EXPLORE
Hidden Treasures of Our Public Lands
We are familiar with the stunning vistas in our National Parks, Monuments, and some designated Wilderness areas. However, vast areas of public lands overflowing with natural beauty remain unprotected from development and degradation.
These remote and rugged landscapes, often hidden treasures, conceal eons of natural processes and are not always easy to access.
But, explore them we must. If citizen owners don’t realize what we have, narrow commercial interests can carve up and steal our treasure while we are unaware!
The Intrinsic Value of Public Lands
Must land produce a product in order to have value? Do you love your children only because they produce something for you? Or do you love them and protect them just because of who they are?
Our public lands possess an intrinsic value simply for their long existence before humans roamed the planet. The natural forces and immense time scales of creation are reason enough for devout reverence.
But these lands can indeed produce something vital, even with no resource extraction. Experiencing quiet solitude in a wild natural area produces a critical reconnection to the natural world, like a fish returning to the water. Instinctive memories recall our former close relationship with and dependence on Nature. A deep understanding emerges that humans must protect the natural ecosystem which feeds us and makes the very air we breathe. The soul is restored, perspective is found, and a desire to protect this beautiful planet is ingrained. Can wild lands produce anything in our modern world more important?
Protecting our Wild Sanctuaries
The Tribes of Warm Springs, Wasco, and Paiute lived in Central Oregon and cared for their lands for thousands of generations. The natural systems that surrounded them provided for the first people's needs. They revered nature. European colonizers have now been on their land for a mere 8 generations and the drastic changes and damages to the land and ecosystems are obvious. We took their land, now the least we can do to honor the first humans that lived here is to work to protect and restore the remaining public wildlands.
Nearly the entire southeast quarter of Oregon is federally owned public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Almost none of this magnificent region is permanently protected by a Wilderness designation. There are a number of small areas with a Wilderness Study Area designation, but these are only temporary protections that can be changed to allow resource extraction, and most of them already allow cattle grazing.
Since the BLM's priorities for protecting our public lands have been shown to vary depending on the political climate, it is the public land OWNERS, the citizens, who must take actions to protect our precious treasures. What can you do? Support leaders in government who understand the importance of conservation. Support conservation organizations like the Oregon Natural Desert Association (ONDA), Oregon Desert Land Trust, or Oregon Wild who protect these lands, broker agreements, and provide opportunities for hands-on land stewardship efforts. Supporting conservation organizations is crucial to preserving our wilderness sanctuaries for future generations.
OREGON NATURAL DESERT ASSOCIATION
OREGON DESERT LAND TRUST
These ancient landscapes have the power to humble us and heal our souls.
Go, get out there and discover them for yourself. Experience the humbling realization that the entirety of human existence has been but a fraction of the earth’s immense geologic timescale, plainly laid out before you. Awaken dormant ancestral feelings of reverence for the land. Renew your connection with our life giving natural world. By sharing these landscapes yet unchanged by man, I hope to inspire awe and the desire to protect the wild places.