Celebrate, and help, your public lands

Saturday is National Public Lands Day. It is a day to celebrate the special landscapes set aside for the public, to be protected in perpetuity for generations to come.

New Mexico and the West are blessed to have millions of acres of this public land on which to recreate, hunt, fish, graze livestock and cut firewood. These public lands – whether national forests, national parks and monuments or BLM – belong to all Americans.

If they did not exist, if all those lands had remained in private hands, there would be far fewer places to enjoy those activities. And there would be little left of a once wild America for children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to experience what this country once looked like.

The duty of the federal employees who manage these lands is to balance the needs of people with the need to protect the ecosystems within – wildlife, forests, canyons, grasslands and water. Often those needs are at odds. People tear up the landscapes by overusing them for their own pleasure. The desire for oil and minerals shoves aside the desire to preserve a magnificent landscape. Without careful oversight, human activities can fracture, destroy and deplete habitat on which wildlife depends.

In early August, President Donald Trump signed a bill that, in a bitterly divided Congress, gained bipartisan support – the Great American Outdoors Act. It sets aside permanent funding of $900 million a year to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. The bill also sets aside $9.5 billion over five years to address a dire backlog of maintenance needs in national parks and public lands.

That was a positive action from a president who otherwise seems determined to undermine protections for public lands by gutting environmental regulations and shifting policies.

National Public Lands Day, celebrated annually since 1994, is the perfect time for outdoor advocates, regardless of political persuasion, to celebrate public lands and let elected officials know they want them protected.

Usually, public land agencies, outdoor advocates and conservation groups organize cleanups and events to celebrate National Public Lands Day. The coronavirus pandemic has halted those efforts this year.

But that doesn’t mean people who enjoy the outdoors can’t take it upon themselves to pitch in and clean up. Set Saturday aside to go for a hike, ride, run or bike on a public trail near you. Or go to a favorite stream to fish. Take a few plastic trash bags with you. Spend just a little time picking up garbage and pack it out when you leave.

Your public lands thank you.

Find out more about the National Public Lands Day at