{"id":38919,"date":"2026-06-28T05:15:21","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T12:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/goatbells.blog\/?p=38919"},"modified":"2026-06-28T05:15:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T12:15:24","slug":"defending-public-lands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goatbells.blog\/?p=38919","title":{"rendered":"Defending Public Lands"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My sister passed this on from Beyond Parks https:\/\/morethanjustparks.substack.com\/<\/a>\u2026 voices about why wild public lands are so important\u2026 for all creatures great and small <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Abraham Lincoln, 1864<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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…the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation; shall be inalienable for all time.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the language of the Yosemite Grant Act, which Lincoln signed on June 30, 1864, with the country tearing itself apart in civil war. It was the first time the federal government set land aside to protect it for everyone, and it became the seed of the entire national park idea. He found the bandwidth to safeguard Yosemite in the middle of the bloodiest war the country has ever fought. \u201cInalienable for all time\u201d is still the standard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Theodore Roosevelt, 1903<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Leave it as it is. You cannot improve on it; not a bit. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He said it on the rim of the Grand Canyon, talking a crowd of Arizonans out of building hotels on the edge. The first great conservation president was a Republican, and his instinct was simple. Hold the line for the people who come after you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Franklin Roosevelt, 1937<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A nation that destroys its soils destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh strength to our people.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

He wrote it to the nation\u2019s governors while the Dust Bowl was burying farms across the Plains. He\u2019d already sent the Civilian Conservation Corps out to plant trees by the billions. To FDR, conservation was basic national maintenance, the kind of thing you do so the country keeps breathing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Aldo Leopold, 1949<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

From the foreword to A Sand County Almanac<\/em>, published in 1949, the year after Leopold died. Leopold gave us the land ethic, the idea that we belong to the land and not the other way around. Every grazing fight and every drilling lease comes back to which half of that sentence we choose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Sigurd Olson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Wilderness to the people of America is a spiritual necessity, an antidote to the high pressure of modern life, a means of regaining serenity and equilibrium.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Olson spent his life defending the Boundary Waters, and our friends at Save the Boundary Waters are still defending it against a copper mine on its doorstep. Some places earn their protection by what they do for us when we sit still in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. Mardy Murie, 1977<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I hope the United States of America is not so rich that she can afford to let these wildernesses pass by, or so poor she cannot afford to keep them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Murie helped win the Wilderness Act and then the Alaska lands fight, and she did it by refusing to pretend she didn\u2019t care. She opened that testimony by asking the men in the room what was wrong with emotion. We lead with the stakes for a reason. People don\u2019t fight for a spreadsheet. They fight for a place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. Edward Abbey, 1977<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Abbey wrote it in The Journey Home<\/em>, and it\u2019s been on protest signs ever since. The case for public land was won a long time ago. What it needs now is people who show up. That\u2019s the whole job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. Gaylord Nelson<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Nelson founded Earth Day, served as a Democratic senator from Wisconsin, and built his career bringing business to the table instead of writing it off. He had no patience for the false choice between paychecks and public land. Healthy country, healthy economy, in that order. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. Terry Tempest Williams, 2016<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The history of our national parks and monuments is a history of subversion, shaped by individuals.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Williams wrote that in The Hour of Land<\/em>, her book on the parks at their centennial. It\u2019s one of the most useful lines on this list, because it puts the work back in our hands. The maps got drawn by people who decided these places were worth the trouble. We\u2019re the next round of those people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My sister passed this on from Beyond Parks https:\/\/morethanjustparks.substack.com\/\u2026 voices about why wild public lands are so important\u2026 for all creatures great and small 1. Abraham Lincoln, 1864 …the premises shall be held for public use, resort, and recreation; shall be inalienable for all time. That\u2019s the language of the Yosemite Grant Act, which Lincoln…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/goatbells.blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/DSCN5613-1.jpg?fit=2048%2C1536&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/goatbells.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/goatbells.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/goatbells.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goatbells.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goatbells.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/goatbells.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38920,"href":"https:\/\/goatbells.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38919\/revisions\/38920"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goatbells.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/goatbells.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goatbells.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/goatbells.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}