How can sensitive, intelligent people who live in one of the last wild refuges within the earth’s temperate zone so completely fail to understand wilderness, or the value of protecting it.
Instead of seeking ways to live in this environment and provide for our children, a substantial number of us appear willing to sacrifice the water we drink, the air we breath and the diversity of life that has been gifted to us, for the sole purpose of protecting their inalienable right to go joy-riding-wherever-the-hell-they-please. Enough already.
The letter to the president asking to establish protections for the greater Canyonlands area is a plea for help on all of our behalf. That it was a group of local businesses asking for the preservation of the very resources that are our collective stock in trade is something we should all be supportive of.
Why do so many of us fail to see the value of preserving what we have? Big money and special interests are what drive the assault on our lands – they care nothing for us. And now, when a group of local citizens seize on the only wildcard in a deck that is stacked against us, another group of local citizens goes out of their way to punish them. National Monument status doesn’t make a place off limits, it simply provides some ground rules so we don’t love it to death.
These are OUR public lands, and WE need to protect them – from outside special interests, and from our own special interests.
Now, how do we go about that? State government is compromised, the federal government is paralyzed, and you may not like it, but there is only one man on the planet with the power to do anything about it.
—Rob Kerchen
Moab