Despite successful bipartisan efforts to remove language from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that would have allowed the sale of public lands to the timber, mining, and oil and gas industries, the United States’ public lands still face threats of takeover by private interests, conservationists said last weekend.
About 20 people gathered at Oxbow Park and Preserve in Durango on Saturday, National Public Lands Day, for a postcards campaign directed at U.S. Congress members representing Southwest Colorado and its public lands.
The Sierra Club, a conservation and environmentalism nonprofit that operates across the country, organized the activity.
Attendees wrote postcards to Republican Rep. Jeff Hurd and Democratic Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet asking for their commitment to preserving public lands.
The postcards campaign was aimed in particular at Hurd, who has supported seemingly contradictory sides of the public lands debate this year.
Hurd’s Productive Public Lands Act introduced to Congress in March was attacked by critics for promising to “unlock resource development” in “recreation, grazing, timber harvesting, drilling, mining, and other appropriate uses” on public lands, as described in a news release from his office.
No action has been taken on the bill since it was referred to the House Committee on Natural Resources on March 10, the same day it was introduced, according to Congress.
Conversely, when congressional Republicans pushed for the sale of public lands in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Hurd supported removing that language from the bill in June.
“Republican or Democrat – representing red, purple or blue districts – one sentiment continues to ring true: public lands are not for sale,” Hurd said in a joint statement with Democratic Rep. Joe Neguse.
Molly McSmith with Sierra Club said on Saturday that public lands belong to everyone, and they should be protected and preserved.
In addition to removing the public lands sale from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, another recent victory for conservationists was the defeat of a recent proposal to exempt the U.S. Department of Defense from the Endangered Species Act.
But other threats remain, she said.
A public comment period for the Trump administration’s proposed rescission of the Clinton-era 2001 Roadless Rule closed earlier this month, she said.
The Roadless Rule protects about 60 million acres of roadless areas, including almost 45 million acres of National Forest system lands, from road construction and timber harvesting, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Postcards for public lands
In celebration of National Public Lands Day, Durango area residents met at Oxbow Park and Preserve in Durango to write postcards to the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Congress members Rep. Jeff Hurd and Sens. John Hickenlooper and Michael Bennet urging they stick up for public lands.
Many of the postcards expressed their authors’ appreciation for the great outdoors and encouraged Congress members to visit Southwest Colorado’s public lands for themselves.
“Please vote in favor of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF),” Durango resident Kent Norgren said in a postcard to Hurd. “It is important to me that (we) maintain our natural resources for our kids and grandkids. Thank you so much!”
The event was organized by the Sierra Club, a conservation nonprofit that operates across the country, and aimed to educate and activate the community in defense of public land preservation.
McSmith said the Trump administration also aims to remove Biden-era no-use designations on land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The designations identify the land explicitly for conservation, and removing them would open the land to logging, oil drilling and other activities.
“Even here in Durango, we have BLM land on Animas City Mountain that is closed seasonally for peregrine falcons for conservation reasons,” she said. “That kind of land use is going to become significantly more difficult across the West if this rule change goes unopposed.”
Another proposed rule change concerns the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which according to the fund’s coalition is the country’s most important program for conserving irreplaceable lands and expanding outdoor recreation opportunities across the country.
The Land and Water Conservation Fund funded the initial build out of Needham Park in the 1970s, and the fund benefited improvements to the Animas River Trail at Memorial Park, McSmith said. It also helped fund acquisitions of portions of the San Juan National Forest.
She said the proposed rule change would make land acquisitions significantly more difficult, which could impact the creation of natural corridors connecting large mammal habitats.
Durango resident Steve Parker described himself as a fiscal conservative and a believer in public lands. He said he met his wife on a bike ride in a national park, and they volunteer to give tours at Mesa Verde National Park.
Public lands contribute to Durango’s and La Plata County’s desirability as a destination, he said.
“There are some very conservative people that want to get access to drill for oil. Well, there are plenty of places to drill for oil that don’t have to be on public lands,” he said.
Mary Kate, chairwoman of the Sierra Club’s Southwest Colorado chapter, said the community has the ability to protect and restore its public lands – it’s just a matter of spreading the word and giving people concrete ways to get involved.
cburney@durangoherald.com
