The Herald editorial board got it right: Our public lands are “under siege” (Herald, April 17). The threats are real, they are accelerating and here in Southwest Colorado, they feel close to home. But if there is one thing worth remembering, it is this: These lands belong to all of us, and that means we still have the power to defend them.
We saw that last year when Sen. Mike Lee tried to slip a public land sell-off proposal into a budget bill. The backlash was so overwhelming he pulled it. That should remind all of us that when people speak up for the lands that shape our way of life, it matters.
And right now, we need to speak up again. Rep. Jeff Hurd, who sits on the House Natural Resources Committee, needs to hear from people in his district that public lands are not bargaining chips and that the places we count on for access, recreation, clean water and wildlife habitat are worth protecting. Call him at (970) 317-6167.
Recently, Lee and Rep. Celeste Maloy introduced joint resolutions under the Congressional Review Act to overturn the management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. That may seem distant, but the implications reach right to Colorado. If they succeed and the plan is scrapped, it will remove much-needed structure for stewarding 1.9 million acres of wildlife habitat, fragile watersheds, cultural resources, tribal heritage and outdoor access. They would also undercut the public process that helped shape that plan and make it easier to attack future management plans across the West.
That matters because what happens at Grand Staircase sets precedent for every protected landscape in the West. If politicians in Washington can gut one monument plan, they can come for others. That includes nearby Bears Ears National Monument, a landscape revered by Colorado’s Ute tribes and communities across Southwest Colorado, plus places like the Dominguez-Escalante National Conservation Area and McInnis Canyons NCA, on Colorado’s Western Slope. No plan anywhere is safe.
A few weeks ago, Hurd voted for a CRA resolution that exposed the headwaters of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness to toxic pollution from a proposed foreign-owned copper mine. He should not make the same mistake again. He needs to hear what Southwest Colorado values: public lands that remain public, stewardship grounded in community input and protections strong enough to carry these places forward for the next generation.
At the same time, the agencies responsible for caring for our public lands are being hollowed out. Thousands of employees at the Department of the Interior and U.S. Forest Service have been fired, or harassed and intimidated into resignation. These are the scientists, rangers and resource specialists who maintain our trails, manage our watersheds, fight our wildfires and carry decades of irreplaceable institutional knowledge.
Colorado has been hit particularly hard by these cuts, leaving us with fewer rangers who support wildland firefighting as we face what could be a catastrophically bad fire season. Now, Forest Service headquarters are being moved to Utah, a state that continues to challenge the very idea of public lands, while the administration’s proposed budget, if passed by Congress, would slash the agency’s resources by 75%, even zeroing out Forest Service wildfire research programs. That will only add further chaos to our public lands. And Colorado communities could pay the price.
These lands are part of who we are in the West. They give us the freedom to mountain bike, hike, camp, hunt, fish and roam. They protect clean water, wildlife and the outdoor traditions we pass down in our families.
The people who love these lands have stopped bad ideas before. We can do it again. But only if we use our voices now.
Michael Carroll is the BLM campaign director for The Wilderness Society and lives in Durango.