Your Voice Matters: From Personal Stories to Policy Change

Powerful advocacy begins with simple conversations. When we share why we treasure certain places—a favorite fishing spot, a special hunting ground, a memorable trail, we transform abstract policy into tangible, personal stakes. Talking to people about the places that matter to us creates ripples that become waves of action. And it’s working. Our collective advocacy has prevented nefarious attacks on public lands and waters - and we must remain loud as the threats build. In this newsletter, we cover our recent DC Fly-In, threats to national monuments, and proactive bills that protect nature.

Bringing Local Voices to Washington, DC

The Fallon-Paiute Shoshone Tribe, Conservation Lands Foundation, and Nevada and Utah-based
Friends Grassroots Network members meet with Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto.

We recently assembled a diverse coalition of community leaders from across the Friends Grassroots Network to bring their stories and messages to the halls of Congress, recognizing the emerging threats to public lands and the need for policymakers to hear directly from the people most impacted by these decisions.

Impact: Our 40 face-to-face meetings with 35 members of Congress resulted in several elected officials signing onto efforts to prevent public land sell-offs, demonstrating the power of our Friends Network. 

Our Take: Personal stories from constituents continue to cut through political noise. Through our efforts, we identified unexpected allies and potential champions who will be crucial as we face mounting challenges to public lands.

Public Lands in the Crosshairs in Federal Budget Proposals

With the help of our partners and all of you, we successfully fought off proposals to sell off public lands in the House Natural Resources (HNR) Committee's budget reconciliation bill. However, the bill still includes harmful provisions to public lands and waters, including mandated oil and gas lease sales in the Western Arctic. Meanwhile, the President released his Fiscal Year 2026 "skinny budget,” which proposes drastic funding cuts to Bureau of Land Management conservation programs and severe reductions to national monuments protections.

The Impact: This new, financially irresponsible approach hands over control of public lands to corporations, overrides years of public input on balanced land management approaches, and slashes public land agencies’s ability to properly take care of our shared national legacy. 

Our Take: We must continue to oppose these efforts and demand that Congress protect our access to nature, maintain conservation protections, and properly fund the agencies that steward these irreplaceable landscapes for future generations. Join us in calling on members of Congress to heed their constituents' clear desire to keep public lands in public hands.

Take Action: Email your members of Congress to tell them public lands are not for sale.

Leaked Document Reveals Plans to Remove Monument Protections

Photo: Bureau of Land Management

A leaked Interior Department document reveals that the new administration is considering removing protections for at least six national monuments - if not more - across the West. The targeted monuments include Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon and Ironwood Forest in Arizona, Chuckwalla in California, and Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks in New Mexico. 

Impact: Shrinking or removing national monument designations would allow extractive development, including mining and drilling, and cut off public access. Attacking national monuments is wildly unpopular with Americans from all political identities and walks of life because it takes public lands out of public hands and puts them into the pockets of the wealthy and extractive corporations. 

Our Take: This renewed attack on national monuments threatens sacred Tribal lands, outdoor access, crucial wildlife habitat, and irreplaceable cultural resources that local communities fought for decades to protect.

Take action: If you live near any of these special places, call your members of Congress (202-224-3121), urge them to ask the administration to leave the monuments intact, and share what they mean to you.

Fast Tracking Resource Extraction on Public Lands

Photo: Oil drilling on public lands in California | Bureau of Land Management

The administration announced its intent to rescind the widely popular Public Lands Rule and protections for the Western Arctic. In addition, the Department of the Interior imposed a radical and unrealistic 28-day maximum timeline for reviewing and approving energy projects on national public lands. 

Impact: These decisions, which roll back balanced and fair public land management policies, will harm wildlife, Indigenous communities, the public’s access to nature, and future generations who deserve healthy public landscapes.

The Public Lands Rule, finalized in 2024 after extensive public engagement with 92% of public comments supporting it, balanced conservation and outdoor recreation with resource extraction of public lands. Its rescission returns the Bureau of Land Management to prioritizing drilling and mining. Meanwhile, the 28-day review deadline makes it functionally impossible to comply with the National Environmental Policy Act, Endangered Species Act, and National Historic Preservation Act, which require the government to consult with Tribes, conduct archaeological surveys, endangered species reviews, and hold meaningful public comment periods.

Our Take: Despite overwhelming public support for balanced management of public lands, officials are reverting to outdated approaches that favor industry interests above all else. The true solution to streamlining permitting is to ensure the Bureau of Land Management has proper staffing, resources, and expertise to approve projects while complying with environmental laws.

New Mexico Delegation Makes Moves to Protect Nature

Photo: Chaco Canyon Cultural Heritage Area, New Mexico | NPS

New Mexico's congressional delegation has taken important steps to proactively protect the state's most treasured lands and waters by reintroducing the Chaco Cultural Heritage Area Protection Act and the M.H. Dutch Salmon Greater Gila Wild and Scenic River Act. Both of these initiatives represent years of collaborative work with the New Mexico delegation, Tribal leaders, our staff, local Friends Grassroots Network organizations, and other partners.

Impact: The Chaco bill would safeguard federal public land within a 10-mile radius of Chaco Culture National Historical Park from oil and gas development, while the Gila River legislation would protect some of the last wild, free-flowing rivers in the Southwest. 

Our Take: New Mexico's delegation is demonstrating what true conservation leadership looks like by building broadly supported, durable protections for valuable and vulnerable lands and waters. We urge everyone to contact their members of Congress (202-224-3121) and ask them to support these critical bills.

Pictured left to right: Conserve Southwest Utah's Executive Director Holly Snow Canada, Conservation Lands Foundation's CEO Chris Hill, Former Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt, and Advocates for the West's Senior Attorney Todd Tucci

Thank you to everyone who joined us in Washington, D.C. last week for our “Community Power for Public Lands: A Fireside Chat” event. 

We'd also like to extend our gratitude to our speakers: Bruce Babbitt, Former Secretary of the Interior and Co-Founder of the Conservation Lands Foundation; Holly Snow Canada, Executive Director of Conserve Southwest Utah; Todd Tucci, Senior Attorney at Advocates for the West; Natasha Hale, Conservation Lands Foundation board member; Mary Phillips, enrolled member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe of New Mexico; and Josh Jackson, Forgotten Lands author and CLF Leadership Circle member.

Trail Snacks

📰 Conservation Lands Foundation staff members, Chris and Char, recently partnered with High Country News and Friends Grassroots Network member, Native Land Institute, to present at the Society of Western Environmental Journalists 2025 Conference (like Coachella..but for the environment).

🐋 Friends of the Lost Coast and the Bureau of Land Management hosted a community volunteer party at King Range National Conservation Area in California to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the National Conservation Lands system. 

🏛️ Follow Wyoming Outdoor Council’s Public Lands Manager Gabby as she journeys from the forests of the Cowboy State to the halls of Congress to deliver 1,000 petition signatures in support of public lands and the federal employees who steward them. 

👩🏾‍🦼‍➡️ Friends Network members Trail Access Project and Friends of Red Rock Canyon spearheaded the installation of new adaptive gates at three trailheads in Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, Nevada.