LAKE PIRU, Calif. – Outdoor enthusiasts, local businesses and conservation groups are praising a new bill introduced Monday in Congress to give extra protection to 245,000 acres of public land in Central California.

Sen. Kamala Harris and Representative Salud Carbajal introduced the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act. It would link up existing islands of wilderness within the Los Padres National Forest, which runs from Lake Piru north of Los Angeles up to the Monterey area.

Coralie McMillan, whose family members are sixth-generation ranchers in Shandon, says open space is a precious commodity that must be preserved.

"My husband and I are the keepers of the ranch for our children," she says. "And it's the same for the public lands - that right now we are the keepers so then we can pass it on to our children and they will to theirs."

The bill also would set aside an additional 159 miles of wild and scenic rivers and establish the 400-mile Condor National Recreational Trail, which runs the length of the Los Padres forest. The Carrizo Plain National Monument lies within the area to be given official wilderness protection.

The Trump administration is studying whether to shrink the boundaries of the monument in order to pave the way for development.

Christopher Danch, the founder of the Condor Trail Association, says the Los Padres has almost no publicly funded trail work. Most of the maintenance on 1,200 miles of trails is currently done by nonprofits.

"We're hoping that the notoriety of this trail can bring in the kinds of funding that is necessary and eventually be able to help in terms of the management of the corridor which the trail moves through," he explains.

Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Vitali Mostovoj, a member of the Vet Voice Foundation, says veterans have a special reason for wanting public lands to remain pristine.

"We protected our country from overseas," he says. "We really love this country and want to protect our natural resources so they get passed on to future generations. Veterans coming back who have problems with post-traumatic stress syndrome need a place where they can have peace and solitude to recover."

Hans Cole is the director of environmental campaigns and advocacy at Patagonia, an outdoor clothing and gear company based in Ventura. He says the company wouldn't exist if people didn't have access to public land.

"This is really a place that we depend on for the recreation access, for the value it brings to our watershed here, and we also value the incredible biodiversity and natural beauty of the area," Cole stresses.

A new report from the Center for American Progress found that almost six percent of all consumer spending in California goes to the outdoor recreation sector, and that the average resident lives only one and a half minutes away from an outdoor recreation spot.

Matthew Sayles with the California Wilderness Coalition says, “The Los Padres is a huge generator of tourism dollars and secondary funds that pick up all the businesses that are on the outskirts of this vast amount of public land.”

He adds that the protections will better protect habitat corridors for wildlife, saying “It’s more of a linear attempt at protecting wild lands within the core center of the Los Padres National Forest, so that animals have the ability to range through further and further north within the forest without hitting development outside the wilderness boundaries.”

A similar bill was introduced in 2014 and 2015 but congressional leaders have never brought it up for a vote.


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Conservation groups are rejoicing over the decision Friday by the Biden administration to reject a proposed mining road in Alaska.

The 211-mile Ambler Road would have sliced through the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, severing the migration route for a Western Arctic Caribou herd.

Alex Johnson, interior Alaska director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said it was important for the feds to take a stand in Alaska so mining interests do not start eyeing other national parks.

"This is a very expensive, destructive and just highly speculative project that does not in any way support our clean energy goals as a country," Johnson contended. "And ultimately would permanently threaten the health and well-being of local communities and the tribes."

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski slammed the decision, warning it could limit jobs and tax revenues for Alaska by preventing exploration for minerals she said are important to national security, like copper, cobalt, gallium and germanium.

Jayme Dittmar, a photographer and filmmaker from Fairbanks, said the road would have been very disruptive to the 66 Native American villages along the proposed route.

"That'd be 168 trucks passing through close vicinity to the villages," Dittmar pointed out. "There would be hundreds of bridges built. It would dismantle a subsistence livelihood that's been in place for thousands and thousands of years."

The road was seen as a negative for tourism to the Brooks Range area. According to the Alaska Travel Industry Association, Californians make up 9% of visitors to Alaska.

Arizona conservation groups and sportsmen alike say they're pleased the Bureau of Land Management will now recognize conservation as an integral part of public lands management.

The agency's new rule puts protecting the environment on par with other land-use priorities.

Scott Garlid, executive director of the Arizona Wildlife Federation, said historically the BLM has done what he termed a "pretty good job," not only managing about 12 million acres of public lands in Arizona, but also protecting natural resources.

"They've got a tough job," Garlid acknowledged. "I think this rule helps make their job a little bit easier because it gives them some tools to balance those different demands on the 12 million acres that they manage."

Garlid predicted the rule will raise what he terms "harder-to-quantify conservation values" to the same level of importance as more extractive land uses like oil and gas exploration and mining. He thinks most Arizonans will recognize the new rule as a positive. A solid majority of Arizona voters across party lines say they are conservationists and use public lands for recreation.

To Garlid, the rule makes it clear the BLM is recognizing certain parts of federal lands, in Arizona and around the West, have been degraded. He contended restoration leases will be a good tool, allowing the BLM to lease acres to groups specifically to improve the conditions on a given landscape. He noted opponents of the new rule might see the leases as a way to "lock up" land but he argued it is not true.

"One example could be a nonprofit, like the Arizona Wildlife Federation," Garlid pointed out. "We could get a conservation lease from the Bureau of Land Management to do riparian restoration work, or work to remove invasive species along a creek bank."

According to the BLM, while a restoration or mitigation lease is in place, casual uses of the leased lands like recreation, hunting, fishing and research activities would generally continue.

Support for this reporting was provided by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

State and federal agencies are collaborating to increase the use of prescribed fires in the Northwest.

Prescribed fire is the controlled use of burns to minimize the larger risks of wildfires and smoke. It is seen as an increasingly important strategy as wildfire seasons pose greater threats to the Northwest.

Casey Sixkiller, Northwest regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said authorities want to work together to maintain forest habitats.

"Prescribed burn is one of the best tools we have for making our forests more resilient against catastrophic wildfires and they help to manage and target hazardous fuels and make for healthier forests," Sixkiller explained.

Sixkiller pointed out the EPA is involved because wildfire smoke poses risks to people's health. The collaboration is between federal agencies, departments in Oregon and Washington, and tribal governments.

Sixkiller noted the collaboration needed a formal agreement to move forward.

"That is what we've been able to do here with this agreement," Sixkiller emphasized. "To get federal land managers and states and us all in the same room, making sure that we're all on the same page about what success looks like."

Sixkiller added the collaboration has another advantage: It helps drive engagement with communities potentially in the path of prescribed burns.

"They have the confidence that the effort that's gone into planning that activity has been thought out from soup to nuts," Sixkiller acknowledged. "And that they have a seat at the table and are being engaged and their concerns are being addressed as we go forward with that activity."


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