It's Time to Advocate for our Public Lands

"It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment"

• Ansel Adams

"Drill baby drill" in 2024 was one of Trump's slogans for his campaign, now that he is president, he is actively working on making this a reality. This means it falls to us, the nature lovers, the users of our public lands, to stand up and protect them. The NPS is being gutted, and the Trump administration sees no value in our public lands other than their monetary extraction potential. In addition, the abonnement of science, lack of belief in climate change, the rolling back of environmental protections and those protection agencies being shuttered, our public lands, wildlife and environment are at huge risk.

This post is political, the current administration is a HUGE threat to our public lands. It's also

Bald Eagles and many other species rely on conservation efforts to maintain and protect the species from extinction due to human factors.

a call out and a call to action for nature lovers, outdoor adventurers and even the casual user of our National Parks and public lands. I follow many outdoor influencers on social media. While they frequently post about the best hikes in certain areas, gear, tips and tricks or their own adventures, I rarely see them discussing the environment, climate change, conservation or our role in preserving our public lands. Following the mass firings of NPS and NFS employees, there has certainly been an uptick in posts regarding the dangers our public lands face from the Trump administration, but there is still a lack of focus on actual conservation and what we can do to protect these wild spaces and the animals that live in them. I get that some people don't want to bring politics into their platform, but this is not a normal administration doing normal things. We can't stick our head in the sand and pretend there is not a real and present threat to our environment and therefore our ability to enjoy the outdoors.

Why is getting active in conservation efforts important?

Want to keep enjoying peaceful and snowy hikes in the wilderness? Time to get involved.

While it may seem like our public lands are safe and protected from any threats such as mining and development, this isn't actually true. Companies, especially mining and logging companies put forward proposals all the time to mine/log on public lands. Recently, I have been working on an anti-mining campaign against a proposed mine by a Canadian mining company in the Porcupine Mountains State Park along Lake Superior. Legacy and old growth forests are also common targets for logging companies, and the Grand Canyon has been a target for Uranium mining for years.

Development groups are also a threat to our public lands and Indigenous groups who live nearby. Back in 2014 a development company wanted to build a cable car and viewing platform in the Grand Canyon, specifically to the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado rivers which is considered sacred land to the Navajo people who live in the canyon and whose land borders the area where the proposed viewing platform would sit. Development groups are constantly pushing to build "more hotels" and other structures to Disney-fy our National Parks, usually targeting the most popular ones such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, and Olympic National Parks.

With both development and mining they talk about the benefits it will bring local communities. However, this claim is often over exaggerated and sometimes downright false. When it comes to mining, studies have shown that mining is a net negative for communities. It extracts resources, causes pollution in multiple ways, and typically the workers are brought

Legacy and old growth forests are often a target for logging companies.

in from other areas by mining companies rather than hiring locally. You can check out some studies on the negative impacts of mining here. While commercial development may seem like it will bring more money to an area, in reality the group that benefits the most is typically the development group and not locals. They use the location/attraction to extract money from tourists and none of it goes back into local communities. If you've ever been to The Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia this is extremely evident. Tourists are constantly coming to Uyuni and spending hundreds on tours, mostly operated by foreign owned companies. Just by walking around the town it's evident that the money is not coming back to the community and locals are not benefiting from jobs in tourism in the way that tour companies often claim. To be a tour guide you need to speak English, and support staff are often paid very poorly compared to the amount of work they do.

How can you get involved, and what can you do? The first thing you can do is to get more connected with conservation groups. Most national parks have conservancy groups that provide volunteer staff to parks, they also track conservation efforts and any proposed projects that would impact the park. Social media is a great tool to find conservation groups and campaigns, groups such as Legacy Forest Defense and Our Public Lands. I learned

If we want to keep experiences like this, we must be ready to take action.

about the proposed mine in the Porcupine Mountains through a post on my for you page from an organized campaign (Protect the Porkies) to fight the mine, even though I don't live in Michigan, I can still participate and contact the representatives to voice my opposition. Just because something is not in your state doesn't mean you can't be involved and actively fight against these threats to public lands and spaces that you may want to one day recreate in. Conservancy and advocacy groups will often direct you with who you need to contact to voice your concern and provide talking points to help you put together what to say and how to talk about the issue.

It's a privilege to enjoy and recreate in our National Parks and other public lands. If we want to keep these areas wild and untouched, protect our environment, preserve wildlife habitats, and give outdoor influencers a reason for their platforms, we all need to step up and do more to protect them. The only thing at risk by not taking action is losing our environment.