Every single day, on every single cable news channel, and across every single social media platform, Americans are told that we're different from one another. That the parties, whichever we identify with, are so diametrically opposed to one another, and that the people they represent aren't the same, that we will never be a true united nation. The right is one way, the left is another, and independents don't exist.
Not in any real way, anyways.
We're told we have to constantly engage in internet fist-fights, otherwise the other side will win. And we're told that we have to hate each other because we don't value the same things. But over the course of the last month, due to a group of elected representatives' desire and need to appease the extractive industries that prop their campaigns up through the proposed selling of our public lands, that's been so thoroughly disproved, it should be positively farcical if we are ever to believe those same "truisms" ever again.
Indeed, the entirety of the outdoors community—the REI crowd, the folks who hunt and fish, the crunchy granola-eaters, the outdoor publications, and internet bigwigs on both the supposed right and left—came together, stood up, and in one voice cried, "Not. One. Acre."
And we have to remember that fact, that indisputable reality, that we aren't so far away from one another the next time we're out on a trail, hunting, fishing, hiking, climbing, or otherwise recreating on public lands. Because they'll attempt to divide us once again, both to try and sell off our lands and to fund their campaign coffers, as it's the only play they have to keep us from coming together, talking to one another, and finding out we have far more in common than they'd like us to believe.
But why I'm writing this is because I need you to remember to give each other grace the next time you're out on a trail, to police the worst actors within our own communities, and remind ourselves that we fought for these spaces to be open to everyone.
This win for our public lands wasn't just for one group. It wasn't just for the hunters. It wasn't just for the dirt bikers. It wasn't just for the campers or climbers or backpackers or skiers or fishermen or UTVers or 4x4ers. We fought so that everyone could enjoy our public lands how we individually love to enjoy them.
And I need you to remember that each of those supposedly disparate groups love these spaces just as much as you love your specific type of public lands recreation.
These folks, across communities that at times are annoying confrontational to one another, showed up, they called their representatives, they called their senators and those senators who held the power to kill this proposal—multiple times for many of us—and they demanded our elected politcians do what we elected them for, to fight for our rights as all Americans. They all showed up to tell them that we, as all Americans, are willing to go to the mat and protect the rights of everyone to enjoy public lands. It didn't matter what form of outdoor recreation they loved. They showed up.
So I ask you, I implore you, I urge you to remember that the next time you leave your house to head off into public lands. That we, as public land advocates and lovers, as a community of outdoor recreationists, are one and the same. Even though we don't love the outdoors the same, we love the outdoors. And that is something they can't—they couldn't despite their best efforts—divide us on.
Give each other space. Give each other grace. Leave the backcountry better than how you found it. Remember that we all love these areas. And remember that we all fought to conserve them, and will do so again whenever they decide to attempt this bullshit once more.
