A new interactive report from the Center for Western Priorities explores the history of opposition to eight national parks and monuments.
Look West: Public lands and energy news from the Center for Western Priorities
** What if conservation opponents had their way 100 years ago?
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Friday, October 18, 2024
An alternate history of Death Valley National Park. Original photo by Cheryl Strahl ([link removed]) , photo illustration by Center for Western Priorities using generative AI tools.
A new interactive report ([link removed]) from the Center for Western Priorities explores the history of opposition to eight national parks and monuments. The Wrong Side of History ([link removed]) envisions the destruction that could have been if these places weren’t protected.
Despite their popularity ([link removed]) , proposals for public land protections almost always face vehement opposition from small but vocal minorities. These criticisms are nothing new. For over a century, parks and monuments that protect our country’s proudest landscapes have been established despite heated—sometimes violent—opposition. Even the most celebrated parks once faced the same tired objections as today’s national monument proposals. If presidents and congressional leaders in the past had listened to these opposing voices, iconic landscapes like Grand Teton, Rocky Mountain, and Joshua Tree National Parks would likely have been marred by mining and logging operations.
This report follows a report released by the Center for Western Priorities in 2016 ([link removed]) which explored the opposition faced by another set of parks and monuments. This report ([link removed]) looks at Bears Ears, Avi Kwa Ame, and Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni–Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon national monuments, which faced the same empty and misinformed opposition highlighted in the 2016 report.
“Landscapes like Oregon’s Owyhee Canyonlands are likely to remain unprotected and open to development unless state-level leaders are willing to ask President Biden to designate them as national monuments,” said ([link removed]) Center for Western Priorities Creative Content and Policy Manager Lilly Bock-Brownstein. “Future generations will thank them for protecting these extraordinary places and look back on their opponents as being on the wrong side of history.”.
** Quick hits
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Project 2025 would put the oil and gas industry before Americans and their public lands
Center for American Progress ([link removed])
BLM’s final Rock Springs plan reflects public, task force feedback
WyoFile ([link removed])
Groups sue Utah state engineer over lithium mining on the Green River
Salt Lake Tribune ([link removed]) | E&E News ([link removed])
U.S. approves massive geothermal energy project in Utah
Washington Post ([link removed]) | E&E News ([link removed])
Biden administration weighs establishing sacred Indigenous site in Arctic refuge after request from Gwich’in Tribe
Anchorage Daily News ([link removed])
New rule adds three Alaska Tribal representatives to federal board managing subsistence
Alaska Beacon ([link removed]) | Department of the Interior ([link removed]) [press release]
Colorado reservoir expansion violates Clean Water Act, federal judge rules
Colorado Sun ([link removed])
BLM to invest $2.4 million in cultural study in California and Arizona
Imperial Valley Press ([link removed]) | Bureau of Land Management ([link removed]) [press release]
** Quote of the day
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” The American public deserves to benefit from their public lands and waters, but Project 2025 would ensure that the oil and gas elite have access first.”
—Mariel Lutz and Jenny Rowland-Shea, Center for American Progress ([link removed])
** Picture This
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@grandtetonnps ([link removed])
Did anyone spot the comet last night? ☄️ We did!
Recent heavy smoke has greatly reduced visibility in the park during the day. However, the night sky in Grand Teton has provided wonderful displays of the aurora borealis and now Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS.
Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS, also known as Comete A3, is a comet from the Oort cloud. It is the brightest comet in the last decade and is visible from the Northern Hemisphere, even with the naked eye.
Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is currently visible low above the western horizon just after sunset for observers in the Northern Hemisphere. The comet is still relatively close to the sun and it will gradually move farther away as the week continues, making it less challenging to spot.
Although it will lose brightness, your chances of seeing the comet will improve!
Photograph courtesy of C. Weatherbee
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