Yes, we may need to stop shaking hands and gathering in large crowds, but there’s no better time than now to show our love for Wilderness. The traditional GivingTuesday happens the week after Thanksgiving as an antidote to conspicuous consumption. This year, everything is topsy-turvy with the covid-19 pandemic. And in response, GivingTuesdayNow on May 5 is a special global day of giving to support our favorite nonprofits in their time of need. Right now, Wilderness preservation might not be grabbing the headlines, and understandably so. But please know that the Trump administration is using this time—when the public is focused on a global pandemic—to ramp up its assault on Wilderness and other public lands. The Administration has actually accelerated its plans to open up our public lands, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to development. And all throughout the Wilderness system, some 111 million acres designated by Congress, we’re seeing dangerous rollbacks: -
Savage disregard for the Wilderness Act’s protections along the southern border where Trump is building his wall, bulldozing right through places like the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge and Wilderness in Arizona. -
Proposals for massive mines that clearly endanger the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota and the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and Wilderness in Georgia. -
Rewriting livestock grazing rules for tens of millions of acres of public lands, including more than 13 million acres of Wilderness, to benefit private ranchers at the expense of wildlife, watersheds, and recreation visitors. -
Gutting America’s bedrock environmental law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), to make it easier to take a wrecking ball to public lands protections. We’ve relied on NEPA to defend Wilderness—and the wildlife that calls it home—from predator control, motor vehicle use, helicopters, grazing developments, and even new mining and roads. The best way to stop this administration’s Shock Doctrine approach—its using covid-19 to strip away environmental laws and policies—is to support organizations like Wilderness Watch.
As our name suggests, we’re on high alert, and we’re doing all we can to protect our wildest lands. | |
