Protecting Public Lands
Now more than ever, it’s important to understand why protecting land and water matters. This is not just about fragile ecosystems, though they are vital. It’s not only about people who love wilderness, or those who find peace in rivers and forests. The truth is simpler: our health, our communities, and our future economy all depend on healthy land and water.
When ecosystems are degraded, we are compromised. Deforestation leads to sedimentation and polluted water, unstable hillsides, and we lose resiliency against any extremes of drought or floods.
When I walk through a forest I see it. Healthy watershed soils hold and releases water slowly. Springs flow. Groundwater recharges. Wildlife and diversity thrives. But when forests are cut down or heavily burned, the springs dry up. The rain doesn’t percolate into the soil, instead it’s torrents of mud flow and floods. Instead of replenishing what sustains us, we lose resiliency.
California is rich in public lands. Our coastlines, rivers, deserts, and mountains are all part of this incredible network of protected places. These lands are where we hike, ride horses, mountain bike, paddle, and surf. They are where we gather with family, where communities come together, and where wildlife can thrive.
Protecting thirty percent of our lands and waters in California is not just an environmental goal. It is a promise to future generations. It is a commitment to clean water, to resilience in the face of climate change, and to equity, ensuring that everyone has access to nature and its benefits. Public lands are essential to the health of both people and the planet.
What Are Public Lands?
Public lands are managed on behalf of the people. They take many forms- from parks and monuments to wilderness areas and rivers- and each carries its own purpose, protection, and vulnerability.
National Parks: Created by Congress to preserve natural beauty, cultural history, and recreation opportunities.
National Monuments: Designated by Congress or the President under the Antiquities Act to protect places of cultural, historical, or natural significance. Their boundaries can be changed by later administrations, as we saw with Bears Ears.
Wilderness Areas: Defined by the Wilderness Act of 1964 as places “untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Designated by Congress, they are kept free of roads, mechanized vehicles, and development.
Wild and Scenic Rivers: Protected under the 1968 Act to remain free-flowing for their natural, cultural, and recreational values. They benefit both ecosystems and communities that depend on clean, living water.
Multiple-Use Lands (BLM and National Forests): Managed for a mix of purposes — grazing, logging, mining, energy development, recreation, and conservation. These are the most contested, as they sit at the center of ongoing debates over balance between extraction and protection.
Current Threats to Public Lands
The protections we count on for public lands are not permanent. They shift with each administration, and right now, many are under attack.
One major example is the Public Lands Rule. For more than forty years, the Bureau of Land Management largely prioritized extraction: mining, drilling, grazing, and other industrial uses. In 2024, the agency took a historic step forward by affirming that conservation, wildlife habitat, climate resilience, and cultural resources are just as important. It was the first time the agency explicitly recognized what the law has always required: that public lands must be managed for the benefit of all, not just for corporations.
That progress is now at risk. The current administration has moved to rescind the rule, returning us to an outdated, extraction-first model that favors short-term profits over long-term community health. This would open the door to more land degradation, reduced recreational access, and increased pressure on already fragile watersheds. It would also threaten the hundreds of billions of dollars and millions of jobs that outdoor recreation contributes to the U.S. economy each year.
The attempt to rescind the Public Lands Rule is part of a broader pattern: efforts to repeal the Roadless Rule, attempts to sell off lands, and cuts to the very agencies tasked with stewardship. Together, these moves risk turning our shared public heritage into a profit center for corporations.
Why It Matters
Public lands are our rivers, our forests, our deserts and mountains. They protect the water that sustains us, and the places where communities gather and connect. They are essential to climate resilience, cultural survival, and human health.
Protecting them is not only about ecosystems- it is about who we are and who we want to be as a society. When we care for public lands, we are caring for ourselves and for our future.
