Our Shared Lands: Rally for Public Lands and Public Lands Workers

America’s public lands and the people who care for them are under threat as never before. Join us on Saturday, Sept 6, from 12-2pm in Bellingham's Maritime Heritage Park for a rally to protect these invaluable national resources and the workers who manage them.

Why should we care about our shared public lands?
They are crucial for:

• Biodiversity: Providing vital habitat for countless species, helping to maintain healthy ecosystems.
• Clean Air and Water: Helping to ensure that all of us have access to clean air and water.
• Climate Change Resilience: Providing places of increased resistance to the impacts of climate change through CO2 absorption and flood mitigation.
• Cultural heritage: Protecting cultural and historical sites, preserving our national heritage.
• Outdoor Access: Allowing all of us access to natural environments, for our physical, psychological, spiritual, and social well-being.
• Economic strengthening: Tourism and hospitality connected to public lands boost the economies of local communities and small businesses.
• Education and Research: Providing educational and research opportunities for scientists and students.

What is threatening America’s public lands?

• Development: Logging, mining, and energy extraction negatively impact the quality of our shared lands and their ecosystems through deforestation, pollution of the air and water, and disruption of visual landscapes and soundscapes.
• Plans to sell public lands to the highest bidder of give them to states: These schemes would forever alter the quality and diversity of our public lands and their invaluable nature.
• Climate Change: Due to the increased potential for wildfires, droughts, catastrophic winds, and other extreme events.

What is happening to public lands workers?

• Approximately 5,000 people have been fired. This threatens the management of our national parks, national forests, national monuments, wilderness and marine protected areas, wildlife refuges, and scenic rivers.
• Negative Impacts
• Loss of public access
• Loss of maintenance of campgrounds, trails, educational resources, search and rescue services, and many more!
• Adverse impacts on local economies.
• Hardship for workers and their families.