"Everything's For Sale" - New Documentary On American Public Lands Opening Online Today

[hatrack]

Towards the middle of the new film Public Trust, about the continued push by zealous conservatives to privatize ownership of the United States’ federally-managed public lands, the stakes are laid bare: “If you don’t get engaged, you lose,” says Land Tawney, president and CEO of the nonprofit Backcountry Hunters and Anglers. “When you get complacent, things are done to you.”

Tawney is speaking of the 640m acres that are owned by the country’s citizenry. Few things in politics are as quintessentially American as the country’s vast system of public lands. No other nation on earth has this much property that belongs to its people and is intended to be management by the government for the benefit and uplift of all. Yet selling off those lands is still listed as a goal in the Republican party platform, and the Trump administration seems singularly focused on rolling back protections to usher in more drilling and mining.

Public Trust, executive produced by Robert Redford and Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, is required viewing for anyone hoping to understand the public lands issue. Patagonia Films is releasing it online for free today, one day before National Public Lands Day.

The film is a mix of Planet Earth–worthy cinematography, old news clips, and on-the-ground interviews with dozens of experts, ranchers, and Native Americans. Mostly, though, it follows investigating reporter Hal Herring as he travels around the US to get a firsthand glimpse of some of the most imperiled public lands – the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), and Bears Ears National Monument, in Utah, which President Trump reduced by 85% in 2017.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/25/film-lays-bare-stakes-of-privatizing-us-public-lands

[2naSalit]

1. K&R!!

[yonder]

2. Several years ago there was a public lands rally

in our downtown capitol city. More encouraging than the large turnout was the different types of folks you wouldn't expect to have much in common. Enviros, hunters, recreationists, gun nuts, biologists, etc., all there to voice opposition to another periodic legislative attempt to privatize or gain local control of our public lands.

It was pretty heartening actually, to see that kind of unity in such a disparate group. I think that show of force shut down that particular attempt of the Sagebrush Rebellion types to weasel their way in to controlling more of our public lands. It seems every few years or so, the private ownership/extractive interests muster up only to face defeat. So far. But as the OP states, if you become complacent and don't stay engaged, you lose. Mucking around with public lands seems to be a third rail of sorts, at least in the west, and I would hope that continues.