State of Interior Part V: Wildlife Deserves Better
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is hellbent on selling out and selling off our wildlife and wild lands. In his first year as Secretary, he has displayed a profound disregard for protecting America’s public lands and the wildlife that call them home. Instead, through explicit statements and a series of administrative maneuvers, he’s clearly established that his real goal is make our public lands available to the highest bidder, exploiting them for fossil fuel extraction, mining, development and much more.
Secretary Zinke fashions himself a “Teddy Roosevelt conservationist.” But our 26th president’s bonafides as the father of federal lands conservation are based on a remarkable record of achievement — establishing 150 national forests, 55 wildlife refuges, five national parks and 18 national monuments, as well as helping create a national commitment to conservation that survives to this day. Secretary Zinke’s conservation legacy, in striking contrast, has so far been purely and overwhelmingly negative and reckless. In just his first year, Secretary Zinke ended a moratorium on new federal coal leasing, initiated processes to accelerate permitting for new drilling and mining projects, virtually wiped climate change from DOI’s lexicon, moved to slash two landmark national monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, given away the wild biological heart of Izembek National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for road development, and proposed opening our nation’s entire coastline to damaging offshore oil development.
Last March, on the heels of an executive order from President Trump calling for federal agencies to review regulations that “burden” energy development, Secretary Zinke targeted rules addressing the environmental impacts of fracking, seeking to prevent methane waste in drilling operations and regulating fossil fuel development on all public lands.
Our nation’s public lands are a unique and treasured natural legacy, handed down from previous generations with the expectation that we will protect them for future ones. America’s public lands provide vital habitat for threatened and endangered wildlife. As we confront an ongoing sixth mass extinction of wildlife caused primarily by human actions, our public lands offer what may be the last, best chance to save some species. But Secretary Zinke’s actions have repeatedly put species at even greater risk of vanishing forever. Under his watch, DOI denied protections for the Pacific walrus under the Endangered Species Act, removed federal protections for the Canada lynx, and reopened the collaborative conservation strategy for greater sage-grouse, proposing to replace it with much weaker protections.
Secretary Zinke’s effort to dismantle and undermine protections for our public lands is only matched by his drive to dismantle the very agency that he oversees. After testifying before Congress about his intention to reduce 4,000 full-time departmental staff, he went on to insult the dedicated career professionals he is supposed to lead by accusing 30 percent of his “crew” of disloyalty to “the flag.” He wants to reorganize the Department of the Interior, handing control to 13 regional czars to reduce the independence of Interior agencies to manage and conserve lands, wildlife and water in accordance with their distinct statutory missions.
There is no mystery surrounding Secretary Zinke’s motives: he wants to open our public lands to private gains. But make no mistake, Defenders of Wildlife will be there at every turn to fight his attempts to sell off and sell out our natural heritage. We are in the courts, in Congress and in communities standing against this administration’s efforts to dismantle protections for our wildlife and wild lands. Despite Secretary Zinke’s determination to destroy our wilderness, he cannot match our greatest asset: YOU. Defenders of Wildlife is joined by over 1.8 million members and activists to stand against any efforts to dismantle protections for our lands, water and wildlife. Together we will hold this administration accountable and we hope that many more will join us.
As I’ve said many times before, so goes nature, so goes us. Join us today in our fight to protect and preserve our natural heritage for our generation and many more to come.
-Jamie
