Welcome to The Landscape, your show about America's parks and public lands for as long as we have them. I'm your host, Erin Weiss, with the Center for Western Priorities in Denver. And I'm Kate Gretzinger in Salt Lake City. Today on the podcast, we're talking to indigenous activist and scholar, Len Nesseffer, about a new feature length documentary he worked on. The film is called the American Southwest, and it highlights the rich ecological and cultural value of the Colorado River.
It's also the first blue chip nature documentary to be narrated by an indigenous person. It's a great film, and I can't wait to share our conversation with you. But first, the news. Well, the White House this morning released its wish list for the fiscal year twenty twenty six budget. As far as public lands go, it is a dream, I guess you could say, of this administration as they've been projecting sweeping cuts across national parks and public lands.
Our executive director Jen Rokala called it a bleak vision even. Let's just run through some of what they wanna do here because it it does involve everything we've been warning about, handing over public lands to states or just outright disposal, deep cuts to firefighting, forest service, you you name it. So alright. Starting with the National Park Service.
The president wants to cut $900,000,000 from National Park Service operation, and that includes transferring, quote, unquote, certain properties from the National Park Service to states. They're careful to say they're not talking about national parks themselves, but many of these other national park sites that are run by the National Park Service, places like, for example, Montezuma Castle National Monument in Arizona. Lots of these smaller sites that are historic in nature
run by the National Park Service. You could look at things like Stonewall National Monument recently designated in in New York. All sorts of stuff. Yeah. Hovenweep National Monument in Utah, that's run by the National Park Service. A lot of the older national monuments are run by the National Park Service and, would be, you know, included in this order. It's really shocking,
that the Trump administration is proposing this. Here in Utah, state legislature ran a bill to allows the state of Utah to co manage national parks with the federal government. It was more of a resolution because they don't actually have the power to, wrest control over the parks. But that bill failed because the state of Utah doesn't wanna take on the cost of managing these places, which is exactly
why this is such a big threat. If it was to come to pass, you know, these parks would essentially just be shut down and privatized, sold off, because the states don't have the money to run these. And the cuts to the National Park Service that are proposed keep going from there. A hundred and $58,000,000 cut from historic preservation, $73,000,000 from long overdue construction projects trying to address that national parks maintenance backlog.
That's just park service. Okay. Moving on to the Bureau of Land Management, A hundred and ninety eight million dollars in proposed cuts. All of that targeted at national monuments, including, what this budget proposal calls deep reductions to undo, unquote, national monument designations made under presidents Biden and Obama. It That's confusing because I don't understand where you get a you get $200,000,000 just from removing monument designations. Monuments don't come with funding.
So I'm curious, Aaron, if you have thoughts on that math. It doesn't math, of course, and that's why they just released this as a very broad sort of top line spreadsheet with no details. Because as soon as you release details on where those cuts are coming from, you're talking about the land managers who do the work of managing visitors and grazing and all of everything that goes into multiple
use. You you can't get a hundred $98,000,000 from the BLM budget without that also being serious staffing cuts on the ground. Right. The Fish and Wildlife Service proposing to cut a hundred and $70,000,000 from species conservation programs that are managed by states or tribes or other nations. A half billion dollars from the US geological survey cutting pure science. That's the research and investigations and surveys that we need in order to find out what is happening to our planet.
And then moving over to the Department of Agriculture, the Forest Service, seven hundred and eighty three million dollars in proposed cuts, proposed to forest system management and operations, including a big sell off of our national forests. The White House calls that rightsizing their real property footprint.
And, again, the only reason you sell off a national forest is because you are saying goodbye to sustained yield, you are saying goodbye to multiple use, you are just saying, okay, go right ahead and chop down all the trees. That's the only way you reach a number like that, $783,000,000. And and then we get into proposed cuts, to tribal nations, Kate.
Yeah. The they're proposing a 617,000,000 cut from tribal communities and self governance, a hundred and 7,000,000 from tribal public safety, which, you know, with my experience back, living near the Navajo Reservation, that will not be popular among tribes. They are constantly asking for more public safety funding, and a hundred and 87,000,000 from tribal school construction, which is just just embarrassing and and shameful.
In addition to cuts from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, their the proposal includes cutting around $30,000,000 from the federal rental assistance program, and that's under the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Now that's not exactly a public land funding cut, but it does connect to public lands because the budget on that line item says that this model would incentivize states in the private sector to provide affordable housing in combination with efforts related to opening up
federal lands. Now this is referring to that Department of Interior and HUD MOU that was announced earlier this year, where, basically, the BLM is gonna look for public lands to sell off to the private sector and states to develop housing. And, you know, this is really a tell that the administration doesn't actually care about providing affordable housing. They're taking $30,000,000
away from rental assistance programs. Sorry. They they are suggesting taking out taking away $30,000,000 from the federal rental assistance programs and instituting a two year cap on rental assistance for able-bodied adults. So, they're not serious about helping people find affordable housing. Couple other things to flag. Private conservation, proposing a 3 quarters of a billion dollar cut from private land conservation under the NRCS, Natural Resource Conservation Service, that's part of the
agriculture department. There, you're just talking about taking away money that was going to farmers to have conservation and farming coexist providing habitat on private lands. Yeah. That's conservation easements. Right? That's conservation easements. That's that's crop rotation. Any number of, ways that farmers are crucial, to conservation in America. And then finally, the really bonkers proposal here doesn't even come with a dollar figure.
This budget is proposing consolidating wildfire operations. Now maybe at first glance, that doesn't sound so bad, but when you realize what they're proposing to do and how they wanna do it, they wanna take all wildfire operations away from the forest service and consolidate all of that at the interior department.
Now the office of Wildland Fire at Interior is currently controlled by Tyler Hasson, who is Elon Musk's Doge operative, who is serving as the assistant secretary for policy management and budget under a secretarial order that we talked about earlier on this podcast. Tyler Hasson has complete control over the interior department's staffing and reorganization, and this is a guy who is completely unqualified for that job to say nothing of his lack of qualifications to oversee
all wildfire response across the federal government. That proposal just bonkers. Anyway, all of this, it's a statement of values. It's a statement of what president Trump wants congress to do. We now have the first inclination of what that could look like on the congressional side as well. The House Natural Resources Committee has
released its first funding bill. We're not even gonna get into how that aligns or doesn't align with the president's wish list here, but that's where the table is set right now going into the reconciliation process in congress that will play out over the next several months.
Needless to say, this is bleak, but also all of this will put a lot of members of Congress in a really tough spot once the details start coming out and it begins to be clear exactly where the Trump administration wants to do these cuts, especially handing over national park sites to state governments that don't have the money to run them.
That's where we're at. Sorry, this was a bit of a longer detour news segment than usual, but wanna make sure everyone here is up to speed on what could happen next. Our guest today is Len Nesseffer, CEO and founder of Natives Outdoors, a native owned outdoor media apparel, and consulting company. You may also know him as the man behind
the Snore and Avalanche Center Instagram account. Len's here today to talk about his latest project, a documentary film about the Colorado River Basin titled the American Southwest. Len, thanks so much for joining us. Yeah. I'm happy to be back. It's been way too long. I know. Sorry about that. First of all, I just wanna say, wow. The film is spectacular. It's, you know, as someone who's worked on some date some nature documentary style films for, my job here at CWP, I know how
much work probably went into this. It's, really there's just, like, perfect from top to bottom. Beautifully written narration, incredible b roll of animals, which I know is, like, the hardest thing to get. There's like it seems like a original score by a symphony. It's just, like, spectacular. So will you describe, like, the documentary and and what it covers for our listeners, so they have a sense of what we're talking about here?
Yeah. So the film American Southwest is a story of the Colorado River told through the animals and people along the river from headwaters in the Upper Basin states all the way down to the Sea Of Cortez. And along that journey of the river, we tell a multitude of stories that capture the threats and pressures and also the historical significance of this river told through the lens of animals, which I think is really fun.
But in many respects, it's a timely movie and we made it as such just given the compact renegotiation that's going to be happening next year. And a big push of the film is the importance of flowing rivers and how important it is for rivers to have a right to exist. Over the last hundred years, we've managed to engineer that river and basically into oblivion. And so it doesn't run into the Gulf anymore.
And we think there's an opportunity to inspire folks through this movie and also get them acquainted of what's happening along the river. And, of course, animals are always fun. Yeah. I like, one thing that I especially loved about the film was sort of the personification of some of the wildlife, like, the scene about the beavers and how their their dream is to own a home and and have babies. It was really cute. So I'm curious. How did you guys, how did Natives Outdoors get involved with this,
film? It was produced by a group called well, coproduced by you guys in a film, production group called Fin and Fur Films. So how did you get pulled into this? Yeah. So in 2022, or '21, I went to a a film festival in Texas for another film that we released, called Spirit of the Peaks. And we were screening it there, and we just happened to be paired with, another film group, Phun and Fer, and, the director Ben Masters was in the crowd and in the audience
watching our film. And, he reminded me of the story of how we first met is that he raised his hand at the end of our film and said, hey. I'm a white filmmaker from Texas. I don't know anything about the Colorado River. I don't know anything about indigenous cultures. How should someone like me, go about making a movie about this? And I said, well, you can hire us, and we'll figure it out. And we'll hire or we'll, you know, if you hire us, you know, we'll hold your hand, and,
we'll make it possible. And and so we stayed in touch after that and, you know, kept talking, and he, secured funding for this film. And and, and one of the things that we early on discussed was how do we talk about the incredible human history along the river. And there's one sequence in the film, halfway through the film, that talks about the human history of Bears Ears, and, one of the things that we talk about there is just, the let me take a step back. So one of the ways that we talk about,
human history is through rock art. One of the things that you see in Bears Ears is, thousands of years of history, lots of depictions of animals and people. And in many ways, our film sort of does the same thing. Those inscriptions on the rock were meant to tell a story and to tell people afterwards about what was happening, where the animals were at, and what's going on. And in many ways, our film aims to do the same thing.
And so we worked with Ben on about and in the Fin and Fur crew with about 50% of the film, more or less. And so the elk rut was one of the was my first foray and another one of our filmer's first foray into, wildlife filmmaking, and it's very different than action sports. It's a lot more waiting. It's way less scripted and a lot of the magic happens in post production and editing.
But really one of the things that we aim for is just trying to capture animals' behaviors that can tell the story and help us weave a coherent narrative. And so in in many respects, it was like jumping in the deep end. And in in that respect, I could on also understand where Ben was coming from when we wanted to incorporate things like the the story about Bears Ears and human
history. And so, you know, in many respects, we were learning together, and we come from such wildly different backgrounds. Ben's from Amarillo, Texas, and I've grown up in the Southwest on on reservations. And, you know, it was I think one of the things that really made that film powerful is, the friendship that we all built as a
team through this process. And, but also just getting to spend these really long periods of time on landscape with each other and just having these long discussions about how do we approach telling these stories, what's a priority, and and really just trying to weave this coherent narrative together. And and prior to, we filmed this elk rut, went really well, and then we then went off to do this sequences about Bears Ears and Lake Powell
in that area. And, I snagged a cancellation river permit on, like, the weekend right before we were supposed to film. And I said, Ben, like, if you can just make it out a couple days early, we can get on the river. And when Ben arrives, you know, he's getting his camera gear together and and, you know, it's like in work mode. And I just I remember telling him, I was like, Ben, we we're not supposed to start shooting until Monday. It's Friday. And I said, just put that away. Let's just go
float the river. Let's just go be in this place just to experience it together and have conversations that will lead to that. And, so that plus, you know, a bottle of tequila will do go go quite far on a river trip. And so we had these long discussions, and we we rode the river over a couple days.
And, I think what came out of that, though, is this real deep thoughtfulness and transformation for both of us of me showing this place of the American Southwest that I've become so deeply connected to, through my other work. And for Ben, it's, you know, a place that he's visited, but now hasn't had, like, sort of this deeper connection. And it was really cool to be able to introduce that to him and really just see how this gets
threaded through the film. And in many ways, the, you know, I was consulting with Ben and giving him direction on where to take this, but a lot of that is it's sort of a a synthesis through, Ben and and the editorial team, but really it's in at its core, it's this friendship that came out of it. That makes a lot of sense, because it it does the film does a lot. It does it tells, you know, the history of the Bears Ears region while also talking about the Colorado River Basin and the
Colorado Compact. Like, it's covering so much ground, but it didn't feel forced at all. So I can I I can see how, like, you guys really work together and sort of used your strengths to make that all work? And so I assume that you that you and, Natives Outdoors were also involved in identifying the narrator, Quana Chasing Horse, who did a fabulous job. And the film is billed as the first blue chip natural history film narrated by an
indigenous person. Could you sort of explain why that what what that means and why it was important to have a native person in that role as narrator? Yeah. I think there's a few pieces that led to that. You know, one of the the other thing that we did with this film was incorporated this element of human history and people. And, you know, there's, you know, indigenous and native history along the entire section of the river.
And one of the questions that we were kind of balancing and trying to figure out is, like, is this something that would spring sprinkle through each of the sequences? And some of it felt forced if we did. And we said, well, let's do one really good section that talks about it in-depth and really just, I think, speaks to the rest of, the film as well where we just highlighted some of the gems along the river, and we said we're gonna do these sections really well. We're not gonna
force this particular story. And in that in itself is incorporating that human history and, native history along the river, is in many ways a first as well. We haven't seen that sort of coexist along with another wildlife film, and that was intentional because a lot of native peoples along the rivers see their identity and existence intertwined with these ecosystems as well. And so in some in sort of a larger approach, we tried to weave this in throughout.
And in the discussions about the river and who would narrate, you know, we really were not, kicking around a bunch of ideas about who that could be. And, you know, one of the things that we just thought was really important was just, in in looking at how blue chip wildlife films have been done in the past, you know, we think of, like, David Attenborough and planet Earth and these very male voices. But in the Navajo world view, in a lot of worldviews of native
peoples along the river, rivers are female. Mhmm. They can be male too, but, you know, a lot at least those major sections that we were looking at are female rivers. And, and that came up on our river trip, you know, just like talking about these perspectives. And I think what came of that is we had worked with Quanah in, some of our team members. Isaiah Branch Boyle specifically had worked with Quanah on her film that she made with The North Face
about her advocacy. And I had been connected through, the steering committee and the work that I've been doing with the and other films like welcome to. With that community, and I knew her mom, Jody, and we had actually hired Quanah's brother on another film as a as a PA and, incredibly funny guy. And so we just kinda knew the family. We knew them. And, one of the things that came up in in talking in in Quanah's film is that we learned that she was actually born on the
Navajo Nation. So she was born in the basin, in, on the Navajo Reservation. And, so this was a river that formed her and part of her life. And and later in life, she moved up, along the Yukon River in Alaska. And, you know, I think in some ways, it was like a full circle moment where we
said, well, she's great. You know, she's come to prominence through her modeling, and largely her modeling came out of her advocacy and activism work around protecting the, activism work around protecting the, porcupine caribou herd. And, we said this is a great fit. It's a little bit like, how would you say, a novel but unexpected feature, of why would, you know, a half Lakota, half Quichetchen model be be
the voice over. And and really, as you notice in the film, I even for me watching it on a big screen again, I I, I forgot that it was her that was narrating it. Just like she it was almost like she became the river Yeah. In in listening to that. And I think that just, you know, that sort of culmination of all those factors, you know, just really and seeing it on screen, I think, just makes it feel like we made the right choice, and it's been awesome to have her work with her in this capacity.
Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I thought her narration was just, like, so well done, and her voice was really lovely to listen to. So I second that that was the right choice. So you mentioned this earlier. The Colorado compact states are renegotiating the compact essentially, not to get into the weeds. And they've been doing that for the past five years or so. So I think that it probably already began by the time you guys started talking about this film. Actually, you did say that.
They're now facing a deadline to reach a deal by this summer, or it goes to the federal government or courts to sort of actually make those water cuts, if the states can't agree. How does that context like, how did that apply to the film as you were making it, and how do you, like did you have that this deadline in mind, like, to to release it sort of so close to this deadline, or was that coincidental? It was very deliberate in some ways.
You know, we could have gotten the film done sooner in some respects, but also we we were aiming for this year. And largely, you know, when I I've worked in the world of policy, and I've seen that in a lot of decisions that happened in places.
And sometimes with people that have never had a meaningful or deep experience on the river, no fault of their own, but, you know, I think one of having worked in that world, I think there's an incredible importance if you're making consequential decisions on these landscapes. You need to have some sort of tangible connection, to these places. Otherwise, you're gonna miss something.
And I think, you know, what we're trying to do in this particular piece is speak to the broader public because in many respects, the discussions of the compact, the discussions of water shortage, it just makes things so abstract for most folks. And we forget that this is a living river with living beings all along it. And I think in many respects, they deserve to have a say in this too. And I think part of what we were thinking in this is just giving the voice to the things that can't speak
for themselves. I mean, I hate to I hate to reference the Lorax here, but this is kind of a Lorax moment where, you know, these animals and beings have been so critical to native peoples and, of course, all of the peoples that live along the river. There's many ecosystem services that occur that we are unaware of that happened because of this. And I think, you know, agreements will this river will long outlast us. Mhmm. Right? And these agreements will come and go and pass and,
institutions will crumble, whatever. You know, just things will happen, but we have to remember that this river is a powerful force that will continue to shape our futures, and I think we need to be treating it in, I think, a more, respectful way of the services that it provides and specifically just the importance of having a river continue to live. And, you know, we've we've engineered it for our purposes, and we are at a time now where we have another opportunity to make a decision about its
future. And we're hoping that this will just be a part of that conversation. Yeah. Totally. It's you know, what I remember when I first learned about the compact and that the way it works is that all of the water gets split up to be used. I was shocked. I was like, wait. What about the river? Like, you're gonna just take all the water out of it? That's crazy.
And I think your film does a really good job of of, illustrating why that's a a, you know, bad way to look at this and that, like, there there is a river there, that has a right to exist. And you end with a really sort of clear yet surprising message. At least it kind of took me, by surprise. It says there isn't a shortage of water in the Southwest. There's an opportunity to better steward this landscape and its most essential resource.
So I'm curious how you guys decided on that because I think, you know, there has been this there's this sense that, like, we're running out of water. There's not enough water, and that's driving so much of the discussion around the river. But you really chose to sort of invert that, and I'm curious how you came to that decision. Decisions got us here, and decisions can get us out of it. And I think part of I mean, some people reference the Overton window, which I think is a little bit
limited in terms of a political concept. But, you know, a lot of my thinking, actually, this the book that just came out that kind of has shaped and give more clarity to this this idea that we were kind of circling around and talk and pointed to was this idea of abundance as recline's new book,
had the chance to read it. And and, you know, in the beginning chapter, he actually talks about the Colorado River, and there is a future in which this river can flow, and we can have, you know, all of the things that we need to come from this river, water for people, water for food. And we can also have this reality of water for the environment. And I think, I think in some respects, we've so commodified this river, and water itself has been so commodified in the West that
it's hard to imagine a different future. And I think that's in in many respects the idea of let's imagine a future where there's enough water, and it is within is is well within reach. You know, and we controversial, but, you know, biggest source biggest user water on the river is alfalfa. Mhmm. And there are legislative fixes to figure that out, and granted there are farmers that really depend on this. But in many respects, these farmers are just
players in the larger economy. Right? They're responding to market forces and, but I think we can imagine a future in which their needs are met financially, and also we can live in a world where, that river flows again. And I think it's entirely possible. And I don't know what that looks like, just how we get there Yeah. Just yet. And there's there's things that we can do that. I mean, I hate saying this, but, like, you know, what about lab growns meets? Like, it's kinda crazy to think
about that. But, you know, imagine a world where that that could be a part of that solution. Yeah. And, you know, and I think that's that's been increasingly, this idea of of I think increasingly, we've entered a political moment in this country where we are thinking and operating in a world of scarcity. Mhmm. And that is a cultural framing, and that's a framing that has not always exist existed.
And, you know, the role of film, the role of media, and the role of things like in this in podcast is we can shift culture. Culture is fungible and culture can be moved, but it takes very deliberate action. And so in many respects, we wanna push people to that idea of abundance as possible and this river can flow
again. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. You're you're spot on with that observation that, like, there's this this sense of, scarcity right now, and it's you know, drives people to make decisions based on fear. And it's, just not a good place to be operating from, especially when we're talking about the Colorado River. So who are you hoping will sort of take
this message and run with it? Who do you think you know, what's your like, if you could put this film in front of, you know, a group of people or or one person, who would it be? Yeah. I I hope policymakers watch it, and they're gonna have their gripes about the way we frame things or the way we talk about things and this and that wasn't right, you know, or why certain ideas aren't feasible.
And and I get it. You know, they're operating in a different ecosystem than we are and political constraints that we don't have as filmmakers. But I hope they watch it, and we're gonna force feed it to some of them and try to try to try to try to hunt them down and get them into a theater and and say, you need to watch this film. And, you know, one of the one of the folks that we're gonna be showing it to is Deb Holland at some point and and
some other tribal leaders. We're gonna be doing a, theatrical release this fall, and part of that work is with with the support of, like, folks at the Mighty Arrow Foundation is doing screenings and releases on reservation in which tribal, lawmakers. And, you know, that's a very targeted release, but this wider release, we really want to get this in the eyes of the general public because we kind of forget that, you know, policy in many respects
responds to the temperature in the room. And sometimes politicians can turn that thermostat, but not always. But these larger efforts to shape public opinion can be that that adjustment on the thermostat, and that's when policymakers, they often respond to the temperature in the room. And we think that engaging the public and engaging kids, like, if you watch this movie, this is a kid's movie in many respects.
And we think that putting this idea into the idea of kids and their families, I think this is really where we think we can make a big impact. And, just to, like, be inspired by landscape and be inspired by this place and just really seeing what the water of this river does for ecosystems along it, I think is, like, it's hard to refute.
Yeah. And so, really, you know, there's gonna be a deliberate effort in helping to turn the temperature up a little bit, at least in the directions that we want it, but also just really calling in people to think about this river differently and thinking in about it through the lens of wildlife. Absolutely. So a bit of a, detour here, but you are an activist in addition to a filmmaker and many other things, a PhD, etcetera.
How are you personally thinking about advocating for public lands and indigenous communities under the Trump administration right now? I know that you were active last time around, but, things are different now. And how how are you sort of approaching advocacy from an abundance mindset, for example? I had a lot of naysayers a lot during the election when I was trying to prevent a second Trump presidency, and I just wanna say I told you so. It's, like,
worse than we thought. But they said they they're doing all the things they said they were gonna do. So, you know, I the door is open. I'm having to happy to have the conversation with folks that, you know, regret their choices of sitting out is the past election because that was a huge driver. And I think I'm still in a place of, deep frustration with where we're at. On the left, it's fractured.
I think we've also empowered some of the worst voices in in some respects around our advocacy that don't really aren't looking towards a larger cohesive vision. And I think I think we need to do a lot more soul searching of figuring out who are the voices are and who do we empower to speak on our behalf. And right now, I mean, you know, it's like it's it's, how should I say?
All of it it's the first things that are gonna be attacked are things that, at least with public lands, are gonna be tribally led or co man or co stewarded man or national monuments Mhmm. Because it represents two things, empowering a marginalized community, shaping differently how we do public lands. It doesn't surprise me that that's if when I'm pretty sure. I'm, like, 95% certain certain those are gonna be the first announcements.
I think, I think really, one of the things that I've been really trying to shift towards is this idea of not being afraid. The Trump administration and the MAGA movement has really capitalized on in this in the first, whatever, eighty days of this presidency on people's fear. And it's paralyzing. Things are moving at a
million miles an hour. But I think for me, I felt less scared about it, but really just reminding people that there's a power in showing up and talking back, and people are doing it. And I think more than ever, we have to be reminded that we cannot give these, assholes our fear. You can you can, you can, bleep that if you want. But, the the thing is is that I always the this administration has is authoritarian
for all respects. But the thing about authoritarians is that their view of the world is so narrow, and their imagination of what's possible is so narrow, and what they know is very narrow. And the thing is is that if you have some sense of the world, some sense of embracing complexity, some sense of a deeper understanding of the world around us. You we can run circles around these guys.
And, really, you know, they're trying to keep us in this place of fear because if we're in a place of fear, we can't think strategically. And increasingly, I've been trying to remind folks in my circle of, like, yep. They're gonna do some terrible things, and everything that you love or care about is probably gonna be impacted in some negative way. But they're the ones that have to keep the momentum, and they're the ones that have to, basically try to keep this ball moving forward.
And increasingly, as the days go on, this is gonna be much much harder than it than it has been for them in the past few months. And now when I start looking at, you know, the political landscape and what's out there, you know, there's a lot of local races and local elections that have a lot of impact and, you know, kind of detouring from things like public lands, like, housing and cost of living are a real
thing. And when we look at blue states, blue states do some of the worst jobs at, of of of affordability, and housing cost and housing availability. And I think, really, like, if we look at Blue States, like, we gotta get our we gotta get our act together, and really do these things and meet people where they're at. Because if if we don't take care of people at their base level of housing, of
cost of living concerns. Why you know, people aren't gonna have the bandwidth to show up for these things, like, public lands. And, you know, when we look at the states that are threatened, I mean, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, I mean, it's it's it's gonna be a challenge, and I think there's gonna have to be multiple fronts that we're gonna have to fight it on, and there's gonna be some setbacks that, you know,
are gonna take decades to undo. But I think this is a crisis that we can't let to go to waste. And we really have to be forward leaning and imagining a new future. And I've been increasingly trying to move into that world of, yeah, just thinking about how better the future could be because the current administration and this current political environment is just forcing us into this mindset of scarcity. If this person gets this, that means I get less of that. Right? And that is the worst way for
us to live. And I think we can't build a co a cohesive coalition in left leaning spaces if we continue to operate in that mindset. Yeah. Yeah. That's such that is so resonant. We've been talking a lot about the housing and the this sort of plan that the Trump administration has floated to to take public land and make it make housing on it. And it's like, we can't Yeah. We can't just be saying no to everything all the time. We have to come to the table with solutions,
that work for us. And, you know, so same with NEPA, same with housing. It's same with water shortages and drought. It's like we have to be coming to the table with solutions and say and saying do this. We can't always just be saying, no. No. No. Don't do that. Don't do this. Don't do this. So I think you're onto something. Alright. Well, we'll leave it there. Len Nesseffer, CEO and founder of Natives Outdoors, thank you so much for being with us. Yeah. Thanks so much.
Alright. Well, that is it for us. Take a look in the show notes, for a link on how to follow the upcoming theatrical release of the American Southwest so you can go see it at the movies sometime later this year. And as always, we welcome your feedback. We welcome your questions. Drop those over to podcast at westernpriorities.org and find us on all the social media platforms. Go follow us. TikTok, Instagram, you name it, wherever you are. We're probably there too.
Thanks again to Len for his time today, and thank you for listening to the landscape.