National Monuments at Risk

Weren’t they at risk areas when we protected them?

‘What a country chooses to save is what a country chooses to say about itself” ~ Mollie Beattie

When I think about my travels, the most vivid in my mind and heart are those that involved the great outdoors in both protected and unprotected areas. As our planets population continues to grow, the wild spaces get smaller and encroached on at an alarmingly fast rate.

Our National Monuments are under review to determine if they need the US Government to continue to protect them. Never mind the tourism dollars that they bring in. Never mind their historic value. Never mind the wildlife, the flora/fauna, the breath that is shared by all who inhabit and have co-existed in these areas for millennia, because gosh-darn we’re spending money on it.

Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life. ~ John Muir wrote in Our National Parks

I dare you to go into any of our protected places and return to your life unchanged and uncaring. Our parks need protection now as always and if not more than when John Muir penned that quote.