Flooding the Zone with Public-Lands Journalists

Today I am sending the first newsletter from RE:PUBLIC, a nonprofit news organization singularly focused on covering America's 660 million acres of state and federal lands. But sending first requires writing about this vast topic, and I find myself staring at a white screen, paralyzed by where to begin. The past six months have brought a flurry of unprecedented threats to the future management and very existence of our common trust. To wit:

• The proposal from Utah senator Mike Lee to sell off millions of acres of federal public lands
• The rescinding of the "roadless rule," which has protected some of our last stands of old growth in our national forests
• The attempted raid on the landmark Land and Water Conservation Fund to pay for deferred federal maintenance in our national parks
• The declawing of the Endangered Species Act
• The dismantling of environmental regulations to roll out the red carpet for the oil and gas industry

I could go on and on. Instead, let me point you to an April post from my friend and former Outside magazine colleague Wes Siler, who painstakingly chronicled every harm the Trump administration has inflicted on our public lands in its first 100 days. Since then the list has grown a lot longer. It's a painful illustration of Steve Bannon's infamous philosophy for defeating the media: "The way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit." The desired outcome of such a strategy is the very paralysis I feel today. The current administration wants to make journalists feel so overwhelmed and disoriented by the pace of change in public-lands management that we don't know where to start covering it.

Instead of remaining discouraged by the negative news, though, I found myself charged to be part of a change. The vague notion of creating a new public-lands news organization had been rattling around in my head, but it solidified into into commitment while I was visiting Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument, outside Silver City, New Mexico, in March. My family had just spent spring break backpacking in Arizona's Chiracahua Mountains and, with an extra day before we needed to return home to Santa Fe, we decided to take a spontaneous trip to the Gila. It turns out that this historic Native site, sitting at the end of a winding 40-mile road heading north from Silver City, is not a place that lends itself to spontaneous visits. When we finally arrived, exhausted, we were greeted at the visitor center by an equally bedraggled crowd of 60-odd fellow spring breakers.

Why the crowd? The visitor center was closed. DOGE cuts had reduced the number of full-time staff, preventing the center from remaining open during normal operating hours. But thanks to a group of dedicated National Park Service volunteers, the trail to the cliff dwellings remained open—and my youngest daughter was able to earn her Junior Ranger Badge—but all the park visitors who'd arrived thinking the monument would be operating as it normally did were frustrated and angry.

That's not surprising. Our national parks and monuments are some of the most popular government entities in America, and protecting them is one of our last truly bipartisan-supported issues. If you're just looking at national monuments like the Gila, 89 percent of western-states voters say they're in favor of keeping such units as part of the park system as they are currently designated—not reducing their size or eliminating them entirely, which the Trump administration is threatening to do.

And this made me wonder: If these lands are so beloved, how can our leaders get away with targeting them for disposal and downsizing, to say nothing of closing visitor centers? One of the answers is: a lack of awareness. There are simply not enough journalists in America covering these developments to keep our citizens informed. That's why I founded RE:PUBLIC. I've come to realize that to ensure the long-term viability of our public lands, we need to flood the zone with journalists. What begins as a weekly newsletter that you are now reading will soon evolve into a full-fledged news organization producing high-impact investigative stories about the future of public lands.

Because RE:PUBLIC is a nonprofit, that evolution requires money. We are well underway in our fundraising efforts, tapping major donors and foundations for support. But we also need support from present and future readers like you. You can learn much more about RE:PUBLIC and and our plans on our site. Your donation helps facilitate transparency around the future of public-lands management.

The Good, Bad, and the Ugly

Every Friday, our team shares critical stories about public lands from around the internet. This list could be exhaustive and exhausting, but our intent is to inform, not overwhelm. Instead, we choose three to five important stories you should be aware of—including at least one piece of good news.

Good: After Defeating Plan to Sell Public Land, Coalition of Colorado Advocates Keeps Up the Fight: “These threats are not gonna stop,” Fitzwilliams said. “We need to maintain this enthusiasm not just to prevent the sale of public lands, but for the long term investment and stewardship of our 500 million acres of land across the country.” 

Bad: Public lands and wildlife turn to stopgap solutions: As the federal land and wildlife agencies struggle to meet their responsibilities, volunteers and others are stepping up, not only to help endangered toads but also to maintain trail systems, host campgrounds and even clean outhouses. Their assistance is crucial, but it’s not a permanent solution—and there are some jobs they just can’t do.

Ugly: Outcry as White House Moves to Open Arctic Reserve to Oil and Gas Drilling: The BLM rollback is part of a broad, rapid-fire regulatory push to industrialize the Alaskan Arctic, particularly the NPR-A. Weeks after proposing to strip protections from the reserve, the Department of Interior signaled it would adopt a management plan that would open 82% of the NPR-A to oil drilling. Two weeks ago, before the public comment period had ended, the BLM rescinded three other Biden-era documents protecting the reserve.