We Utahns love public lands. They represent the freedom that defines us. They have shaped our state’s history and our individual persona. It’s where we hunt, hike, fish, earn a living — not just for development and natural resource extraction.

As a sixth-generation Utahn and the Utah state director for The Wilderness Society, this is personal for me. Utah’s unique landscapes and public access hold lifelong memories, from camping trips with my parents and grandparents, to new memories made with my kids and now grandkids.

Unfortunately, once again, Utah has been thrust into an all too familiar position: splashed across national headlines as ground zero in the fight to protect our public lands from the administration’s attempt to sell them off. This time, the story was roughly 3 million acres’ worth of cuts to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, and the dissolution of the Bears Ears Commission without a word of notice to the Tribes that led it. Now, a U.S. Government Accountability Office opinion paves the way for Sen. Mike Lee and his allies to tear up the land use plan and accelerate destruction.

The Wilderness Society stands with the five Tribes of the Bears Ears Commission and local communities who shaped this land use plan. Without it, we risk irreplaceable cultural resources and our freedom to explore these lands today and generations from now.

And, amid quieter and more pernicious threats unfolding behind closed doors, we must all collectively send a message to our congressional delegation that they stop this all out assault on our public lands.

While public attention is focused elsewhere, the administration and Congress are using shortened (or eliminated) comment periods, obscure policy and agency changes, and legislation to systematically weaken and dismantle many of the laws, institutions and guardrails that make these lands truly public. The administration is working to weaken the very regulations mentioned in the Oval Office during last month’s monument reduction as justification to shrink protections.

And what we stand to lose is far more than lines on a map. Utahns, and all Americans, risk losing our freedom to enjoy landscapes that protect wildlife habitat, safeguard cultural resources and provide clean air and water for our families.

In just under two years, 37 separate rules, manuals, executive orders and planning decisions have been rolled back, weakened or thrown “under review” by the Trump administration — touching, one way or another, nearly every acre of public land in America.

The BLM public lands rule that covered 250 million acres: gone. Roadless Rule protections on more than 45 million acres of national forest: in the process of being rolled back. Right now, the Interior Department is running eight separate “reviews” at once, across three agencies, of the guidance that safeguards nearly 200 million acres of wilderness and other relatively undeveloped wildlands. And unless you’re a dedicated reader of the Federal Register and various trade publications, all of it was easy to miss.

Here in Utah, sneak attacks abound. Our national forests are being steered through “shared stewardship” deals. The Forest Service is moving its headquarters to Salt Lake City. While this may sound positive, the shedding of thousands of the rangers, biologists and fire crews who actually tend to the lands negates any benefit of relocation.

These actions have consequences that will fall into the hands of future generations who did not ask for it. The administration is taking something that belongs not just to Utahns, but all people: our public lands, our ability to steward them and our voice in shaping their future.

Last year, when Sen. Lee tried to put millions of acres up for sale in the budget reconciliation process, the backlash was bipartisan and overwhelming. Hunters, anglers, Tribes, ranchers, veterans, Republicans and Democrats alike forced him to pull the proposal. It was a win for public lands and a heartening sign that these places still have the power to unite us.

Utahns are fortunate to be surrounded by natural beauty and landscapes as unique and diverse as our population. Whether our ancestry is Indigenous or pioneer, or you’re a relative newcomer to Utah, our landscapes are a part of who we are and why we choose to live here.

This land is not for sale: This is our land, our legacy. We will not stand idly by while it’s bartered away behind closed doors. And despite what the president and the Utah delegation would have you believe, it is open to the public for hunting, fishing, camping, backpacking and, yes, even walking.

Charlie Luke is the Utah state director for The Wilderness Society and former Salt Lake City Council member.

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