Click here for our recent email newsletter with links to news about public lands.
The summer heat is here, so stay hydrated, watch for rattlesnakes, and enjoy your time outdoors!
Speaking of the outdoors, we’ve been producing running events on public lands for over 20 years now, whether in Saguaro National Park, the Kaibab National Forest, or on county and city terrain here in Southern Arizona. We’ve worked closely with staff and employees at all these locations and we have great respect for their work.
It’s also true, though, that political forces want to change the relationship Americans have with our public lands.
To see some of the forces at play, below we’ve put together links to information on some of the current politics of public lands.
You’re all members of the running and outdoors community and you may know more about this or have different perspectives than we do. . . .
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| Four topics for consideration: 1) DOGE and the new leadership at the Department of the Interior have cut staffing in National Parks and National Forests, with an estimated 13% reduction in personnel in recent months (see details here). On our end, we’re working hard to stay on track for our permits with the NPS and National Forest and we have a great relationship with these offices, but for others the reduction in staffing has made it harder to receive special use permits for running events on national lands. 2) In addition to cutting staff and diminishing services, the current federal administration has taken to officially calling our public lands “assets” and wants to sell our national lands as an asset class to private investors. This plan is championed by the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, but is being countered both by politicians and land stewards, as explained by WesternPriorities.org and the Sierra Club. Close to home, the current federal administration has indicated that they want to peel off pieces of the Ironwood National Monument, with local municipalities and groups protesting these efforts. You can visit the Department of the Interior to read their press releases about land transfers, streamlined mining permits, rescinded fish protections, and other DOI actions in the past few months. 3) As you may have read, the new leadership at the Dept of Interior wants to remove historical information that depicts anything “negative about past or living Americans.” (That’s a topic for a different day but if you’re interested here’s a link to an NPS feedback page https://www.nps.gov/aboutus/eo14253.htm.) Simultaneously, the DoJ seems to be sending a trial balloon to criminalize the use of public lands by recreation enthusiasts — see this article explaining how the DoJ has prosecuted a runner for cutting across the switchbacks on a trail in the Grand Tetons, against the wishes of the National Park Service. The implications for recreational runners and hikers based on this particular case are uncertain. 4) If you’re a runner, walker, or hiker interested in engaging with local and national communities to support public lands, here are a few resources:
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