Keep public lands for the public

Editor:

Many Coloradans are beginning to notice a troubling trend across federally managed lands: increasing restrictions, limited access, reservation systems, road closures and growing barriers between the public and the public lands we all own.

Just look at many of our national parks today. In places like Mesa Verde National Park, visitors often must reserve tours months in advance, follow strict time slots and face growing limitations on where and when they can access certain sites. Other parks across the country now require timed-entry permits, shuttle systems, campground lotteries and restricted recreation opportunities.

These changes may be manageable for tourists planning vacations far in advance, but many rural Coloradans are asking an important question: Is this the future being proposed for more of our public lands?

The Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection Act (GORP), supported by Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, along with Congressman Jeff Hurd, has been promoted as a conservation effort. But many residents worry that once federal protections and designations are expanded, additional restrictions will inevitably follow.

History suggests those concerns are not unreasonable.

Across the West, “protection” has often resulted in reduced access for the very people who have responsibly used and cared for these lands for generations. Roads become closed. Grazing becomes threatened. Timber harvesting disappears. Mining shuts down. Motorized recreation areas shrink. Hunting access becomes more difficult. Camping is becoming increasingly regulated. Eventually, local working communities are replaced by heavily managed recreation economies designed primarily for visitors rather than residents.

The concern is not about protecting the land. Most people in rural Colorado already value conservation deeply. Hunters, ranchers, miners, loggers, outdoorsmen and enthusiasts of all kinds and local families have lived alongside this land for generations.

The concern is about who controls the land and how much freedom the public will continue to have on it.

Will future generations still be able to drive the backroads, hunt, fish, gather firewood, hike, ride dirt bikes, mountain bikes and ATVs, camp freely, graze cattle and access the outdoors without permits, reservations and endless restrictions?

Or will more of Colorado become managed like increasingly restricted national park systems where access is controlled, limited and heavily regulated?

These are fair questions that deserve open public discussion before permanent federal designations move forward.

Public land should remain public. Not locked behind layers of bureaucracy that slowly remove the very freedoms rural communities have long depended on.

Tom Marshall

Gunnison County