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The Wilderness Society produced a new map to illustrate the potential reach of executive and secretarial orders signed by President Donald Trump and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum in pursuit of their shared fossil fuel-centric “energy dominance” vision for America's public lands.
“As we speak, the Trump administration’s Department of the Interior is deciding which of our treasured places to sell out for drilling and mining,” said Dan Hartinger, senior director of agency policy at The Wilderness Society. “Our analysis shows that their plans could end up removing or reducing protections for tens of millions of acres’ worth of wildlife habitat, ancient cultural sites, and outdoor recreation areas.”
The Wilderness Society map is a visualization of the national monuments, national forests, wildlife refuges, and other treasured public lands across the country that could fall under the scope of the Trump administration’s orders, including places like Bears Ears National Monument, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and the watershed of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
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The economic and environmental impacts are of course massive, but it is the possibility of severely declining access to mystery, beauty, and health that worries me the most.”
