Outdoor Community Generates Momentum for 4 Million Acres of Land Protection
West Fork Humptulips River Gorge. Photo by Thomas O'Keefe.
A Must-Pass Bill and a Package to Protect Nearly 4 Million Acres
The outdoor community has been advocating hard for a package of key public land protections, including the CORE Act, the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act, and the Protecting America’s Wilderness Act, and thanks to support from key members of Congress, there’s a chance this package might pass with the National Defense Authorization Act, funding that needs to be extended by the end of September.
How Your Advocacy Is Working
A few weeks ago, Outdoor Alliance asked people to write their members of Congress about passing the Protecting America’s Wilderness Act, along with the CORE Act and a mineral withdrawal around the Grand Canyon. We have a rare opportunity to include these bills in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a must-pass bill that has previously included some public lands protections. Because of outreach from the Outdoor Alliance community, and because of advocacy from Representatives Huffman, Degette, Smith, Neguse, Schiff, and others, this package of bills was included in the House’s version of the NDAA.
The hitch? The House and Senate recently passed two different versions of the NDAA, which means the bills will be sent to conference for members to negotiate a compromise version of the bill that will then get a vote in the House and Senate. We think there is a good chance for these land protections to be included – it happened before in 2014 – but it won’t happen without outreach from the outdoor community. And even if we come up short, a big effort now would make it that much more likely we could move these bills early in the next Congress.
What Public Lands Are at Stake?
Along with the Protecting America’s Wilderness Act, the CORE Act, and the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act were added by amendment to the House version of the NDAA. The CORE Act preserves 400,000 acres of public land, including 73,000 acres of Wilderness, and the Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act is a million acres mineral withdrawal. Together, these protections would offer benefits for outdoor recreation, climate, clean air and water, and habitat on nearly 4 million acres. These bills reflect a lot of careful consideration to protect climbing, mountain biking, and other recreation, including Wilderness climbing language and ensuring boundaries are carefully drawn to preserve existing mountain biking. The bills protect outstanding outdoor recreation across the West, from parts of the Trinity Alps in California, to Castle Peak in Colorado, to climbing on Mt. Ellinor, Mt. Washington, and Jefferson Peak in Washington.
The Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy (CORE) Act brings together a number of previously-introduced bills, including the Continental Divide Recreation, Wilderness, and Camp Hale Legacy Act; the San Juan Mountains Wilderness Act; the Thompson Divide Withdrawal and Protection Act; and the Curecanti National Recreation Area Boundary Establishment Act. Outdoor Alliance and its member groups, including IMBA and Access Fund, have worked on protecting these landscapes for more than a decade. In the CORE Act, Colorado lawmakers have taken great care to protect the world-class hiking, climbing, and mountain biking along the Continental Divide, the San Juan Mountains, and the Thompson Divide. Read more about it here.
The Grand Canyon Centennial Protection Act would offer permanent protection to the area surrounding the Grand Canyon, prohibiting new mining claims on a million acres of adjacent public land.
The Protecting America’s Wilderness Act would offer permanent protection to six key landscapes for the outdoor community:
The Wild Olympics Wilderness and Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (originally H.R. 2642/S. 1382) will protect 126,500 acres of Wilderness and 464 miles of Wild and Scenic Rivers on the Olympic Peninsula, the first protections in nearly 30 years and the first ever Wild and Scenic River designations in the area. The bill will protect world-class hiking, camping, boating, hunting, fishing, and paddling.
Colorado Wilderness Act of 2020 (originally H.R. 2546, see map) protects important landscapes in Colorado for their conservation and recreation values, including protections for Handies Peak and Redcloud Peak, two 14ers with spectacular views of the San Juan Mountains.
The Northwest California Wilderness, Recreation, and Working Forests Act (originally H.R. 2250/S.1100, see map) protects 262,000 acres of public land as Wilderness, designates 379 miles of new Wild and Scenic Rivers, and creates a special restoration area of more than 700,000 acres. It would protect outdoor recreation in one of the most stunning landscapes in the state, from coastal redwoods to grasslands to the Trinity Alps Wilderness and the Smith River. The bill provides key protections for whitewater paddling, climbing opportunities, and hiking, and would help establish a new National Recreation Trail.
The Central Coast Heritage Protection Act (originally H.R. 2199/S. 1111, see map) would protect 262,000 acres of public land in the Los Padres Forest and Carrizo Plain National Monument, designate 159 miles of river as Wild and Scenic, and create two new scenic areas, Black Mountain and Condor Ridge. It would designate a new 400-mile Condor National Recreation Trail that would provide through-hiking and backpacking opportunities across the entire length of the Los Padres National Forest. Along with protecting rock climbing and paddling, the bill ensures that new wilderness boundaries were drawn to preserve existing mountain biking, and would create opportunities for the Forest Service to study how to improve or create new trails.
The San Gabriel Mountains Foothills and Rivers Protection Act (originally H.R. 2215/S. 1109, see map) protects the diverse recreation opportunities in the San Gabriels, adjacent to Los Angeles. The bill would establish a 51,000 acres National Recreation Area in the foothills and San Gabriel River corridor, helping improve access to underserved populations in the city.
The Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act (originally H.R. 1708) will expand the current Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, improving access to public land adjacent to communities with limited green space.
We’re stoked about this package, which is the result of a lot of hard work from our crew of policy experts and comes on the heels of a historic victory with last spring’s public lands package.
There’s a good chance this full package could be included in the upcoming must-pass NDAA, but it’s not going to happen without your help. Please write your members of Congress today and ask that they include these protections in the upcoming bill. We’ve made it easy to do with the tool below:
Update: The original version of this post said the package was 2.7 million acres of protections. This did not account for non-Wilderness protections in the Protecting America’s Wilderness Act package, which is an additional 1.2 million acres of protections.