Editor:
Justin Crellin’s eloquent article (“How rescinding the Public Lands Rule Harms Humboldt County,” Nov. 6) alerted us just in time to the threat posed to our nation’s public lands by the prospective rescission of the Public Lands Rule. Hopefully many people wrote comment letters.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) manages one-eighth of the total US landmass. As such, it is the guardian of much of our natural resources and Public Trust values. Eighty-one percent of BLM lands are already open to resource extraction. What remains protected is critical to the identity of the American people. Our natural beauties are celebrated in our patriotic songs and our folklore. They are our cultural heritage. We treasure the wildlife which the creation of public lands has allowed to survive here. We are grateful to catch a glimpse of a wild world by virtue of the recreational opportunities the BLM offers us.
Our geography is us, these ecosystems are us. Their images flow into and fortify our morale, so battered lately by our ferocious and self-destructive government policies. The Landscape and Public Health Rule is therefore a critical part of our national defense. We must resist efforts to transform us into a wasteland launchpad for a cybernetic, automated society whose interest is shaped by a narrow definition of survival, with an eye on other worlds.
Ellen Taylor, Petrolia
This article appears in The Stopwatch.