SALT LAKE CITY – At least three western states are vying to host a conference of outdoor retailers that's leaving Utah over its position on public lands. The Outdoor Industry Association, which has held its giant trade shows in Salt Lake City for two decades, says it will seek a new home for its Outdoor Retailer shows in 2018. It's a direct response to Utah Governor Gary Herbert's opposition to the newly created Bears Ears National Monument.

Ron Hunter is the environmental activism manager with the retailer Patagonia, a member company of the Outdoor Industry Association that runs the conference. He says his company is pulling out of the next two OIA shows, still under contract to take place in Salt Lake later this year.

"We believe that public lands should stay in public hands," he said. "And perhaps, we don't know, but the state delegation and the governor want to privatize some of that land, sell it off to oil and gas developers, let's say. And we think there's a higher value to these public lands than that."

Hunter says Patagonia also objects to a proposal to shrink the boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah. Claiming misuse of the Antiquities Act, last week Herbert called for federal legislation to reduce a Clinton-era move to protect the area's unique geological features and dinosaur fossils.

Utah Congressman Rob Bishop has led the charge to get Congress to transfer federal public land into state hands. And President Trump's nominee for Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, has said if he is confirmed, one of his first trips will be to Bears Ears - which is sacred to local tribes, but also coveted by oil and gas interests.

"We don't have a thriving business unless we have access to public lands, and we're afraid that in Utah, they're taking away people's ability to enjoy the outdoors," he added. "And we don't want to be in a state that does that, we want to be in a state that protects and celebrates their public lands."

Colorado, Montana and New Mexico have announced plans to try to win the hosting rights for the Outdoor Retailer trade show that brings some $45 million in direct spending each year. Outdoor recreation in Utah generates $12 billion in consumer spending annually, employs more than 122,000 Utahns, and brings in more than $850 million in state and local tax revenue.


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Conservation groups, tribes and community organizers are praising President Joe Biden's decision Thursday to expand two national monuments in California.

Together, the monuments will gain about 120,000 acres. The Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument is 90 minutes northwest of Sacramento and the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument lies just east of Los Angeles.

Brenda Gallegos, public lands manager for the nonprofit Hispanic Access Foundation, said millions of urban families live close to the San Gabriel Mountains.

"A lot of our Latino communities don't have access to nature, prominently, like 67% of Latino communities don't have access to green spaces or blue spaces," Gallegos pointed out. "Having these expansions designated today brings us closer to closing that nature gap."

The president used his powers under the Antiquities Act to expand the monuments in order to increase public access and protect the watershed and wildlife habitat. The move also makes progress toward Biden's goal of protecting 30% of the country's public lands by 2030.

Gallegos said Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument in Lake County will include an area previously known as Walker Ridge, now renamed Moluk Loyuk, which means Condor Ridge in the Patwin tribal language.

"This is important because it establishes a co-stewardship with federally recognized tribes and will return the indigenous names of these lands to them," Gallegos explained. "This continues to build that great relationship with tribes."

Land managers will now create a new management plan for the area, which could include new campsites, hiking and mountain biking trails, and even off-highway vehicle-designated routes.

The Bureau of Land Management recently released its final Public Lands Rule, which is set to put conservation on equal footing with other multiple uses taking place on public lands.

The state of Utah has come out in opposition, pointing to the impact it could have on the almost 23 million acres of BLM land in Utah.

Redge Johnson, director of the Utah Public Lands Policy Coordinating Office, said the state supports conservation efforts but called the rule a "solution looking for a problem."

"What we have already put into conservation designations and then what you have for the acts that promote the conservation of the lands, why do you need to level that playing field?" Johnson questioned. "The playing field has more than leveled over the past 40, 50 years with the passage of all these acts."

Johnson contended Utah's lands and wildlife will suffer as a result of the rule and added it'll make mining critical metals used for batteries even more difficult. He and others, like Gov. Spencer Cox, called on the BLM to immediately withdraw the rule and work with stakeholders on more practical solutions.

Conservationists see the rule as a big win for restoring and sustaining public lands for future generations.

Johnson described Utah's public lands a "fire dependent ecosystem," adding fuel loads have accumulated drastically due to over a century's worth of fire suppression. He argued the rule will make executing and continuing vegetation management projects more difficult, including reducing the threats posed by fuel loads.

"One of the biggest contributors we have to carbon dioxide right now are wildfires, at least in the West," Johnson asserted. "Transportation, all the others, yes absolutely. But wildfires are a huge contributing factor to that. One of the best things we could do is reduce the fuel loads on some of these areas to reduce the fire risk and this rule puts that at risk."

The rule also creates the frameworks for "restoration and mitigation leases," which will allow groups to restore public lands or to offset the effects of a particular use. Johnson argued the leases will leave too many loopholes but the BLM said they will not "disturb existing authorizations."


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Conservation groups are rejoicing over the decision Friday by the Biden administration to reject a proposed mining road in Alaska.

The 211-mile Ambler Road would have sliced through the Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve, severing the migration route for a Western Arctic Caribou herd.

Alex Johnson, interior Alaska director for the National Parks Conservation Association, said it was important for the feds to take a stand in Alaska so mining interests do not start eyeing other national parks.

"This is a very expensive, destructive and just highly speculative project that does not in any way support our clean energy goals as a country," Johnson contended. "And ultimately would permanently threaten the health and well-being of local communities and the tribes."

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski slammed the decision, warning it could limit jobs and tax revenues for Alaska by preventing exploration for minerals she said are important to national security, like copper, cobalt, gallium and germanium.

Jayme Dittmar, a photographer and filmmaker from Fairbanks, said the road would have been very disruptive to the 66 Native American villages along the proposed route.

"That'd be 168 trucks passing through close vicinity to the villages," Dittmar pointed out. "There would be hundreds of bridges built. It would dismantle a subsistence livelihood that's been in place for thousands and thousands of years."

The road was seen as a negative for tourism to the Brooks Range area. According to the Alaska Travel Industry Association, Californians make up 9% of visitors to Alaska.