, and far more lands open to aggressive use by industry and more mechanized recreation.

Sad to think about.

[Jeff McWilliams]

At minimum I fully expect the Trump admin to roll back some of the National Monument designations.  He did it during his first term in office (Grand Staircase Escalante).  He’ll do it again.

[Terran Terran]

$$$

[Terran Terran]

Fight with your presence and your dollars. Resist. There will be at least 2 years of damage. Don’t ever accept it.

[Drew Smith]

There are many places in which sand can be thrown in the gears of executive action. Most of them involve the courts. The vast majority of judges (even the conservative ones) are sticklers for following established laws and processes (the Supreme Court excepted).

The right-wingers on the Supreme Court are not nearly as clever as they imagine themselves to be. The Loper Bright vs Raimundo decision opens up many regulatory decisions to legal challenge. Even if those challenges lose they will soak up years of time and effort. The Court believed themselves to be liberating corporations from regulatory oversight, but they made changing the status quo harder also.

So: donate to organizations that know how to use the legal system. And write to your state’s governor and representatives telling them you want the state to contest land-use decisions that will degrade the environment and cut off access to public lands. A flood of lawsuits will have considerable impact.

[Terran Terran]

The law only works when they follow it.

[Adrian Griffin]

I tend to agree with Dan. Focus your memberships and donations on groups that focus on the protection of public lands for scenic and wildlife values and natural quiet. The Wilderness Society, CalWild (formerly the California Wilderness Coalition), and Wilderness Watch spring to mind.

Some organizations have drifted into promoting a grab-bag of causes—these may be worthy, but they’re off-topic.

Make no mistake about it. Our public lands are in peril.

[Terran Terran]

I’d add the Wildlands Conservatory  to the group. They’ve been acquiring private land, making it available to the public.

[Terran Terran]

[Terran Terran]

I think the american oil producers will only drill if it increases their profit margins. They have very little interest in lowering prices. Taking oil out of Alaska has to be expensive.

[Paul Wagner]

Good video, Terran Terran.  And I agree with you about oil companies. They exist only to make a profit.  But that also means that higher gas prices make more kinds of oil production profitable.  If we reduce our addiction to oil, it will also reduce the use of less-profitable production methods for oil.

[Author]

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