This Land is Our Land
Photo Courtesy of:Louis Arevalo
Public lands are home to nearly 60% of climbing areas in the US, and this is one of the greatest threats the climbing community has ever faced.
The Administration is systematically dismantling the regulations, environmental reviews, and public process that protect our public lands and give us a voice.
It's death by a thousand cuts.
Right now, we’re seeing the legislative and executive branches of our government propose initiatives that:
- Undermine the authority of the Antiquities Act, threatening the legitimacy of all national monuments and their climbing areas.
- Strip land management agencies of the critical authorities, like landscape-scale planning, law enforcement, and mineral leasing, that allow our public lands to be managed in a balanced manner that respects all stakeholders, not just commercial interests.
- Cut funding to land management agencies, preventing them from managing recreation, while increasing the budget for oil, gas, and coal development.
Thousands of acres of public land are being opened up to oil and gas leasing and mining exploration with no regard for protecting recreation and conservation values. Energy development on public lands must be done in a balanced and responsible way—and you deserve a voice.
Our public lands team and our partners at Outdoor Alliance are working hard to advocate for fair public process and get climbers a seat at the table. But there is power in numbers, and we need to stand together and demand a voice and fair public process.
They are counting on the fact that we aren’t paying attention and that the details are too complicated for us to see the bigger picture. But we see the big picture. These threats are subtle and dispersed, but they add up to the systematic dismantling of America’s public lands system—home to about 60% of our climbing areas—and they must be stopped.
Photo Courtesy of:Jerry Dodrill | Sierras, CA