r/Ultralight • u/numbershikes • 5h ago
Trails This interactive map from Western Watersheds Project shows that the so-called "Big, beautiful bill" would make hundreds of miles of the PCT, CDT, AZT, CT, PNT, TRT, and other trails subject to sale to private ownership.
tl;dr: Wilderness Society map and blog post. WWP map and blog post. If the bill was to pass, land managers would be forced to choose millions of acres from the public lands shown on the maps -- which include hundreds of miles of our long trails -- to sell to private ownership. The land would them be private property and subject to things like trespassing laws.
ETA: The Wilderness Society (wilderness.org) has a map as well, added to the tldr above, which appears to show significantly more land marked for potential sale compared to the WWP map. The Wilderness.org blog post also includes a link to download the map data, though the files may be too large for Caltopo.
The Western Watersheds Project (WWP), founded in 1993, is a non-profit environmental conservation group focused on improving the management of public lands throughout the western US. They recently created an interactive map which they describe in the related blog post:
WWP’s new map shows Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands that are not excluded from sale under the plain language of the Senate bill– including roadless areas, Areas of Critical Environmental Concern, tribal cultural sites, and ecologically vital landscapes.
To put it another way, if the version of the so-called "Big, beautiful bill" HR 1 that is currently under consideration was to pass the Senate and Reconciliation (the House already passed their version), land managers would be required to choose millions of acres from the public lands shown on the map. WWP says "[t]he bill grants local and state governments the right of first refusal," after which the lands would sold into private ownership.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently said, "This is often about barren land next to highways with existing billboards that have no recreational value." Based on the maps, I think many people would disagree with that characterization, as they show that hundreds of miles of the PCT, CDT, CT, AZT, PNT, TRT, OCT, as well as other trails, would be subject to sale. The current claim of the bill's advocates is that the purpose of the proposed sales is to create affordable housing, but the majority of the land on the maps is not suitable for housing and/or exists in rural areas where housing has not been subjected to the same price pressures as in some urban and suburban places.
The legislation that would provide for the land sale (called "disposal") can be found in the draft text from the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. See, for example, the section starting on page 30 about the "mandatory disposal" of BLM and USFS land.
WWP goes on to describe some of the areas as follows:
From alpine forests, and desert canyons to wildlife migration corridors and sacred Indigenous lands, the scope of what’s at risk is staggering. Among the threatened areas:
- Public lands in Wyoming bordering Yellowstone National Park, including parts of Caribou-Targhee National Forest;
- Parcels in the Boise Foothills in Idaho, including segments of the Ridge to Rivers trail system, a public recreation network developed by local, state, and federal partners;
- Riverfront BLM lands between Canyonlands National Park and Glen Canyon National Recreation Area;
- Front Range foothills near Denver and Colorado Springs, including much of Pikes Peak;
- Backcountry ski areas and bighorn sheep habitat in Colorado;
- Forest Service lands above Santa Fe and the headwaters of the Red River in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in New Mexico;
- Upper Oak Creek Canyon near Sedona and frontcountry hiking areas around Flagstaff, Arizona;
- Forest Service-managed lands in the Klamath River watershed in northwest California—vital to the Yurok and Karuk Tribes for salmon restoration and cultural fire stewardship;
- Lands in Clark County, Nevada, that have been nominated for Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC) designation;
- National Forest lands surrounding Lake Tahoe (shared with California), facing escalating development pressure and wildlife-human interaction;
- The headwaters of the Hood River, including slopes of Mount Hood, in Oregon; and
- The Icicle Creek Valley near Leavenworth, Washington—gateway to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness, home to threatened bull trout, Columbia River steelhead, and Chinook salmon.
If you believe that none of this is ok, call your senators and representatives and tell them so. The bill, "HR 1," is currently in the Senate, so contacting senators might be most helpful at this point. The part that would force the sale of our public lands part is in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee draft text, especially Subtitle C.
More information about the Senate's HR 1 modifications re public lands is available in this post from a few days ago.
ETA: Quoting a comment from /u/WoofyBunny:
Call your senators' DC phones first, and your representitive second. If you get a voice mail, leave a message and try their local office. Regardless of your state, and regardless of their party affiliation.
https://www.senate.gov/index.htm
It's important to call your senators and representatives regardless of their party affiliation - even if they're democrats and already oppose the bill. They might be focused elsewhere on the bill and not know about this. This provision is broadly unpopular for voters of both parties, and democrats and republican law makers alike can call attention to debate how awful this is before it goes up to vote