According to the National Park Service website, Roosevelt was known as the “conservationist president.” Keep public lands in public hands!
“We have fallen heirs to the most glorious heritage a people ever received, and each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune.” – President Theodore Roosevelt
Where is Teddy Roosevelt – or someone with his sensibility and understanding of the natural world – when you need him? Look to yourself. Keep public lands in public hands.
After becoming president in 1901, Roosevelt “used his authority to protect wildlife and public lands by creating the United States Forest Service (USFS) and establishing 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, four national game preserves, five national parks, and 18 national monuments by enabling the 1906 American Antiquities Act,” as the National Park Service noted.
During his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt protected approximately 230 million acres of public land. Vote to keep public lands in public hands.
What do we have now? We have Republicans in the House who, with President Trump’s approval, have proposed selling off more than 250 million acres. More than what Teddy Roosevelt protected. These would include hiking trails, ski resorts, wilderness study areas, national monuments, and critical wildlife migration corridors.
We also have Tom Schultz, a former executive at a lumber industry company, leading the U.S. Forest Service. And then there’s Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, who also chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and he wants to sell off public lands supposedly “to expand housing, support local development and get Washington, D.C., out of the way of communities that are just trying to grow.”
Those in charge do not seem to understand that protected areas like national parks can’t function in isolation.
As Kylie Mohr quoted Jenny Fitzgerald, the executive director of the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance of Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks in SF Gate, “…wildlife move in and out of the park for habitat and food, crisscrossing between the national park and the surrounding public lands… Selling these lands for housing or other development would undo decades of conservation at a time when we are already environmentally taxed. I fear there would be no recovery from this.”
Maybe we need someone in those government positions who actually loves and recreates in the outdoors (besides playing golf). Not people who only see our National Forests and Parks as potential real estate or for mining, drilling, or logging.
Environmental agencies are doing their best to prevent the Trump administration from auctioning off wilderness, shrinking national monument boundaries, handing forests over to loggers, and inviting mining into sacred sites, as the Center for Biological Diversity mentioned on their Facebook page.
“This is a flash sale of America’s wild heritage.”
The Center for Biological Diversity wrote these words, adding, “No place is safe.”
Just take a look at the number of lawsuits the Center is pursuing now. This is after filing 266 lawsuits, most of which they won, during Trump’s first term.
The Sierra Club clearly states on their Facebook page: “Senate Republicans want to sell off MILLIONS of acres of YOUR public lands… Forests at Yellowstone’s doorstep, unique desertscapes next to Arches National Park, shorelines of Lake Tahoe, the slopes of Mt. Hood—and millions of acres more across 11 Western states—are at risk of being privatized, paved, drilled, mined, and polluted by the Senate’s ‘big, beautiful’ budget bill… these are places where people like you camp, hike, fish, hunt, find solace, and where wildlife thrives… If this public lands sell-off passes, you will be locked out of these lands for good.”
It’s time to make your voice heard – for yourself, for future generations, and for wildlife and natural wonders. E-mail your congressperson.
At the turn of the century, Theodore Roosevelt helped to preserve this part of America, allowing us to enjoy it still today. Travelers United urges you to take action and write your congressperson.
Please, if you have a Republican Senator or House member, email or call them. Tell them not to sell public lands or cut National Park funding. It is time to shelve the Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee’s budget reconciliation bill for good. Click here to contact your representatives. And consider supporting your favorite environmental organization They are working hard to preserve and keep public lands in public hands.
After several decades working in a variety of jobs as a newspaper writer, event publicist, communications specialist, and marketing director, Karen Cummings is now “retired” and working on Travelers United’s social media and newsletters in addition to occasionally contributing a travel-related article to TU’s blog. She lives close to her family in Maine, and travels as often as she can.