Keeping Public Lands Public
Stopping the Great American Sell Out
Greetings from Durango, Colorado. I’m out here in Ute Country for the Southern Ute Indian Tribe’s Bear Dance, something I’ll fill you in on a bit later.
Southwestern Colorado is one of many ridiculously beautiful places in the United States, a space so gorgeous that it romanticizes even this Southerner with the mythology of the West. I mean, not to spoil a future post, but just look at some of these pictures I’ve taken over the last few days, and these don’t even focus on the mountains because I’ve got a billion of them by now.
It’s a long drive out here from Pueblo and thankfully many of the roadside views are of public lands managed by the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, or the National Park Service. The majesty of these spaces—and their availability for use by the everyday Americans who own them—underscore the importance of protecting them from real estate developers, energy barons, and the legislators who do their bidding.
I write specifically this morning to share the words of environmental historian Sara Dant, who just published a powerful thought piece linking the origin of public lands and the historic threats to them to our situation today. The article is free to anyone so please do share it if it moves you.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2025-05-25/public-lands-national-parks-blm-monument-privatization-donald-trump
I’ve got a bunch of content coming for you soon. Thanks for being here.
Jason
Gkk
Your thesis and the Colorado pictures are appealing. However, there's more to the public lands story. I suggest that the 40 year old battle between industry/Republicans and environmentalists and their Democratic supporters has caused land policy to become radicalized. A new phase began with Jimmy Carter's use of the American Antiquities Act of 1906 to sequester 60 million acres of Alaskan land as "National Monuments". He had asked his Secretary of Interior for a way to keep economic interests out of this vast area. The solution was a three-paragraph statute not designed to shut the public out of vast areas of federal land. The expansions of the Escalante and Bears Ears monuments follow the same partisan pattern - exclusion rather than protection to facilitate appreciation and access. How many ordinary citizens are going to access areas over a million acreas and with only sparse dirt roads? President Biden pushed partisan ship to further extremes, proposing to "protect" one third of US land area.
Not surprisingly, radical policies breed radical counterpolicies that we see now in the Trump administration. It's not how Swedes, who are among the world's most environmentally committed people, handle their natural recources.
Use this spreadsheet as a resource to call/email/write members of Congress. Reach out to your own, as well as those in other states on a specific committee important to a topic you’re sharing. Use your voice and make some “good trouble.”
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13lYafj0P-6owAJcH-5_xcpcRvMUZI7rkBPW-Ma9e7hw/edit