“Action is the best antidote to despair.” – Joan Baez
Eleven years after the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors passed a resolution commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Wilderness Act, it’s time to act on that commitment—now more than ever.
At the time, on April 1, 2014, the board stated: “We reflect on the profound influence of the great outdoors on our lives and our national character, and we recommit to preserving them for generations to come.”
Public lands and waters are our country’s most popular areas for exploring nature while conserving landscapes, cultural areas, clean water, and wildlife, including the Central Coast’s very own Carrizo Plain National Monument, Los Padres National Forest, and Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.
But legislation introduced in Congress would make it easier to sell off and privatize those public lands, eliminate conservation areas, and prevent future presidents from declaring national monuments.
The Trump administration has ordered the removal of environmental protections for half of the land managed by the U.S. Forest Service. In February, the secretary of the interior issued an order mandating a review of all lands withdrawn from fossil fuel and mining development, directing the department to “revise all withdrawn public lands.” This could allow industrial development in iconic and important places like the Grand Canyon watershed, wildlife refuges, and other public lands.
When we can’t rely on federal agencies to do their jobs, local governments need to speak up. And the Central Coast has a lot to lose. From Avila Bay up to the Carrizo Plain and everything in between, the Central Coast’s outdoor places are essential to all of our lives. SLO County has an opportunity to stand in solidarity with our communities and our ecosystems. It’s time to make it clear that SLO County will oppose any policies and proposals to reduce or dismantle national monuments and other public land and water protections. Our supervisors should encourage California’s governor and attorney general and the members of California’s congressional delegation to take such actions as may be necessary to oppose future attempts to sell, transfer, or dispose of our national public lands.
They have an opportunity to pass such a resolution, conveying it to Gov. Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta, U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, U.S. Reps. Salud Carbajal and Jimmy Panetta, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, and President Donald Trump.
For all Americans, now is the time to use our voices in defense of our environment, our neighbors, and our communities. We hope SLO County will join us in defense of people and the planet, starting with a resolution of support.
While we’re waiting, the SLO Sierra Club is hosting a Protecting Public Lands and Waters Panel at the SLO Grange Hall on June 18, from 5 to 7 p.m., featuring Congressman Carbajal and local conservation leaders. RSVP required via sierraclub.org/santa-lucia.
Meanwhile, the importance of this work is continually emphasized by the onslaught of federal efforts to dismantle environmental and community protections. In a profound assault on endangered species, the administration is gutting the Endangered Species Act by proposing to delete the definition of “harm” from federal regulations.
The Trump appointees now running the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service claim that the “take” (i.e., any actions that harm, wound, or kill wildlife) of threatened or endangered species should not include harm to species’ habitats. The administration asserts that “harm” should only mean actions that directly wound or kill wildlife.
Their “logic” fails when you read the first sentence in the section of the Endangered Species Act describing its very purpose, which is “to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.”
The administration’s proposal to delete the definition of “harm” in the regulations defies a Supreme Court ruling that has stood for 30 years, ignores the fact that the protection of threatened and endangered species is inextricably bound to the protection of their habitat, and that the protection of habitat is a primary purpose of the Endangered Species Act.
Removing that definition of “harm” would green-light logging, drilling, mining, development, and other industrial activities that will destroy the habitat endangered species need to survive and recover—and that we humans need to survive. The loss of natural capital, including deforestation and the loss of soils and wetlands, will impair the ability of natural resources to clean air and water, an impact that will occur simultaneously with rising levels of pollution resulting from the proposed action.
The administration claims it is simply proposing a minor regulatory change that is exempt from environmental review. But in fact, they are proposing extinction. We can’t let them do that.
Your voice makes a difference in standing up against these threats. We invite you to join the SLO Sierra Club’s monthly Earth Action Hours. The next one is in San Luis Obispo on May 28 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. RSVP required in advance.
Together we can and must defend people and the planet. Δ
Gianna Patchen is chapter coordinator for the Santa Lucia Chapter of the Sierra Club. Andrew Christie served as chapter director from 2004 to 2023. Send comments in response to letters@newtimesslo.com.
This article appears in Summer Guide 2025.
“But legislation introduced in Congress would make it easier to sell off and privatize those public lands, eliminate conservation areas, and prevent future presidents from declaring national monuments.”
You can thank banks, deindustrialization, deficit spending, and decades of replacing real economic growth with borrowing. Our creditors expect to be paid and public land will be used to do so.
We are the new Soviet Union. This is precisely what the Soviets did when they collapsed, they sold off state assets. We may not have state owned factories to sell off for pennies, but we do have land.
You better get used to it America, this is just the beginning. Next, public roads will be sold off, municipal water systems, public education will be privatized or eliminated altogether, public pensions will be looted, public buildings will be sold off and staff eliminated (DOGE), prisons will be privatized, police will be privatized, fire departments privatized and sold off, the list goes on.
Our politicians have no choice and got us into this mess. Banks are running the show, ladies and gentlemen.
Americans need to become as militant as farmers during the Great Depression. When one of their comrades had their defunct farm go to auction, they’d show up and threaten anyone who bid more than a dollar, thereby allowing the original farmer to buy their own farm back. These land sales will be public and they will be auctions.
banks and bankers do not have our interests at heart. Worse yet, they’re transnational.
Thanks to the authors for informing us about the dangers to our public lands and advocating on their behalf. Although it’s frustrating to fight against such powerful entities, we must confront those who are willing to destroy what we hold dear.
Basically, our economic collapse is allowing the same ghouls who picked the Soviet Union clean when it fell in 91′, to do the same to us. Our social safety net is the marrow every American who spent a lifetime paying into and that our predecessors fought and died for, being stolen and imbibed, like a fine wine, by concentrated wealth, desperate for one last meal before they too are destroyed.
Our public lands and national parks are part of the same course, to be broken up like bread, skewered like meat, and passed around to those at the table. We, on the other hand, without fighting, can do nothing more than look through the window at was at one time ours and our national patrimony.
Goodbye public education, goodbye marriage equality, goodbye reproductive rights, goodbye social security, goodbye Medicare, goodbye unemployment insurance, goodbye privacy, goodbye America.
What did my late grandfather and his generation sacrifice and die for in WWII? This? I can only hold his children’s generation responsible. They exported our industrial capacity, they created “free trade” deals, they deregulated banks, and now we pay the price.
As they expire, I implore them to take a real good look at their creation. We are at each other’s throats, gone is “one nation indivisible.” It was all a lie.