John,
Take two heavy, solid vehicles and string a thick chain between them. Now drive those vehicles across acres of wooded land. What do you think happens to the trees?
It isn’t pretty.
This is the fastest, crudest, most destructive method of clearing land … and thanks to new federal guidelines, it can happen in Bears Ears National Monument.
Now, you may know that two years ago, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) cut the monument down to 15 percent of its original size. You may think I’m talking about what is allowed on the 1.1 million acres that are now open to exploitation.
I’m not.
I’m talking about the 201,876 remaining acres that are still supposed to be under federal protection.
Under guidelines recently released by the BLM, the removing of trees by “chaining” is now allowed in the national monument. So are cell towers, power lines, and off-road vehicles.
The government spent months collecting reactions to its plans for the remnants of Bear’s Ears, as is required by law. Hundreds of thousands of Americans wrote and called and emailed to protest the dangerous and destructive lack of stewardship. They were ignored.
Rest assured, we are doing all we can to improve this terrible situation and return some semblance of sanity to the management of our national monuments and other public lands. That’s what we do at The Trust for Public Land: We create parks and protect land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come.
And we have made some inroads in Congress. There are lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who see this travesty for what it is and want to fix it.
But there are others in both the Legislative and Executive Branches who see our public lands as nothing more than opportunities for private corporations to turn a fast profit.
These new BLM guidelines show just what we’re up against. They only serve to make us fight harder, and I’m asking you to step up and fight alongside us. Please take a moment right now and make a tax-deductible gift to begin your membership in The Trust for Public Land — in support of our battle for Bears Ears, other national monuments, and public lands all across the country.
We cannot let these assaults on land that belongs to all of us go unchallenged.
Sincerely,
Kim Elliot
Director of Membership
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