Latest news with #publicland
CTV News
7 days ago
- Politics
- CTV News
First Nations call off talks on forestry bill, say Quebec disrespecting rights
First Nations in Quebec have walked away from talks with the provincial government on a forestry bill they say would pave the way to privatizing public land. The Assembly of First Nations Quebec–Labrador says the province has not shown 'genuine political will' to collaborate with Indigenous communities on the government's forestry reform, which they say does not respect their rights. 'We cannot lend credibility to a process that fails to recognize our status and responsibilities as Indigenous governments,' the assembly said Tuesday in an open letter. The Quebec government tabled a bill last spring aiming to protect communities that depend on the forestry industry. The legislation would divide public forests into zones designated for conservation, multi-purpose use or forestry. According to the bill, actions that 'restrict the carrying out of forest development activities' would be prohibited in the forestry zones, as would conservation measures. Indigenous leaders were quick to criticize the bill, saying it infringed on their rights. But the assembly, which represents 43 First Nations communities in Quebec and Labrador, had agreed to consultations with the government on the new forestry regime. However, Sipi Flamand, chief of the Council of the Atikamekw of Manawan, said Tuesday that members of the assembly had to walk away. 'It wasn't a decision we took lightly. We went to the high-level table with a real desire to rebuild,' Flamand said in an interview. 'But the process doesn't respect our rights or our status as governments. We can't stay seated at a table that's going nowhere.' In Tuesday's open letter, assembly Chief Francis Verreault-Paul and five members of the group's committee on forests, including Flamand, say the government has refused to engage on the zoning strategy, which they want scrapped. 'The zoning principle, which lies at the heart of the current bill, would pave the way for a form of land privatization,' they said. 'This approach has been widely criticized — not only by us, but also by the scientific community, conservation organizations, and numerous actors in the forestry sector.' Flamand said the assembly favours a 'co-management' model that would see First Nations work with industry and government to determine which areas must be protected. But the chiefs say the government has refused to commit to the co-management of forests or to respecting First Nations' ancestral and treaty rights. 'These principles are neither ideological nor symbolic,' they said. 'They represent the minimum legal standards required for a credible process.' In an email statement, the office of Natural Resources Minister Maïté Blanchette Vézina said the government is taking the summer to prepare amendments to improve the bill, particularly with regard to Indigenous communities. 'We hope to continue discussions to work together on sustainable forest development and ensure economic benefits for all communities,' the statement said. 'We intend to continue our work in good faith and invite the (assembly) to the discussion table.' Blanchette Vézina has said the bill is needed to bolster the forest industry in an uncertain economic environment, including the trade war with the United States. 'Currently, communities need the forestry industry to regain its dynamism so that it can meet the many challenges they face,' her office said. Flamand said the assembly is now waiting for the government to make the next move. 'We could come back to the table, but it must be on a clear, respectful basis and with a real desire to build a balanced future for our forests,' he said. He added that if the government pursues the zoning approach, the assembly could challenge the legislation in court. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 22, 2025.
Washington Post
15-07-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Selling public land won't solve the housing crisis. Here's what would.
Congress has removed the 'for sale' sign from the American West. A proposal to liquidate millions of acres of public land was struck out of Congress's massive tax and immigration bill after unifying the left and right against it. Even Republicans admitted the provision wouldn't deliver on the promise of more affordable housing.
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
'They're our greatest asset': NM State Land Office ranks No. 3 in Top Workplaces midsize category
Jul. 13—A connection to public land and an employee-prioritized workplace is what compels staff to join and stay at the New Mexico State Land Office. The public agency is ranked No. 3 in the midsize category of Top Workplaces. It marks the third consecutive year the State Land Office has garnered a place on the list. The office has been around for more than a century and employs 180 people, offering benefits like telework, at least 10 days of paid vacation leave and 13 days of paid sick leave, paid holidays, two months of paid parental leave and a physical fitness policy. "We prioritize the Land Office employees first and foremost because they're our greatest asset," said Public Lands Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard. The following is an excerpt from an interview with Garcia Richard. It has been edited and condensed for clarity. What compels workers to join and stay with the State Land Office? Our mission — because we manage those public resources on behalf of New Mexico's public schools, universities and hospitals. Plus, land is part and parcel of our identity in New Mexico. Think public resources, public land — no matter who you ask across the political spectrum, they have a connection to land here and have had for generations. One benefit offered at the agency is the ability to telework. That is something that is unique to the Land Office: two days in office and three days work from home, for the most part. Sometimes that varies between the divisions depending on the workload, but in general, that is the model. What we saw is that during COVID, productivity didn't really suffer from work-from-home policies, so we decided to just keep those in place after the pandemic waned a little bit. How do you ensure that your staff aren't just making ends meet, but actually living comfortably? We have pretty systematically and methodically gone in and ensured that we are eliminating pay disparities, between gender pay disparities, between amount of experience and years of service we want. We want to recruit, certainly, but we want to retain our very quality employees, and so we do everything we can to do that. Now, are we perfect? No, there's still a lot of work to be done around fair compensation for state employees. But I think the State Land Office stands head and shoulders above other agencies in trying to do everything we can to elevate these positions, both in terms of classification and pay. What are some of the challenges the State Land Office has faced over the past year with that? State work is challenging. I have never been a state employee myself, but I worked in public schools, and I draw a comparison there. There is a lot of criticism that state employees face, I think, unfairly. A lot of times, the burden of things that go wrong are placed on state employees' shoulders. So it's a hard place to be. And then we are limited. We're not like a private company, where if someone is deserving of a raise, we can just grant them that raise. We have to work within the budget that we're appropriated. So those are some of our challenges.
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
A battle is raging over ATVs on public lands
HANKSVILLE, Utah - Brett Stewart was in the lead, bouncing behind the wheel of a Can-Am Maverick X3 off-road vehicle that he likened to a 'Ferrari on dirt.' Then came Jean Robert Babilis, a 70-year-old with a handgun in the console, pushing a 114-horsepower Polaris side-by-side through the red rock canyonlands of southern Utah - spraying sand in defiance of the environmentalists who've fought a years-long battle to keep his kind away. Subscribe to The Post Most newsletter for the most important and interesting stories from The Washington Post. The four off-road vehicles that set off in late May on the 100-mile Poison Spring Loop were exercising their right to recreate on America's public land, combatants in a noisy culture war about where off-road vehicles should be allowed to drive. The route was stunning: the hanging gardens and sandstone cliffs, the soaring buttes and endless mesas. But eight of these miles were particularly sweet: a stretch of hotly contested National Park Service land that Congress opened to off-road vehicles in May, overturning a rule finalized days before President Joe Biden left office that would have kept their convoy out. Sunshine was breaking through the clouds over a great American landscape. This was a victory lap. 'We're going to have a beautiful day, guys,' Babilis said. Then he hit the gas. The shift comes as environmentalists and others out West express alarm about the fate of public lands. Senate Republicans proposed selling more than a million acres of public land in Western states to build housing, before withdrawing the plan Saturday. The Trump administration wants to ramp up logging, mining and oil drilling and is considering shrinking several national monuments. Federal land management agency staffs that steward these landscapes have been slashed by layoffs and buyouts. The dispute over off-road vehicles is steeped in years of litigation, and technicalities about vehicle types and road classes and decibel thresholds. But it also boils down to conflicting visions about whether wild landscapes are more a playground to be enjoyed or a treasure to be preserved. 'At the end of the day, what ties us together is we all love this place,' said Jack Hanley, a field specialist with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, an environmental organization that has fought for years to rein in off-road vehicle use on fragile public lands. The center of this long-running fight has been the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area - 1.3 million acres around Lake Powell, the country's second-largest reservoir - and particularly an area known as Orange Cliffs, which overlooks Canyonlands National Park. It's an exceedingly remote place where many people come to camp out under the stars and soak in the quiet and solitude. Hanley and his colleague at SUWA, staff attorney Hanna Larsen, spent two days slowly picking their way in a Toyota 4Runner over rugged cliff top roads and steep rocky trails that thread through this landscape. Some of those primitive roads were built decades ago in service of mining or ranching interests - and now offer a route for modern vehicles. With President Donald Trump back in office, Larsen said environmentalists were in 'defense mode,' picking their battles and trying to minimize the damage. Opening up Orange Cliffs could lead to more off-road vehicle access in national parks here or elsewhere, she warned. 'That tension has been brewing for a very long time,' she said. 'And it's come to a head with this.' For decades, environmentalists have pushed the National Park Service to regulate the off-road vehicles that plied the desert trails around Lake Powell. That used to be dirt bikes and dune buggies and is now dominated by utility terrain vehicles (UTVs), also known as side-by-sides, the car-like vehicles that have big studded tires and suspensions that can cost $50,000 or more, move fast over all sorts of rough ground, and often travel in packs. The decision by the National Park Service at the end of Trump's first term to allow such off-road vehicles on a portion of the Orange Cliffs area caused an outcry among environmentalists and led to lawsuits by SUWA and others. A settlement led to a new rule in January that blocked such access - which Republicans overturned in May by using the Congressional Review Act. Trump signed the resolution on May 23. 'My legislation was a response to local voices who wanted to access land they have enjoyed and explored for generations,' Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-Utah), who proposed the resolution, said in a statement. Even though other conventional vehicles - such as four-wheel-drive trucks or Jeeps - could always drive these Orange Cliffs roads, environmentalists argue that off-road vehicles pose a unique threat to visitors' experience and the environment. They are louder, they say, and more capable of traveling off trail through the sage brush and piñon pine landscapes if riders choose to do that. Some like to travel at night, antennas illuminated, an eerie vision in the desert. If you were camping in Canyonlands National Park and a group of those vehicles roared past Orange Cliffs, 'your whole night is screwed, that's just a fact,' said Walt Dabney, who was superintendent at Canyonlands for much of the 1990s. 'To have a small group of these users ruin it for everybody else, I don't think is justified,' he said. 'There are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles of backcountry four-wheel-drive adventures to be had. You don't have to go everywhere.' Off-road advocates feel they are unfairly maligned by environmentalists. They say their vehicles don't cause any more damage than conventional ones, and it's just a few drivers who veer off designated paths. The Blue Ribbon Coalition, which advocates for off-road vehicle access, is involved in three lawsuits against the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management to open some 1,600 miles of trails closed during the Biden administration, executive director Ben Burr said. Burr, who organized the convoy on the Poison Spring Loop, used to be an aide to Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and is a relative by marriage. His family name is all over the landscape out here - the Burr Desert, the Burr Trail - dating back to his Mormon ancestors who drove cattle in the area in the 1800s. He considers singling out off-road vehicles 'purity culture nonsense.' 'It's like skiers versus snowboarders, e-bikes versus non-e-bikes, nonmotorized versus motorized - we've created all these distinctions and tribes we put ourselves into,' he said. 'But really all the agencies should be looking at is: How do I make the benefit of being here available to the most people?' - - - 'The bigger the playground' The off-road vehicles started the Poison Spring Loop on sage brush flatlands. It wasn't long before Stewart, a former bricklayer, saw something he didn't like. 'All my signs are gone,' he said. Stewart, who has a nonprofit called Utah O.H.V. [Off-Highway Vehicle] Advocates, had put up skull-and-crossbones stickers to mark the Poison Spring Loop and someone had removed them. He knew many people loathe his hobby. 'People just hate these - flat out hate 'em,' he said. There are now more than 200,000 registered off-road vehicle users in Utah, according to a spokesman for the Utah Department of Natural Resources. Babilis said he's spent decades driving four-wheelers and motorcycles on trails in southern Utah, a pastime, he's shared with his seven children and more than 20 grandkids. He's purchased several side-by-sides in recent years as they've swelled in popularity. Some of the places he used to drive have been closed to off-trail vehicles by the federal government, including in the Bears Ears National Monument that was created by President Barack Obama. 'They just shut off every trail that we've been riding on for decades,' Babilis said. To Stewart, exploring the outdoors in the type of vehicle that can cruise at 100 miles per hour is his preferred brand of therapy. He's too old to hike very far, he said, and off-roading allows him to experience vast landscapes away from crowds. 'I'm not worried about it being overridden because it's so spread out,' he said. 'The bigger the playground, the less people we'll see.' - - - Life-changing lands By the next afternoon, SUWA's Hanley and Larsen had reached Panorama Point, on top of Orange Cliffs. It had been a slow, bone-jolting drive over rocks and boulders on the most primitive road, but the view was worth it, stretching out endlessly over the Maze district of Canyonlands National Park and the place where the Green River merges with the Colorado River. Along the way, Hanley had stopped regularly to point out what caught his eye. A pronghorn antelope amid the juniper trees. The call of a black-throated gray warbler. He'd stopped to smell a cliffrose and sample the wasabi flavor of a pepperweed. 'You want to hear my favorite sound?" he asked, and rattled a narrowleaf yucca. Hanley, who grew up in the Bay Area, took a family trip through the Southwest when he was 21 that included Zion National Park. He was stunned by the setting but also by the meaning of public lands. Standing around without buying something in a city is loitering; out there, commerce was not required. 'I could just sleep on the ground, you know,' he said. 'It just felt right to me in this way that really made sense.' Instead of going to college, he started rock climbing and washing dishes with a Zion concessionaire. He went on to work as a backpacking and canyoneering guide and interpretative ranger with the Park Service. When the first Trump administration slashed the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, he decided to get more involved in protecting public lands and joined SUWA. Hanley has volunteered with BLM offices to help restore damaged landscapes by raking off-road tire tracks or putting up fences to keep vehicles off prohibited roads. In every field office where he's worked, he said, he's seen evidence of off-road vehicles that left the trail and tore up the landscape. 'I've had fences I've built cut. Signs that I put in shot or ripped out of the ground,' he said. 'I think there's something to the culture - those machines are designed to be driven off of roads.' On top of Panorama Point, Hanley tried to explain what the canyons in the distance meant to him. The first time he hiked into the Maze, he said, he followed mountain lion tracks for two days without seeing human footprints. Out there, he's come across haunting four-foot-tall pictographs that date back thousands of years. He's survived on spring water from a trough put in by ranchers a century ago and found a from an ancient ceramic jar on the ground nearby - the water source has been convening people for millennia. Hanley and Larsen set up camp that evening on the cliff top. As night fell, they marveled at the stillness and watched the innumerable stars that began to appear. 'The beauty of a special place like this is it's a reminder that you come from the earth,' Hanley said. - - - The 'do not touch' area The off-road convoy stopped at a couple spots to look at Native American drawings along the Poison Spring Loop, which is also a popular thru-hiking trail. Many of them had been defaced by more modern visitors. Stewart's favorite lore is about Butch Cassidy, the famed bank robber and outlaw who hid in these canyons with loot that Stewart is still looking for. At one stop, Stewart led the group behind a giant boulder. He revealed where someone had carved 'Butch Cassidy' into the rock. It's a place he treasures, and each time he approaches, he's terrified vandals might have marred the inscription. Is it real? 'Only Butch knows,' he said. The convoy drove across the silty waters of the Dirty Devil River and up precipitous switchbacks, past Gunsight Butte and through Sunset Pass. A weathered wooden sign marked the entrance to the Orange Cliffs unit of the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. Four plaques identified what was allowed (camping, hiking) and prohibited (campfires, pets). A fifth plaque - which once banned off-road vehicles - had been pulled off. 'Now we're in the 'do not touch' area,' Stewart said of the 8-mile portion of the loop on Park Service land. 'There is nothing much different. It's just dirt and red rock.' The convoy eventually reached an intersection along a stretch of grasslands where large signs warned away off-road vehicles. Those routes continued to other parts of Orange Cliffs and to Canyonlands National Park. 'No OHVs beyond this point,' Stewart read. Conventional vehicles could continue. But on that day, at least, this group could not. 'They don't have bullet holes in 'em,' Babilis said of the signs. 'Not yet,' Stewart replied. 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Forbes
02-07-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Not For Sale: The Leadership Case For Protecting What's Priceless
Every Fourth of July, we talk about freedom. Usually, it's in broad strokes: freedom of speech, freedom of opportunity, freedom to gather. But this year, I've been thinking about a different kind of freedom: the freedom not to commercialize everything. In a quiet but significant win, U.S. lawmakers recently removed a clause from the 'Big Beautiful Bill' that would have allowed the sale of up to 3.3 million acres of public land. If you missed the headlines, you're not alone. But for those of us who've worked closely with the National Park Service, or simply found meaning in the wide-open quiet of a national park, it felt like a turning point. Because this wasn't just about land. It was about space. And more specifically: what space is for. The National Park Service preserves unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the ... More National Park System for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future Isn't Always Expansion - Sometimes It's Protection There's a powerful lesson to be taken from this threat to sell off public lands for commercial activity. It offers some insight for how we think about our time. Just as land can be quietly sold off acre by acre, our attention can be lost meeting by meeting, tab by tab. In both cases, what's lost isn't just space, but the possibility of meaning. We live in a culture that celebrates productivity, optimization, and expansion. More square footage. More likes. More meetings. More revenue. But the freedom that actually fuels our best selves (creative, collaborative, fulfilled) often comes from the opposite: protection. Fulfillment requires preserving some of our time unimpaired. Free from transaction, pressure, or ... More the premise behind the National Park Service, whose mission reads: Preserves. Unimpaired. For future generations. It's a radical concept in an economy built on growth. And it's not just about geography. It's a mindset we urgently need to apply to our own time, energy, and Public Land Really Represents I've had the privilege of partnering with the National Park Service for nearly a decade. Each summer, I help recruit and train graduate students who work on business strategy in parks across the country: from Yosemite to the Everglades to historically significant cultural sites. It's given me a rare, nerdy backstage view of one of the most extraordinary systems in the world - how our parks are managed, funded, legislated, and protected. And more than anything, it's affirmed this truth: Of course, public lands are imperfectly distributed, and not always easily accessible. Many were preserved by elite families, sometimes to maintain their views rather than serve the broader good. But the potential is real. Every fourth grader in America is eligible for a free National Park pass: an effort to make access more equitable, not just aspirational. It's a reminder that freedom only matters if we all can share in it. Where else in American life can we say that?Freedom only matters if we all can share in it. Every fourth grader in America is eligible for a ... More free National Park Link to Leadership: Uncommercialized Space Within Most high-achievers I work with aren't suffering from a lack of drive. They're suffering from a lack of space. Their calendars are full. Their inboxes overflow. Their weekends are crammed with logistics. Their minds? Loud. They've achieved a version of freedom, but it's freedom wrapped in constant motion. And in that motion, something vital gets lost. In my work with high-performing leaders, I've seen a surprising pattern: the most successful often feel something is still missing. Not money. Not impact. Just a sense of space to breathe, think, and be. I call it the 'Missing 1%.' It's the elusive sense of fulfillment and clarity that external success never quite delivers. And the reason is simple: they've filled every available space with doing, without protecting any of it for simply being. We need to start treating our time the way we treat our most precious land, at least when we get it right. That means preserving some of it unimpaired. Free from transaction. Free from pressure. Free from optimization. Not just once a year, or once a quarter, but as part of how we lead and as Strategy - and Sovereignty In our organizations, subtraction is often framed as sacrifice: what we cut to save costs. But what if it's actually the most strategic move we can make? Not just in business, but in life? When we carve out time not to produce or perform, when we step outside the churn of urgency, we remember who we are. We reconnect with what matters. We lead better. That's not indulgence. That's sovereignty. And that's the spirit I see in the best parts of our country, when we come together to say, 'This is worth keeping. This is not for sale. This belongs to all of us.'The Freedom to Protect What's Priceless So yes, this July 4th, I'm grateful. Not just for the fireworks or the flag, but for a shared win that reflects our better nature. Thanks to thousands of citizens and some principled lawmakers, millions of acres of public land will remain public. For now. And in that open space, kids and parents and solo hikers and city dwellers and future leaders will find something they didn't even know they were missing. Let's make sure we find that kind of space in our own lives, too. Hoping you have some downtime this week, start with this thought prompt:Where in your work or life are you selling off your most valuable land (your time, attention, peace ... More of mind) for short-term gain?
