PINEDALE — More than two dozen people attended a forum on threats to Wyoming’s public lands earlier this month. Panelists included Peggie dePasquale with Wyoming Wilderness Association, Caitlin Tan from Wyoming Public Media, Matt Gaffney of the Wyoming Outdoor Council, and Brandon Scurlock with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.
For two hours, concerned citizens worked with the panelists to identify threats to wildlife and public lands. The top three identified include the construction of the Dry Piney Helium and Carbon Sequestration complex, potential changes to the Rock Springs Resource Management Plan (RMP), and the rewriting of the Bridger-Teton RMP.
Other issues raised included repeated calls for federal public lands to be transferred to state or private ownership, fast-tracked energy development permitting, impacts to habitat from recreation and development, the spread of diseases such as Chronic Wasting Disease, the Borderlands Conservation Act, and efforts to rescind the Roadless Rule. Audience members noted that attacks on the constitutional basis of the federal government could make local efforts to protect our lands ineffective or meaningless.
Participants took a moment to celebrate the favorable conclusion of the corner crossing legal case, with dePasquale noting that 96% of Wyomingites access and use public lands.
Gaffney added, “I'm not arguing the Federal Government has been perfect, but its stewardship of public lands in Wyoming has preserved places like Seedskadee, Fremont Lake, the Winds, and the Red Desert, to name a few. We are getting a good look at our new reality. Efforts to sell federal public lands to the highest bidder. Land management agencies significantly diminished by loss of personnel. And policies that place extractive uses and development above all else, and threaten special places. Remember the Code of the West. Some things are not for sale.”
DePasquale concluded with, “We are seeing a systematic and relentless attack on public land across the country. We need to remember that protecting our Wyoming public wildlands is not a partisan issue. It is a cause that we all need to rally behind if we have any hope in protecting the wide open spaces that belong to all of us, and make Wyoming what it is.”
