Photo Credit: USDA
Protect public lands – connect vast landscapes where wildlife can roam
Public Lands
Our greatest conservation opportunity is protecting and connecting the West’s vast landscapes where majestic wildlife can roam—from the largest grizzly to the smallest meadow jumping mouse; where birds can soar and sage grouse can strut; where fish thrive in water that is pure and clean; and where people experience the primal power of the wild.
Yet the federal government and corporate interests have other ideas, and are bent on destroying public lands, waters, and wildlife with increased logging, mining, livestock grazing, oil and gas development, motorized use, and even more roads.
Guardians combats this culture of extraction with connection, protection, and healing, deploying strategies from education and restoration to advocacy and litigation to preserve and restore America’s wild places, wild rivers, and wildlife. We think and act at the local, regional, and West-wide levels: from the unparalleled biodiversity of the Greater Gila in New Mexico to the majesty of Glacier National Park, from the mountain sources of rushing rivers along their flow through the Pacific Northwest, we strive for vast, interconnected landscapes teeming with the diversity of life.
Public Lands Program Work
WildEarth Guardians plants native vegetation along riversides once scarred by livestock grazing, protects wild landscapes from disruptive and damaging motorized off-road vehicles, and much more.
Public Lands in Public Hands
Protecting public lands from agencies, Congress, modern-day robber barons, and everyone else who seeks to privatize them
Ecosystem Restoration
Restoring scarred landscapes by planting trees, removing fences, and bringing beavers back
Rewild Lands and Waters
Removing unneeded roads from public lands, maintaining roads that are still needed, and restoring passage for fish when roads block their spawning grounds
Moderating Motorized Use
Keeping off-road vehicles and snowmobiles off of fragile landscapes to protect wildlife and water quality
The Greater Gila
Safeguarding the diversity and dynamism of the Greater Gila Bioregion, including working with ranchers to retire grazing allotments and return Mexican wolves to their ancestral homeland
Grazing Permit Retirement
A proven strategy to equitably resolve conflicts between historic uses and modern ecological realities
How You Can Help
Help protect the magnificent wild places of the West! Be a guardian for public lands by joining the conversation, learning about current issues, and making your voice heard. Together, we're a powerful force for nature.
Recent Stories From Public Lands
Guardians sues sheep station to protect bighorn sheep, grizzlies, other wildlife
Station ignoring decades of science, court opinions
Ranching advocates lack a rural vision
Cattle grazing on much of the Western landscape makes no ecological sense, and further, has little economic relevance
Postcard from the Gila
Guardians’ Conservation Director, Wild Places Program Director, and I spent four days circumnavigating the Gila National Forest and meeting its players—animal, plant, and human
Why legislation authorizing permanent retirement of livestock grazing permits matters
Keeping livestock off public lands has many benefits, but existing law doesn’t allow for permanent livestock grazing permit retirement
Public Lands Press
Chaco needs congressional leadership
For centuries, Chaco Canyon was a gathering place where ancestral Puebloan peoples came together to make their world a better place. At the heart of the ancient civilization’s genius are the complex and intricate relationships between its grand architecture, global commerce, ceremonies and their link to solar and lunar cycles.
Read more >Court says hunters can off-road in national forest to retrieve big game
A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected environmental groups’ claims that letting hunters drive up to a mile off designated forest roads to harvest game would open “the entire forest” to off-roading, damaging the forest and endangering wildlife.
Read more >
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