Welcome to the 200th episode of The Landscape, your show about America's Parks and Public Lands. I'm Erin Weiss with the Center For Western Priorities in Denver. And I'm Kate Gretsinger in Salt Lake City. We're doing something a little different today to mark the 200th time we've recorded this podcast. We're gonna take you behind the scenes here at CWP and introduce you to our colleagues who make the magic happen.
We'll share what brought us to conservation and what keeps us motivated to keep doing the work. But before we get to that, we've got some news. Well, you may already know about the big news this week. It's out of Utah. It is, not great, but we gotta talk about it. So the State of Utah is suing the federal government for control over half of the national public land in the State of Utah. That's 18 and a half 1000000 acres of what the governor is calling unappropriated
public land. But by that, they actually just mean almost all the land that is managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Now, this term, unappropriated, ironically comes from Utah's Enabling Act which was passed in the 18 nineties when Utah joined the union and that act states that Utah agrees to quote forever disclaim all right and title to the unappropriated public lands lying within the boundaries of Utah.
Now, it would look like Utah governor Spencer Cox doesn't understand the meaning of the word forever because the state is going to the Supreme Court hoping that it takes up this case and hands those exact quote unquote unappropriated public lands over to the state. Utah, of course, conveniently ignores the fact that every single acre of national public land in the state is already actively managed. Congress has appropriated a use on every single
acre. Doesn't matter whether it's run by the park service, the forest service, bureau of land management. Congress told all of those agencies to create management plans for the land, and they have done that. No land in Utah is just sitting there waiting for someone to decide what to do with it. The entire notion of unappropriated lands makes no sense at all in 2024. It honestly hasn't made sense even since Utah became a state. So the legal ground here is nonsensical.
Public land law professors, and we've heard from a bunch of them already, all agree that this case has no legal basis, but if it did somehow succeed, it would be devastating for public lands across the West. The issue there is that states simply don't have the manpower or the revenue to manage public lands like the federal government does. A a single massive wildfire, a a massive mine cleanup
could bankrupt any of these western states. So in order to manage these lands, the states would have to increase drilling and mining, mining, would have to sell off public lands. We're talking trophy homes, privatization, all of that wonderful land running through Moab. This idea that Utah is pitching here is in fact a huge threat to public lands.
We will talk more about this in coming episodes with some of these law professors, but I wanna stress right now the magnitude of what Utah is asking the Supreme Court to do here. So, first, the Supreme Court would have to find that that forever language in the Enabling Act didn't mean forever or they would have to find that the Enabling Act itself wasn't constitutional. So, maybe Utah's not actually a state. Well, there's a can of worms you don't wanna open up a 130 years later.
2nd, the court would have to toss out a couple centuries of case law on national public lands. Most notably, the Cleppey decision from 1976. That's a decision that said, in no uncertain terms, the property clause of the constitution, article 4, section 3, means exactly what it says on the tin. Congress, and only Congress, has the power to
dispose of and manage public lands. And CLEPI is itself built on more than a 100 years of decisions before that, going all the way back to a case in 18/40 where the court wrote, quote, the power over the public lands is vested in Congress by the Constitution without limitation. So would this Supreme Court, as conservative as it is, go that far? Tossing out 200 years of precedence and ignoring the plain text of the Constitution?
I I certainly don't wanna make any predictions up here on my soapbox, but legally speaking, Utah is making as crazy an argument as you will ever see here. And with that, I will step down off my soapbox and we'll get you to listen to this 200th episode. Well, hi everyone. Welcome to the CWP conference room and virtual Kate from Utah. Before we dive in here, I wanna introduce
everyone. I think listeners have heard just about everyone here on the podcast at one point or another, but let's just go around the room. Everyone, please introduce yourselves. Hi. I'm Jen Rocola. I'm the executive director of CWP, and I've been with, CWP for 9 years. I'm Rachel Hamby. I'm the policy director, and I have been here for almost 2 years. I'm Lauren Bogard. I'm the director of campaigns and special projects, and I've been with CWP for five and a half years.
I'm Sterling Homard. I am the outreach and campaigns associate, and I've been here for almost 2 years. I'm Lily Bach Brownstein. I'm the creative content and policy manager, and I've been here for over 2 years. And you guys know me. I'm Kate Gretzinger, and I've been here for 3 years. Wow. And that's all of us. It's kind of fun having everyone everyone here at once.
Because this is a special episode and our opportunity to look inward and talk about what drove us all here, I wanna just hear what drove everyone into this conservation work that we do. It seems like every time I talk to anyone in the conservation community, someone's got a an interesting origin story of how they how they landed here. Anyone wanna go first? Otherwise, we'll just we'll just pick some names. Let's start start with Lauren.
So it's funny to me to do career look backs because it's I I have the kind of path that only makes sense looking backward. It's not as though I knew
where I'd end up. But now that I do look back, I can see that outdoor experiences and an appreciation and connection to the outdoor landscape is a thread that is run through everywhere I've been in my life and everywhere I've worked, and it's personally meaningful, in part because I grew up in the foothills west of Denver and went on hikes with my parents who were high school teachers.
My dad was a biology teacher, so he made sure that we learned the birds and the plants and all the other animals. No. Kate. Sure. Yeah. Again, similar to Lauren, I did not plan to end up in conservation work, especially public lands work. I grew up in Texas, famously does not have any public lands. And that's kind of why I first fell in love with public
lands. I moved west to work for to work in public radio in southern Utah, and I was just shocked that there was that all of this land that was open to anyone because in Texas, you have to be pretty wealthy to to have wild spaces that are accessible to you. There aren't that many. Basically, there's big ranches that are privately owned. So I really fell in love with the
concept of public land. And then during COVID, I lived in a tiny town called Bluff right next to Bears Ears National Monument, and I really, sought refuge in, the canyons of Bears Ears, just hiking with by myself and with close friends all throughout the COVID times. So, yeah, that that really led me to form a personal connection with public lands and just a great appreciation for them, and that brought me to CWP.
So I spend a lot of time on public lands backpacking and climbing, and the majority of that time, I'm by myself. Self and what I love about being alone out in those places is that it's one of the few times we could truly just be yourself and the landscape accepts you but also challenges you and you can learn a lot about who you are whether it's surprising yourself with being stronger or more capable than you thought you were, or whether it's having a weakness or a
fear exposed and having to overcome it. So these are places that have offered me so much and pushed me to be better. And working to conserve and protect these places from development and harm is a way that I can offer something in return and make sure this opportunity is there for anyone else who's looking for it now and in the future. Okay. Well, that wins for the deepest cut so far. Sterling? Let's see if I can win for the most shallow. Well, for as long as I can remember, I
just wanted to be outside. Even when I was a kid, I would just, like, wanna be in the front yard playing basketball, you know. And I grew up in Minnesota so there were some outdoor opportunities there. I would nordic ski, I would canoe, I would fish, do all the Minnesota things, but it wasn't until I moved out to Colorado that I realized how accessible public lands are out here, and it just made me fall in love with being outdoors all over again.
So being out here, I've gotten more into outdoor climbing and and backpacking and hiking and and just enjoying mountainous landscapes, something that that Minnesota doesn't have too much of. And, also, I think, like, being Gen z has shaped, how I got into conservation as well. I feel like it wasn't until the 2000 or so that we really started taking climate change and biodiversity threats seriously.
And so growing up, I learned about those things in school, and I learned that the outdoor places that I love most might not exist if we don't do something about it. So I think that's why I'm here. Lily? Yeah. I mean, common thread here. I grew up with a really deep appreciation for being outdoors as a kid. I grew up on the East Coast in Vermont where we hiked and camped and snowboarded and, you know, played in the somewhat polluted creek in my backyard.
And I always knew I wanted to do something in connection with the outdoors and nature. But when I moved out west and sort of discovered what public lands were, which is not something we really have on a big scale on the East Coast, it just, like, really blew my mind about
what it offered the community. And my first real long term full time job was working on managing public lands at the county level, and that gave me a real appreciation for what it takes to keep those lands protected and managed for all the uses that people love to use them for and, really inspired me to wanna work to see more lands protected in a thoughtful way. Jen? I was really lucky to grow up in Colorado, and my parents would take us on vacations, whether it was up to the mountains,
west of Denver, or to national parks. We spent a lot of time going to Yellowstone and Grand Teton. And in a lot of ways, I feel like I took access to public lands for granted growing up here. And it was in college when I was doing a bike tour around Colorado called ride the Rockies, and you spend a lot of time just sitting on a mountain pass, pedaling up and looking at these
really just spectacular views. And that's when I knew I wanted to work in conservation, and my path to conservation came through working for public officials, elected officials who prioritize conservation. Former governor Roy Romer and former US senator Mark Udall were the 2 people who really influenced my passion for conservation and working to protect public lands. Yeah. Like like Kate, I I came into advocacy through journalism.
And for me, it was growing up in in Tucson, which is, of course, surrounded by public lands and also through journalism. My mom was a news anchor in Tucson. And when I was about 9 or 10 years old, she dragged me along as she was doing a reporting series on the San Pedro River, which we've ended up since talking about here on the podcast many times.
But that was really an eye opener for me on threats to these lands and, in this case, to a spectacular riparian area so unlike anything else in the desert there and, you know, that's one of those formative experiences for me growing up in the desert that carried with me all along and, I mean, I think folks who've listened to this podcast over the last 199 episodes know that whenever anything in that area comes up, whether it's the San Pedro or the the Rosemont copper
mine or the Santa Arenas, I I still feel that and take that very personally because it's it's the land I grew up around. And I mean, I really love hearing this from everyone because it is that connection. Right? There that that moment often growing up that that really, brought us where we are here today. Great. Well, you know, we've been here, some of us, for a long time, some of us for a short time, but we've all met some interesting people in the course of doing this work.
Let's talk about that. Lauren, why don't you start us off again? Name some of the folks that you've met through your work with CWP and why they stuck in your mind. Sure thing. And it's a really wonderful and deep bench, but I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about AJ Carter and the team at Metropolis Media Group. Folks may not be aware. This is a a person who is a jack of all trades when it comes to videography, cinematography, sound, and he has helped us produce the road to 30 postcard
films. And he works with some really talented film editors as well. And there's just been such a pleasure in getting to know him as a person and to seeing his delight and amazing attitude about going to these remote places and, somehow he manages to be a one man band. And we have produced some some work that I'm incredibly proud of, and we've had a lot of fun along the way. So, folks may not realize how integral that's been to our production of these, but it's also
been a really fun and pleasurable experience. And and I mean, really, a a secret weapon, I think, in terms of the quality of the work, the shooting that he does, and we haven't really talked about it here, but several of those road to 30 films have end up in film festivals and and getting a nice amount of recognition for the the work and the shooting and editing that AJ has done. Jen, how about you?
I I think one of the things that we've been able to do is really help amplify the voices of conservation leaders, and that's from folks at the local level, but also folks at the federal, national level. Governor Bullock, former governor Bullock from Montana is a really amazing public lands advocate, and it's been really fun to, you know, work with him in his office when he was governor. Former New Mexico senator Tom Udall. And then,
our current BLM director, Tracy Stone Manning. We got to know Tracy before she was a BLM director, and it's been great to have her leadership at the BLM as they've worked to reform the oil and gas leasing process and implement the public lands rule. Awesome. Aaron, how about you? Some of the more curveball guests that we've had. I I love the number of authors that we've gotten to talk to on the podcast,
over the years. I mean, going all the way back, one of the very early episodes was with a a writer named Mike Finkel who wrote a book, about this hermit who lived in the Maine woods for decades, and and Mike now is back on top of the New York Times bestseller charts with a book about an art art heist.
Tommy Caldwell, obviously, not not an author, but just a legendary climber and what what a treat it was talking to him and, again, those connections and origin stories of what leads someone who has a very successful career as an athlete into advocacy, those kinds of conversations that I think any other, you know, conservation group that didn't have the freedom that we do here to have those kinds of conversations wouldn't happen. I've I've really appreciated that.
Awesome. Well, I'll go Through our work with the postcards video series that Lauren mentioned earlier, I got to meet Regina, White Skunk Lopez. She is a Ute Mountain Ute Tribal member and a huge advocate, for the Bears Ears National Monument. She was on the intertribal coalition at one point, and I had heard her name just because I lived in Bluff for years. And then I got the chance to actually reach out to her and ask her to be in the video and meet her and even actually become friends
with her. So that was a really, really cool for full circle experience for me. Let's listen to a clip of that real quick. My name is Regina Lopez Whiteskunk. I'm a former elected official for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe. I'm also a former co chair of the Bears Ears Intertribal Coalition. What I feel when I come out here is like I come home. There's a connection. It's like I come to visit, a relative. Does anyone else have anyone they wanna mention?
I would mention some folks. So, Lauren mentioned AJ, and, so he's he's our cinematographer. Worked with him on the postcards campaign. He's just the coolest dude. Like, he's great at what he does. He produces amazing videos for us, but he's just so fun to be around. If you could just imagine, like, the most Australian cinematographer capturing nature and wildlife, that's him. We'll be, like, getting a shot, and he's, like, look
at this bay. We need this bay to come back, and we're gonna win some awards with this one. He's amazing. He's just so fun. That's so accurate. Now now we're gonna need an AJ. You are right. We did win some awards. Yeah. Yeah. Heck, yeah. Yeah. We got film fests. He's like our, resident Steve Irwin. Exactly. Exactly. So AJ is great. Also, it's worth noting
that I'm a Weese Fellow too. So I'm the outreach and campaigns associate with CWP, but I'm also, a Weese Fellow and that my position is a 2 year fellowship supported by the Weese Foundation. And there are, I don't know, 10 other Wyss Fellows nationwide, and I get the chance to meet them every year. And so they're all just awesome people, and it has, been amazing to develop those connections, not just, like, in Colorado either. It's nationwide
that these other Weez fellows are. So, there's some awesome awesome people. I I wanna turn to some of the places we've been. We've had the chance to to travel a bit, some of it as a group, some individually to to various spots, and I mean, I appreciate, of course, not being stuck in an office or stuck working from home all day long. But but I'd love to hear from folks about where they've been outside of the office and what are some of those trips that have been the most meaningful.
And let's let's start with Lily on this one. Sure. Well, I think one of the most exciting places that we actually went as a whole team was the Dolores River Canyonlands out in Western Colorado, where there's a proposed national monument. And we took an amazing tour of the area and just got to see what makes it special and why
it should be protected. And it getting actual eyes on a place that you write about and talk about is, like, a really important thing, and it makes it easier to write about it in the future when you know what you're talking about and you really mean what you're saying.
And so I got the chance to go out there both when we were out there as a team and then attending a listening session held by senator Hickenlooper where I got to hear a lot of perspectives of people who live there and why they think it's important to protect the area as well. Kate, you're lucky that you've gotten to do some of this stuff right in your backyard. Yeah. Absolutely. The the Bears Ears video that we worked on was literally shot in my backyard,
so that was really cool. But I've also gotten to travel to places I absolutely never would have gone, other if it weren't for CWP, like the Owyhee Canyonlands in Southern Oregon. That is an incredible landscape. There's a monument proposed to protect it right now, and there are just multiple areas within that region that could be national parks. And I was just floored to see it and floored to realize it wasn't protected. So that's just one example.
If you live in Boise, you can get there pretty quickly, and and I highly recommend it. Jen? I would echo what Lily said about the, Dolores. It was really an great opportunity for all of us as a team to get out and see this incredible landscape that should be protected, and it was just awe inspiring to be there with, Scott Braden, who knows the landscape so well, and he could describe, you know, the flora, the fauna, the geography,
the geology. And it it makes a difference when you are on the ground and you're seeing a place that you're advocating to be protected.
I would go back to our monuments to America RV tour, which was one of the first big projects at CWP that I got to work on where we we wrapped an RV and went across the west with a 30 foot tall inflatable Statue of Liberty to celebrate National Monuments and the antiquities act and stopping in in Grand Junction, seeing Colorado National Monument going through Southern California, and and sand to snow down there.
Just getting to appreciate so many different landscapes within, within this region was amazing, but also all of the the local elected officials, all of the local conservation advocates that we got to meet and talk to in every city, and talking to reporters everywhere we went, creating what I thought was a really unifying message, pointing out how these national monuments bring folks together everywhere.
I I just loved that experience so much, even even with, you know, 8 to 10 hour, driving days in the RV every once in a while. Yeah. I I think that's right, Erin. And I think one of the things that CWP does really well is creating these opportunities and these campaigns to really highlight public lands. One thing that we did during the pandemic was create a virtual road tour. Since we couldn't leave our homes, we worked with US senator, Tom Udall to create the road to 30 virtual tour.
And we highlighted landscapes throughout the west, talking to local elected officials, members of congress about 30 by 30 and the need to protect, public lands, to fight the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis. But it was a great way when we were all locked up in our homes to really highlight public lands from all of these different states. And we we really helped lead the or lay the
groundwork for the 30 by 30 movement. I I then I wanna take this opportunity then to hop in the the way back machine and play a clip from that, one of our our road to 30, live events with then congresswoman Deb Haaland, who, of course, is now the interior secretary. Take a listen. Tribes want to protect Chaco Canyon from gas and oil drilling. And look, in that area of New Mexico, the, the northwest corner of our state is the largest methane cloud in the world, just hovering
above our state. So it's clear that, there is a lot of pollution already, emanating down into those communities. And lo and behold, here we are now 4 plus years later, and Chaco is protected. I mean, it's wonderful seeing that through line. And the BLM has, put forth and finalized a rule to reduce methane waste and leaks. So she really delivered on both of those fronts. So that's a pretty good segue into our next question, which is what is everyone here most proud of that they've done at CWP?
Sterling, why don't you start us off? Sure. Well, I think for me, being a young individual, this is this is my first job out of college. Right? So I have had the experiences of, like, dipping my toes into all sorts of new things, which is all I could ask for, It's so so, like, early in my career. So things like filmmaking, video editing, you know, making content for for TikTok and and Instagram reels.
And specifically with those things, taking really complex topics and and diluting them down into, you know, 45 seconds and just, like, with quippy little sentences that that anybody can understand. That's, that takes understanding, like, deep understanding of topics to be able to to file it down to such a small size. So I'm proud of I'm proud of that. I'm just yeah. I think, like, I'm proud of the connections I've made too.
The conservation realm I have learned is just very interconnected, One organization to another, like, we're all we're all talking with each other, and I think that's really awesome. And and I've made it a priority to to make connections to use this as an opportunity to, reach out to other folks that we work with on a day to day basis. I'm always amazed by how much we're able
to do with such a small team. We put out an incredible amount of high quality content and we're able to seem like we're a much larger organization than we are because we're targeted and strategic with the content we produce. We ensure the research and analysis are thorough and accurate, and we invest in design so that the visual aspect of our work is compelling.
I'm also really glad that CWP continues to track conservation policy at the state level in Western states and that we keep an eye on emerging issues that impact public lands in the west, whether that's a renewed interest in mining for uranium and critical minerals or accessing geothermal resources or exploring different carbon capture and storage technologies and the impacts that all of those will have on public lands and on our climate.
Lily Rachel mentioned the the visual impact, and, it should be noted for everyone listening that that is Lily doing that with her tremendous skill set. So I just wanna open that up for you of what you've been the the most proud of or or learned the most doing.
Yeah. I mean, that's definitely something that when I took this job, I was really excited about because it's very clear that CWP really values that beautiful looking products are more engaging and more fun and interesting for people to read and to, look at and take in. And so I was really excited to take that on as
part of my role. So I've been able to contribute in that sense to all kinds of products, different reports if they're print or they're an online report on our website, like our conservation toolbox report, which broke down a whole bunch of different designations and types of land protection. And I am really proud of the way that everybody is invested in, making sure those things are engaging and easy to read, because they look beautiful. And most recently, some really beautiful hats and
stickers Oh, yeah. Particularly cute. Coming soon. Yeah. We got some new swag coming. I'll I'll jump in here. I'm I'm, again, just so proud of the postcard videos. Those are our short documentaries about, people working to protect iconic places throughout the United States. It's it's I never ever in my wildest dreams thought I would end up being a video producer, a a, quote, unquote, documentary producer, but it's been a blast learning how to do that.
I'm also really proud of the podcast. I've taken over sort of the behind the scenes production of the podcast from booking to editing, to obviously hosting. So those are some things that have been huge privileges that I'm really proud of that I've gotten to do here. Erin, how about you? I well, I'm gonna punt to Jen first and then come back because I think what I'm gonna say is gonna be actually a little different from what what Jen's gonna gonna say here.
Well, I'm really proud of all of the campaigns that we've run, but one in particular is our winning the west campaign. We launched that in 2016, in an effort to really highlight conservation as an important issue to voters in the west.
And what we've seen over the last 8 years is really a measurable impact on conservation being front and center in campaigns for congress, for the local for campaigns at the local level, and we've seen it on both sides, both Democrats and Republicans really highlighting their conservation priorities. And we've also seen it translate into policy from the Great American Outdoors Act to the, you know, the full funding of, the Land and Water Conservation Fund to new national
monuments. I mean, Camp Hale National Monument, came out of a report, that we issued 8 years ago. Now that wasn't winning the West, but still it was highlighting conservation as an important issue to voters in the West. And and I've been thinking a lot about the accountability work that CWP has done, will continue to do.
And thinking back to early in the Trump administration, the accountability work on, regarding Ryan Zinke, the interior secretary who a lot of folks in our world thought was the the best case scenario for an interior secretary in a Trump administration and quickly turned out not to be, but also turned out to be quite the embarrassment both for the West and the administration.
And, obviously, there are a lot of groups doing important accountability work in there, but tracking those public documents, tracking those calendars, being able to show, the work that was going on to bend the government to do the work of industry. I think the results that CWP got by doing that accountability work made an impact on the national stage. And it's one of those things, in my career that I will look back on, being incredibly proud of, as as unfortunate is that it's
work that has to be done. I'm really glad we did it. No. Absolutely. I think the work that we did during that time was incredibly important to the conservation community. Erin, can I add on to that? Yeah.
I wasn't at the organization when you all did this, but doing, the sentiment analysis when in 2017, there was a review of monuments under the Trump administration, and that led to the reduction in size of Grand Staircase and Bears Ears National Monument and figuring out a way to, analyze the public comment data and show have hard evidence that, what was it, 98%
of respondents were opposed to reducing monuments. And so that's something that continuously surprises me and delights me about being at this organization is that these landscapes that we're talking about and these issues are main character in everything we do. And to bring those to life, we get to be creative. We get to be analytical and do research and there's storytelling in everything that we do. And it's there's just no limit to us coming up with new ways to think of how can we add to
the conversation and be helpful. And I would also say for me personally, I'm I'm at my best when I bite off way more than I can chew. And the reason is that I have this team of highly skilled people and we figure out how to do things like road to 30 postcards. I don't think any of us knew what would actually be involved in putting that together. And to look back, it's it's an enormous accomplishment, and it's due to all the folks who, contributed to it.
Yeah. I I I thank you for mentioning the the comments and us realizing there is data out there that we can use to to show how public lands are important and the fact that we've been able to return to that on so many issues, under 2 administrations now. I yeah. Definitely one of the things that I'm I'm most proud of and and most enjoy as a data nerd, honestly. It's I I love it when we're able to to find those projects and do them.
Okay. I'm gonna jump in here as well with something I am very proud of, which is sort of the workhorse of our organization, which is our newsletter, Look West. If you're not subscribed, this is a shameless plug. Please go subscribe. It's on our website under newsletter. We summarize the top public lands news around the west, every single day and send it to your
inbox every morning. And I've heard from countless people in the conservation space, in journalism, in politics that, people an an art professor at the University of Utah, truly just people from all backgrounds, who say that our newsletter is a resource that they really rely on. So I'm really proud of that, and, I think it's just a really cool thing that we do.
Yeah. Rachel, part of your job as as policy director here is working on state issues in particular where, a lot of us will spend a lot of time focused on what's happening at the national level. You dive in, well, this year on every single state legislative session in an incredibly deep way. How does how do you compare those 2? How does one side of it inform the other part of the work?
So being part of an organization that engages at the federal level on things like monument designations or agency rules that are going to apply to public lands across the country. It's inspiring to think about the size of landscapes that are being protected or the number of acres a new rule will apply to. The scale of the work feels so big, But at the same time, I think sometimes you can wonder if you as an individual are really making a difference, and you are.
You're a needed piece of a puzzle. It's just a really large puzzle with a really large number of pieces. At the state level, in my experience, it's much easier to feel the impact you're making as an individual to see the direct influence you have on developing and advancing policy. But sometimes you can feel like that work pales in comparison to a federal rule or land designation because the numbers are smaller. You're the same size of puzzle piece, but in a smaller puzzle with fewer pieces.
So having now done both, I've learned that neither one is more important or more impactful that we need people doing good work at all levels. That is all critical and urgently needed and that wherever you are, if you're not sure if you're making a difference, keep going. Awesome. Sterling, I wanna go to you next. I have a question. We we shout you out at the end of this podcast at almost every episode and say, go follow our TikTok because the work you're doing on there is so awesome.
And CWP has traditionally been, you know, engaged in a lot of of more, old school comms. We talk to journalists. We put out press releases. We, brief policymakers, things like that. But social media is becoming increasingly important. People in your age group are getting their news from social media, the majority of folks in Gen z, I believe. So tell us a little bit about the work you're doing on social media and why it matters. Well, I'm I'm Gen z. I'm the only Gen z one at CWP, and I grew
up with social media. I mean, it was just, like, part of part of my daily life ever since probably middle school, for better or for worse. You know? But I think it's just, like, the primary way of communicating your message with the general public these days. You know? And and for CWP to have such an important message of of protecting public lands, that's something that that, the older generations and younger folks need to be on board with alike. You know?
And so for us to to jump on TikTok, it was a no brainer for me, and I was happy to to take that on. I feel like I have a a connection with my fellow Gen Zers and and younger audiences. So, it's been it's been really fun to, like, take these complex topics and and and dilute them down to something that's more bite sized. And, yeah, it's just completely vital to to get the the younger folks on board. I remember my first year for the first certainly 6 months, maybe 12,
maybe 18 months. I just felt like I was drinking from the fire hose, learning things about public lands, public policy, and, you know, I I came in here thinking I was fairly wonky in terms of my political knowledge. I I just for Sterling and then anyone else, what what is the what was that experience like for you realizing, oh, there's a whole lot here that I don't even know yet? It was like drinking from a fire hose, I would say. Yeah. It was identical to that.
I you know, it's funny because when you apply to a job, you want to seem like you're super qualified and you're like you know the topic super well. I promise you, nobody who applies for this job could have known every single thing about every single topic that we cover. I mean, we're doing things from from, you know, energy development to oil and gas leasing reform. Those topics are incredibly dense, and they still they still make me wanna bang my head against the wall every once
in a while. But, I think that's a collective feeling, Sterling, especially on energy reform. But, yeah, I mean, it's it's it's a lot to come into an organization that does so much with such a little team. But, honestly, I wouldn't have it any other way. Like I said, I'm I'm starting out my career. And so to have something where I can have all these different experiences straight out of the gate, that gives me assets that I can that I can use going into the future.
I would say, Sterling, I learn something new every day, and there are days that I feel like I'm drinking from a fire hose. It's definitely the a fun part of this job. It's what keeps it interesting is that we get to read up on things and become experts and then, share that knowledge. It's really exciting. I was gonna say, Kate Kate, you you you got a crash course in housing policy this year. Yeah. Housing project 2025. Go read those blogs.
Shameless plug there. But, yeah, I just wanted to say when I started at CWP, it took me the longest time to actually understand what CWP does. And I wonder if any listeners of this podcast are having the same question. And I think, Erin, maybe you said this to me, was so helpful, but I think that you said that we do PR for public lands, and that really has stuck in my head. And, yeah, if anybody's wondering what we do, that's that's the shorthand. That's the elevator pitch.
That is definitely the, yeah, the the forward pitch. And and I I think beyond that, you know, we why is it so hard to pin down what we do? Well, we do whatever needs to get done today, and it is really fun for me being at an organization where our mandate is broad enough that we can do that to recognize, well, this is what needs to get done today even if we haven't done it before.
I would add to it too. I came from working in DC for 8 years on Capitol Hill and at the interior department, and it took me a little while to appreciate what we are able to do and say in the nonprofit sector that is really hard to say if you work at a government agency. You know, the trick there is like, how do you toot your own horn without blowing it?
And so sometimes, we can, be more direct and say, look, budgets are, you know, this there's a reason why some of these things are really difficult, that it's just awkward to say when your work is funded by US taxpayers. So it's it it took me a while to let go of some of my rigidness and my acronyms and and the way I talked about these issues that was so steeped in government thinking and speak to realize, oh my gosh,
I get to stretch my wings. We get to we get to talk about this and think of this in a more comprehensive way. So I wanna turn this to to Lauren, Jen, Erin, folks that have been working in conservation for a long time, on at the federal level, what has changed since you started in this space, and and where do you think we're going? So I'll jump in here.
I think it's fair to say that there's a long overdue reckoning in terms of the initial displacement of indigenous people that led to some of these treasured public lands, national parks, refuges, places that we all love and enjoy and consider one of America's best ideas. So just within the last several years, I think there's a much stronger chorus of of saying, hey, we need to look at this and see what was lost by removing people from a landscape whose knowledge
of those places goes back millennia. Not only that, a spiritual and a cultural connection. And it's only within the last couple years that I think we're seeing, the rubber meet the road in terms of how can you do co management and co stewardship of some of these landscapes. And and it matters to have people in leadership positions like secretary Deb Haaland and National Park Service Director Chuck Sams who have a different lived experience
and bring that to these positions. So I would say that's one of the biggest things. Another issue that is only going to be more important over time is overcrowding of some of these crown jewels. There's, I think, 60 some national parks and most of the visitation is concentrated and probably 8 to 10. So looking at, do we need more public lands and safe equitable outdoor access and also dispersing that and taking care of of these places that we all love and enjoy.
Yeah. And I would say, just teeing off what Lauren said, we've really seen, especially under the Biden administration, public lands have been a priority. Conserving 30% of lands and waters have been a priority in a president's 1st term, and that's unprecedented. We didn't see that under Obama. He prioritized public lands, but not until his 2nd term. And then under the Trump administration, there was an all out assault on public
lands. And so conservation over the last 10 years has just become a much more important issue for administrations, for members of Congress. And that's been that's been, you know, great to see from our perspective as a PR firm for public lands. Right?
Well, and I think when you look back when I started 2015, 2016, the amount of work we were doing around anti public lands extremism that had seeped its way into, in one case, a a full party platform, there was a significant movement pushing to dispose of national public lands on the wholesale level.
You saw folks going around with the map showing the east versus the west claiming that the the amount of public lands in the west were proof that there were too many and that we need to get rid of them, and that position has become a political third rail
across the political spectrum. And there are certainly still folks out there arguing for wholesale disposal, but now they have to couch it, like we saw governor Lombardo from Nevada doing, couching the language of of housing, and that's why we need to get rid of 50,000 acres at a time because they know they can't just say, oh, we just need to get rid of it.
That's been a shift, and and I think not one that was guaranteed when you when you look back a decade at where that Bundy style sagebrush rebellion was at. And, you know, thanks to a number of things, including, St Luke's Hospital in Boise.
Ammon Bundy is, of course, now sidelined and more or less in hiding, but his movement is has been sidelined and and forced to try to find other ways to argue for what what they want because the actual just straight up, let's be honest that you don't like National Public Lands, It's politically toxic now. And I I I'm really happy and, I think proud of the role we played in getting the country there. So let's wrap this up by turning towards the podcast.
This is our 200th episode. Erin, you started the podcast almost 8 years ago, which is just crazy to even think about. And I'd love to talk about the past of the podcast and the future of it as well. So, Aaron, why don't you talk about the the the very beginning? Yeah. I mean, I think it's important to note that this podcast, the the landscape started with a different name.
And that that name, Go West Young Podcast, was something that we saw at the time as a bit of a clever play on words, and it reflected, I think, certainly a blind spot on my part, and and the organization overall that while that was may have seemed like a play on words to us, it was also, in some ways making light of manifest destiny and, the process by which we recognized, especially in 2020, we needed to change the name of this podcast, was
a really good one for me. I I wanted to go back and listen to that because we did do an episode on, hey. Here's why we are now calling this podcast The Landscape. 4 years ago, we started this little podcast about the outdoors in America's public lands, and now 90 episodes later, we are changing things up. Welcome to the landscape from the Center For Western Priorities. I'm Erin Weiss. And today, we are saying goodbye to the name Go West to Young podcast.
We will explore why in an interview with 2 historians, Patty Limerick and Philip Deloria, about the legacy of manifest destiny. So, yeah, I mean, Jen, you went through that process with us. It it was a I think it was a really important process for us to go through, and I think it was very thoughtful. And the conversation with the 2 historians, I thought, just really helped us and our listeners understand why why we
needed to change the name. And the landscape in a lot of ways is a broader, more inclusive name for the podcast, and I'm really proud of the work that we did to to make that change. Tell correct me if this is wrong, Yaron, but I feel like the the pace at which we are publishing episodes maybe has increased. It has 100%, and you are entirely to thank for that. Yeah. Apologies to everyone who has episodes stacking up in their feed that they haven't gotten to yet.
It's become a passion project of mine for sure, and I love trying to balance the types of guests that we're getting, everywhere for from background to, you know, ethnicity to, whether it's an author or a politician. It's been fun to try to just, make sure that there's a a healthy, interesting mix of people coming on. And, on that note, I'm I'm really excited, to do more podcasts with folks that have audiences on social media, that we can sort of co
post, the episode about. Because I think that's a great way we can bring in new listeners and, also expose our listeners to organizations and and influencers and groups like, the disabled hikers, which we just had an episode from, that they may not have found otherwise. So I'm excited to to do more of that
and just continue growing the audience here. And I'm excited to get us back out on the road and live doing more episodes in person, whether it's out, in a farmer's rancher's field out in in Steamboat Springs or on the trade show floor at outdoor retailer or at a brewery in Missoula, Montana. Those experiences have been so much fun and I think create better conversations. So I I'm excited to to get to do more of that with this show. Anyone else? Yeah. What what do you guys want on
the podcast? We never ask you that. I think, I mean, I think the guests that we have have been tremendous. And what I really appreciate, with Kate and Erin is that you are looking for those opportunities to highlight voices who might not get that amplification and and, the creativity with the interviews. So I would say just continue more of the same. I think there are a lot of opportunities out there to pursue different angles around public lands. Alright. And we'll throw it to our listeners
too. You guys, you know where to find us, podcast at westernpriorities.org. So, please, if you're having thoughts right now, if you're thinking, oh my gosh. I can't believe they didn't mention this, or this podcast sucks. They should totally change it. Let us know. Or if you really like it, you know, it's always good to hear that. So with that, I guess we'll wrap up this 200th episode of the landscape. Thank you to our team for doing this.
We we got you guys in here and made you think about your work and put on headphones and speak into microphones. So thank thanks to everyone for for doing this. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. We're skipping good news this week for the sake of time, so that means we've reached the end of this episode. You can always reach us with questions and comments, podcast at westernpriorities.org. Thanks to team CWP for chatting with us today. And as always, thank you for listening to the landscape.