Screaming in the Wilderness

More Screaming Needed

It is no surprise that, in the past couple of weeks, the Trump Administration has moved to gut habitat protection under the Endangered Species Act, opening wilderness areas to mining and oil drilling, and to eviscerate Monument designation for most of two wilderness areas in Utah.  Trump and his allies made their intentions clear in the Heritage Foundation publication of Project 2025 published before Trump’s second term.

In fact, CLEE published a Monograph in March 2025 evaluating Trump’s legal authority to reduce the size of national monuments.  The authors of the Monograph – James G. Moose and Hannah Rider – conclude that:

The Antiquities Act has been a strong and efficient conservation tool for more than a century, as numerous Presidents have used it to provide protection to federal lands considered worthy of permanent preservation and management for the benefit of future generations. To the extent that the second Trump Administration may seek to cut back on the lands currently subject to such protection, the United States Supreme Court or whatever lower court is the last word on the subject should hold that only Congress can modify existing national monuments. On its face, the Antiquities Act includes clear language delegating to Presidents only the authority to create national monuments. No language authorizes a later President to undo or modify the actions of an earlier President. This conclusion is the product of standard principles of statutory construction . . .

No doubt both Trump actions – end of habitat protection for endangered species and massive reduction of national monuments – will be subject to litigation.  But the reaction to the Trump actions from the conservation and environmental communities has been shockingly muted.  No doubt, advocates have been beaten down by the endless attacks on environment, environmental justice, and relentless promotion of oil interests.  But the attacks on wilderness are existential acts.  The end of habitat protection in favor of oil drilling and mining goes to the very heart of the conservation movement.  In a sense, it is a battle for the very soul of the country: wilderness vs. oil.

It seems that we are desperately in need of advocates like Berkeley’s David Brower, who said in support of the 1964 National Wilderness Act:

wilderness adds quality in roadside scenery. Wilderness lets a place have a beyond to it. Wilderness symbolizes the freedom to choose what kind of terrain you want to look at or hope someday to enter or to save for your children to enter. Without it, the world is a cage.

Or perhaps we need the next E.O. Wilson:

What event likely to happen during the next few years will our descendants most regret? . . . The one process now going on that will take millions of years to correct is the loss of genetic and species diversity by the destruction of natural habitats.  This is the folly our descendants are least likely to forgive us.

It is past time for new, louder voices on behalf of wilderness, environment, public health – truly on behalf of America the Beautiful, before it simply isn’t.