CHARLESTON, W. Va. – Congress has three months to renew what's described as a vital - but largely invisible - program for conserving special places in West Virginia and across the country.

The Land and Water Conservation Fund has meant $184 million for Spruce Knob, Seneca Rocks, the Canaan Valley and other projects. But the Trump administration has proposed cutting it by 90 percent.

Brent Bailey, executive director of the West Virginia Land Trust, explained the LWCF gets funding from offshore drilling royalties, and uses the money to make grants for everything from wilderness access, to pools in city parks.

"If it's a place where hunters and fishermen go, if it's a place where people camp, hike, backpack, climb, mountain bike, raft, kayak, canoe, it is probably due to this federal program that's been sort of invisible," Bailey said.

The program has traditionally had strong, bipartisan support in Congress. Bailey said Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., and Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W. Va., and Rep. Evan Jenkins, R-3rd Dist., recently used the fund to protect about 700 acres that rafters see in the Gauley River Recreation Area.

The Wilderness Society has called the LWCF "America's most important public lands program." A budget plan failed in the Senate this month, in part because it would have cut the fund by $16 million.

Sen. Manchin expressed frustration that "a popular and successful program for the last 50 years" hasn't been renewed, and said it's "long past time" to reauthorize it.

According to Bailey, LWCF grants are crucial to maintaining the state's recreation economy, worth an estimated $9 billion a year.

"If you don't have the places for people to visit and to enjoy - for hunting and for fishing, and for all other kinds of recreation - then you're not going to have that $9 billion coming to a state that desperately needs to diversify its economy," he added.

The deadline for Land and Water Conservation Fund reauthorization is Sept. 30.





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A coalition of more than 50 local elected officials is pleading for action on the Public Lands Act, a bill that would add protections for more than a million acres of land and 500 miles of rivers in California.

The group released a letter today thanking U.S. Sens Dianne Feinstein and Alex Padilla, both D-Calif., for their support of the legislation.

Ventura County Supervisor Carmen Ramirez said more must be done to safeguard the state's pristine wilderness areas before it's too late.

"These are places with abundant diversity," she said. "That's where a lot of our clean water comes from. We have tribal cultural sites. And oil drilling and other harmful industries should not be permitted where we have our natural resources."

The letter emphasized the importance of public lands in the fight against climate change, and
for promoting access to the outdoors for public health and economic recovery.

In 2019, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, California's outdoor-recreation economy contributed more to the national Gross Domestic Product than any other state. It generates more than $57 billion in economic activity and supports more than 575,000 jobs.

Eureka Mayor Susan Seaman said local economies thrive when the ocean, rivers and old-growth forests are protected.

"I think it's pro-economic development to create a community that encourages visitors, encourages people to want to come and live here," she said. "The thing that makes us special is the lands that we have around it. And the more we can protect them, the more we can protect the culture that we love here."

The Senate bill was introduced in May but hasn't yet gotten a vote. The House version, which passed last February, is a package of three bills that cover northwest California, the Central Coast and the San Gabriel Mountains.

Support for this reporting was provided by Pew Charitable Trusts.

A new report found ties between groups and individuals who supported -- and in some cases participated in -- the Jan. 6 insurrection and those who oppose protecting public lands.

The study by the nonpartisan watchdog group Accountable.US suggests anti-government extremists who want to end public ownership of land and water in Arizona and other Western states have infiltrated the halls of power.

Karl Frish, spokesman for Accountable.US, said many anti-public lands leaders are aligned with violent forces who attempted to overturn the 2020 election.

"Oath Keepers and your Cliven Bundys, various lawmakers have been active opposing public lands," Frish explained. "In some of those cases, you have people who have endorsed what happened on Jan. 6, and in some of those cases you have people who were involved Jan. 6."

The report found connections between more than a dozen groups and individuals who endorse violence, including Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar, who, among others, encouraged aggression at the Jan. 6 rally and in the takeover of public lands. Gosar did not respond to a request for comment.

The report found during former President Donald Trump's administration, conservative activists pushed for state and local officials to "take back" public lands from the federal government.

"If we're going to deal with the 'small-d' anti-democratic fervor that we saw in the wake of Jan. 6, you're going to also have to confront issues around the rabid opposition to public lands," Frish cautioned.

Frish believes it is important for political leaders and conservationists to focus their message to voters that access to public lands and waters must be protected or could be lost permanently.

"I think part of it is making sure that the antidote gets out there around why conservation is important," Frish asserted. "We need to double down on our efforts to make sure that that message is out there and that land stewardship is not just saying 'No one is going to have access to this land.' "

The report concluded anti-government extremists who want to end public ownership of land and those who seek to overturn legitimate elections are embedded in the halls of power from county commissioners to attorneys general and in Congress.

People of color historically have been excluded from outdoor-recreation jobs, but a collaborative effort to diversify staff within agencies that manage public lands could change that.

The Hispanic Access Foundation has teamed up with agencies such as the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to tap college students and recent graduates for what are known as "MANO" fellowships.

"The potential of a 'Climate Corps' - you know, the Civilian Climate Corps - it begins to groom Hispanic people to take their place in conservation," said Max Trujillo, senior field ooordinator for the group Hispanics Enjoying Camping Hunting and the Outdoors in New Mexico.

He said MANO fellows work on cultural preservation in museums and environmental stewardship outdoors, and gain business skills including accounting, communications and engineering. Applications are online at ManoProject.org. The deadline to apply is Jan. 7.

Trujillo noted that New Mexico is blessed with an abundance of public lands and wildlife species that need to be preserved.

"With climate change, we've seen channels of waterways getting deeper and the water not staying in the higher terrain to create more sustainable water fill downstream," he said. "So, there's all kinds of projects to do, restoration and maintenance."

The MANO fellowships are designed to provide Latinos the skills to help them compete for well-paid, permanent jobs with benefits. Trujillo said Hispanics have been involved in protecting areas where centuries-old cultural traditions are performed, and it's time those ideas are part of the conversation.

"I think that opening some avenues for different ideas to conservation will be beneficial to the masses," he said.

The MANO fellowship positions are paid, and many offer transportation stipends, free on-site housing or housing stipends.