SPECIAL PLACES

All natural areas are special, but many public lands specifically deemed by the government to be worthy of protection still don’t get the respect they deserve. At the Center, we believe that you just shouldn’t mess with certain places, whether they’re national monuments, national conservation areas, or wilderness areas.

Unfortunately, most federal land-management agencies still operate based on outdated notions of how we should handle our public lands, and they tend to disregard commonsense precautions to protect special places. The Bureau of Land Management, for example, interprets its solemn duty to protect the breathtaking Cascade-Siskiyou and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments as carte blanche to allow the continuation of highly destructive activities like livestock grazing and road building. Given free rein, the agency would also allow virtually unrestricted off-road vehicle use and many other damaging human pursuits in the California Desert Conservation Area. Meanwhile, the San Pedro National Riparian Conservation Area — the first designated place of its kind — is threatened by exponential human population growth and the depletion of the groundwater that supports it.

The Center is using smart tools and strategic campaigns to protect all these special places and more to secure a better future for species, ecosystems, and humans alike.