MOAB, Utah – Conservation groups welcome the departure of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, saying it could take years to reverse the damage to America's public lands during his time in office.

President Donald Trump announced Saturday that the former Navy SEAL and U.S. representative from Montana will leave his post by the end of the year, amid ethics charges involving business deals, policy decisions and travel arrangements.

Despite high hopes that, as a Westerner, Zinke would be sensitive to public lands protections, Aaron Weiss, media director of the Center for Western Priorities, maintains he'll be remembered as the most harmful interior secretary for public lands in the nation's history.

"Secretary Zinke focused on slashing Bears Ears by three-quarters and Grand Staircase-Escalante by half,” Weiss points out. “And that's going to be the legacy that he leaves behind, is this attempt not to stand up and protect public lands, but to open them up to oil and gas drilling."

White House sources said Zinke was forced out of the job.

Zinke is the fourth Trump cabinet member to resign under a cloud of suspicion. The most serious of more than a dozen accusations involves a land deal with the chairman of oil services megafirm Halliburton in Zinke's hometown of Whitefish, Mont., now under investigation by the Justice Department.

Weiss says it isn't likely Zinke's successor will oppose more oil and gas leases, but he hopes he or she will be a better advocate for national parks and monuments.

"You do need someone who's dedicated to protecting wildlife corridors, to acknowledging there are some places that are too precious to drill,” Weiss stresses, “and that your job as a steward of America's public lands is to ensure the best possible return for taxpayers, rather than leasing all of these acres."

Weiss doesn't think there'll be much improvement in the short-term, as former oil and gas lobbyist David Bernhardt – Interior's deputy secretary – will likely be named interim director.

"For as cartoonishly awful as Ryan Zinke was, David Bernhardt is smarter and much more low profile,” he states. “So, we fully expect him to continue these policies, but without the laughable public face that Secretary Zinke brought with him to the job."

The Denver-based Center for Western Priorities is a nonprofit group that advocates for balanced conservation and energy practices in the West.


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The Bureau of Land Management recently released its final Public Lands Rule, which is set to put conservation on equal footing with other multiple uses taking place on public lands.

The state of Utah has come out in opposition, pointing to the impact it could have on the almost 23 million acres of BLM land in Utah.

Redge Johnson, director of the Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office, said the state supports conservation efforts but called the rule a "solution looking for a problem."

"What we have already put into conservation designations and then what you have for the acts that promote the conservation of the lands, why do you need to level that playing field?" Johnson questioned. "The playing field has more than leveled over the past 40, 50 years with the passage of all these acts."

Johnson contended Utah's lands and wildlife will suffer as a result of the rule and added it'll make mining critical metals used for batteries even more difficult. He and others, like Gov. Spencer Cox, called on the BLM to immediately withdraw the rule and work with stakeholders on more practical solutions.

Conservationists see the rule as a big win for restoring and sustaining public lands for future generations.

Johnson described Utah's public lands a "fire dependent ecosystem," adding fuel loads have accumulated drastically due to over a century's worth of fire suppression. He argued the rule will make executing and continuing vegetation management projects more difficult, including reducing the threats posed by fuel loads.

"One of the biggest contributors we have to carbon dioxide right now are wildfires, at least in the West," Johnson asserted. "Transportation, all the others, yes absolutely. But wildfires are a huge contributing factor to that. One of the best things we could do is reduce the fuel loads on some of these areas to reduce the fire risk and this rule puts that at risk."

The rule also creates the frameworks for "restoration and mitigation leases," which will allow groups to restore public lands or to offset the effects of a particular use. Johnson argued the leases will leave too many loopholes but the BLM said they will not "disturb existing authorizations."


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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.