Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance

Our 2025 Stewardship season has begun! Over the years, our stewardship volunteers have requested we create an emblem of the program—something they can use to rep being a SUWA Steward. To celebrate the tenth year of our program, we partnered with local artist @pine.bones to create a SUWA Steward design! All volunteers who attend a project this year will receive a decal/sticker of the artwork. Projects are filling up fast! Review the project calendar and fill out an application here: https://lnkd.in/gUfjJCkm Thank you for all that you have done—and will do—to #ProtectWildUtah

"Now is the time to sound the alarm and urge the administration not to dismantle some of the most important places our country has to offer, including Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments. By putting monuments in the crosshairs, the Trump administration is also taking aim at the local communities, businesses and tribes who have for decades advocated to protect these sites. " In today's Salt Lake Tribune and co written by Grand Canyon Trust's Aaron Paul, Earthjustice's Heidi McIntosh, and SUWA Legal Director, Steve Bloch. https://lnkd.in/gUX_4jfQ

Yesterday, the Idaho-based Blue Ribbon Coalition and others sued the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) over the recently finalized San Rafael Swell Travel Management Plan. Below is a statement from SUWA Staff Attorney, Laura Peterson. “The motorized recreation groups filing this lawsuit are bound and determined to make Utah’s remarkable San Rafael Swell nothing more than a playground for off-road vehicles and side-by-sides; a place where it’s impossible to find peace and quiet. We’re not going to stand by and let that happen. While BLM’s recently-completed San Rafael Swell travel plan got many things wrong, one thing it did right was not opening roughly 650 miles of so-called “routes” in the Swell to motorized vehicles. These 650 miles include trails that were created in the past fifteen or so years through illegal motorized use and are located in stream corridors and wash bottoms, run through cultural sites and lead to users causing real and serious environmental damage. Others are simply lines on a map that do not exist on the ground.” — Laura Peterson, SUWA Staff Attorney For additional information, visit:https://lnkd.in/gsFrcHec

What is Wilderness Week!? Every March, activists from across the country fly in to Washington DC to lobby for America's Red Rock Wilderness Act (ARRWA)—legislation that would add more than 8 million acres of public lands in Utah to the National Wilderness Preservation System. Our activists spend weeks setting up and prepping for these meetings, so they can inform their representatives on why protecting this land is so important and what it means to them. Check out this infographic to learn more about ARRWA & help support the work these activists are doing by visiting our action page and reaching out to your reps TODAY! https://lnkd.in/gM-G8XsH #ProtectWildUtah #ARRWA #WildernessWeek #PublicLands

Great new Substack that explains the current multi-pronged attack on our pubic lands. See quote below from SUWA Legal Director, Steve Bloch. “When they say, ‘Oh let Utah be in charge of it,’ they’re really saying, ‘Once it’s sold off and privatized, Utah policies that are really pro-development, pro-fossil fuels, pro-extraction, pro-tract housing, strip malls, mansions — that will be what’s leading the way,’” Bloch said. Read the full piece here: https://lnkd.in/dzY-sYWA

Solid op-ed on Utah's greatest treasures. "Utah has lots of great things, but it’s foolish to argue that its lands aren’t both its greatest treasure and its greatest gift to the rest of the world. Time and time again, our leaders not only refuse to acknowledge the gift that they’ve been given but even seem to show disdain for that gift." Read the full article: https://lnkd.in/eRW48Fw5

Wilderness Week 2025 has begun! Our activists from across the country have arrived in Washington DC and are meeting with their representatives to ask them to become original cosponsors of America's Red Rock Wilderness Act (ARRWA)—legislation that would protect more than 8 million acres of wild public land in Utah. You can support these activists from the comfort of your own home by calling your reps and urging them to become original consponors of the bill! Or send them a message with just a few clicks by visiting: https://lnkd.in/gM-G8XsH *Note: personalize your message to have an even greater impact* #ProtectWildUtah #WildernessWeek2025

ICYMI from over the weekend. See pull quote below. "For years, members of Utah’s political class have been arguing that federal bureaucrats who live 2,000 miles away ought not be making decisions about managing the large swaths of federal land that happen to sit in our state.So where are their voices now? Now that a gaggle of technocrats who aren’t bonafide federal officials, having demonstrated no knowledge about Utah and less concern, have been firing employees of the National Park Service, U.S. Geological Survey and other Interior Department agencies. Utah’s elected leaders, at the local, state and national levels, should be raising holy hell about these moves — those who supposedly have the ear of the new administration most of all." https://lnkd.in/gsCf--ei

Great piece from KSL 5 this week, featuring SUWA Legal Director, Steve Bloch. See quote below. "I think it’s really unsettling for everybody. Federal lands have been chronically underfunded through Congress. These agencies are already operating at real shortages and doing their best every day to manage lands on our behalf. For the employees who are left, I think people are living in fear, fear of what’s going to happen if their response to Elon Musk’s demand note isn’t satisfactory... ...there’s sadness, there’s anger,” Bloch said. “These are people who may have trained in college to have a job as an archeologist or a biologist, or if they’re trying to get started in a federal agency and they’re working on trails in the summertime and all of that’s now at risk.” —Steve Bloch To read the full article, visit: https://lnkd.in/gy4rrjVw

The Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) Cedar City field office is preparing the Indian Peak Range Watershed Restoration Plan, which will determine where and what types of vegetation treatments to conduct across 550,000 acres in Utah’s West Desert. It’s important the BLM hear from people who care about Utah’s wild lands. Please submit comments asking the agency to prepare a full environmental impact statement; implement the least intensive, lowest impact methods first; prohibit mechanical treatments on wilderness-quality lands; and use only native seeds! Personalized comments carry the greatest weight, so please take a moment to tell the BLM what is important to you. **Deadline to submit comments is March 5th!** TAKE ACTION NOW: https://lnkd.in/gPUSdPSV