{"id":23779,"date":"2021-12-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/goal\/our_work-wilderness\/"},"modified":"2023-02-17T16:41:31","modified_gmt":"2023-02-18T00:41:31","slug":"wilderness","status":"publish","type":"goal","link":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/our-work\/wilderness","title":{"rendered":"Safeguard Forever Our Public Lands and Waters"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>More than a third of the U.S. is public land or water, meaning that we own it collectively and the government stewards it.<\/h2>\n<p>Too often, the government auctions off these shared treasures at bargain-basement prices for drilling, mining, logging, and other extractive activities.<\/p>\n<p>In the American West alone, <a href=\"https:\/\/storymaps.arcgis.com\/stories\/36d517f10bb0424493e88e3d22199bb3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">more than 22 million acres of public lands<\/a> are currently leased to oil and gas companies.<\/p>\n<h2>Earthjustice is working to stop the exploitation and destruction of our public lands and waters.<\/h2>\n<p>Here are some of the ways:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Stop destructive mines from being built <\/strong>by invoking clean water and air protections, and we push for updates to outdated mining laws.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Prevent logging in old-growth forests,<\/strong> and we shut down attempts to weaken the <a href=\"\/\/earthjustice.org\/our_work\/cases\/2001\/roadless-rule-defense-affirmed-at-court-of-appeals-enjoined-in-another-circuit\">Roadless Rule,<\/a> a federal policy that protects a third of our national forests from harmful development.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Push to end fossil fuel development on public lands<\/strong> by taking the government to court when it fails to fully assess the harms of such projects.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Fight to keep oil and gas development out of the Arctic,<\/strong> where <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/nature14016.epdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">climate scientists have said we must avoid drilling<\/a> in order to avert the worst possible effects of climate change.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Advocate for an end to fossil fuel extraction in our oceans,<\/strong> and we fight to uphold existing protections when industry tries to overturn them.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Support tribes and Indigenous communities as they challenge pipelines, mines, and other extractive projects <\/strong>that threaten their traditional ways of life and ancestral lands.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Compel the government to enforce protections for rivers, streams, wetlands, and other waters, <\/strong>and we defend those protections from political attacks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"infobox__notice action m-t-50 m-b-50\">\n<div class=\"fl-html\">\n<div class=\"infobox__border\"><span class=\"infobox__icon icon-megaphone\"><\/span><\/div>\n<p>Earthjustice has fought for years to save the wild salmon of the Columbia\/Snake Rivers.  <strong>We now have an opportunity to achieve the largest river restoration and salmon recovery in history.<\/strong> <a href=\"\/action\/restore-the-snake-river?ms=web_goal\" class=\"color--red\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"noopener\">How you can help.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h2>Public lands intersect with every other environmental issue. <\/h2>\n<p>Public lands supply clean air and water and provide homes to countless species.<\/p>\n<p>By protecting them from extractive industries, we limit pollution and climate-cooking emissions. We also preserve them so they can be used for recreation, conservation, and clean energy development.<\/p>\n<h2>The fight to protect public lands is a fight against the climate crisis.<\/h2>\n<p>Nearly 25% of climate heating emissions from the United States come from fossil fuels pumped or mined from public lands.<\/p>\n<p>If those places are left intact, however, old-growth forests, oceans, and other wild places can be a powerful tool for mitigating climate change, because many of these ecosystems store carbon and keep it out of the atmosphere.<\/p>\n<h2>Our key strategies:<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>We demand good stewardship. <\/strong>The government decides whether to approve extractive projects by reviewing their environmental impact. If the review overlooks a project\u2019s true harms, we challenge it in court.<\/li>\n<li><strong>We make sure safeguards stay in place.<\/strong> We challenge political attempts to walk back protections for national monuments, forests, oceans, and other places that the government has set off-limits for development.<\/li>\n<li><strong>We help tribes and Indigenous communities advocate for their rights to use lands, waters, and culturally significant species as they have for generations.<\/strong> Indigenous stewardship of lands and waters supports restoration, but extractive industries often harm sustainable Indigenous cultural practices.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Learn more about this work through our <a href=\"\/\/earthjustice.org\/about\/offices\/oceans\">Oceans Program<\/a>, <a href=\"\/\/earthjustice.org\/about\/offices\/tribal-partnerships\">Tribal Partnerships Program<\/a>, and <a href=\"\/\/earthjustice.org\/about\/offices\/pal\">Policy and Legislation Team<\/a>, our regionally-based work in the <a href=\"\/\/earthjustice.org\/about\/offices\/alaska\">Alaska Office<\/a>, <a href=\"\/\/earthjustice.org\/about\/offices\/florida\">Florida Office<\/a>, <a href=\"\/\/earthjustice.org\/about\/offices\/midwest\">Midwest Office<\/a>, <a href=\"\/\/earthjustice.org\/about\/offices\/northern-rockies\">Northern Rockies Office<\/a>, <a href=\"\/\/earthjustice.org\/about\/offices\/rocky-mountain\">Rocky Mountain Office<\/a>, and <a href=\"\/\/earthjustice.org\/about\/offices\">more<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earthjustice believes that humans have a moral and practical duty to defend wilderness from exploitation and destruction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":27384,"template":"","tags":[],"goals":[22],"class_list":["post-23779","goal","type-goal","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","goals-wilderness"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/goal\/23779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/goal"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/goal"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23779"},{"taxonomy":"goals","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earthjustice.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/goals?post=23779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}