Threat to public lands began before Bishop, President-elect Trump

President Theodore Roosevelt once said, “Do not let selfish men or greedy interests skin your country of its beauty, its riches or its romance.” We are currently at risk of just such a skinning.

Utah Rep. Rob Bishop is proposing that President-elect Trump rescind all national monuments proclaimed by presidents Obama and Clinton, one of which would be our Rio Grande del Norte National Monument. Bishop is angry that presidents can use executive power to proclaim national monuments, which they have done since Roosevelt.

Whether a President Trump can or will rescind any monuments remains to be seen, but here in New Mexico many of our leaders are taking no chances. Sens. Tom Udall and Martin Heinrich and Rep. Ben Ray Lujan are strongly defending Obama’s national monument proclamations and public lands in general. On Dec. 6, the Taos County Commission unanimously passed a resolution stating that it “strongly reaffirms support of the Rio Grande del Norte to protect its scenic, environmental, economic, recreational and traditional values.”

Some may be shocked that a congressman from Utah who knows little or nothing in particular about our national monuments, would suggest they be rescinded. Bishop is chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources and a leader in a broad effort to divest the American public of its public lands. He is powerful. His agenda is large, and the particulars of the national monuments at stake are of no concern to him.

But they are of concern to us and our representatives, and if we embrace the values of public lands we must be vigilant and gird ourselves for a fight whether or not Trump considers Bishop’s advice on national monuments. The effort to “return federal land to the states” (despite the fact they were never state lands) or transfer it to private ownership has waxed and waned in the West for decades. Currently that effort has intensified with legislation introduced in Congress and state legislatures and incidents like seizure of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge last winter. A well-funded national campaign is under way to skin us of our shared lands here in the West and eventually place it in private ownership.

About 30 percent of the land area of New Mexico is federal, including national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, monuments, wilderness areas and lands managed by the BLM. These lands are valuable to our communities in many ways, as testified in the county commission resolution. They include environmental assets, such as protection of water quality and quantity, recreational assets for hunting, fishing, camping, and economic assets for a recreation and tourism industry — and traditional assets for grazing, food gathering and as sources of inspiration and spiritual uplift.

The federal government does not just hold these lands, but manages them at considerable expense to taxpayers. In fiscal years 2011 and 2012 the Forest Service spent over $240 million fighting wildfires in New Mexico. All taxpayers foot this bill, but if it were New Mexico land, then New Mexico taxpayers would be on the hook for such expenses, and we all know we could not afford it, especially in tight budgetary times. So we would be forced to divest of this land to the highest bidders, and you can imagine who that might be. Private resource-based industries are itching to control federal lands across the West so they can have a free hand in resource development and land use without consideration of public wants and needs. So the plan would be: transfer federal lands to states, which can’t afford to manage them (or don’t wish to), which then sell all or part to the private interests pushing the transfer, who exploit the resources denying those resources to a public that currently enjoys them. This is an unacceptable scenario.

Many thanks to the Taos County Commission for rising in defense of the Rio Grande del Norte. They have another resolution before them upon which they hope to act before Christmas. It reads “Now, therefore, let it be resolved that the Taos County Board of Commissioners supports continued national ownership and management of these invaluable public lands in Taos County as well as in the United States generally, as national assets for all Americans ... that the Board recognizes the irreplaceable value these lands provide to our economy, recreation, quality of life and national heritage.”

This resolution could not be more important or timely.

Miles lives in El Prado.