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The Ideological Assault on America’s National Parks
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The Ideological Assault on America’s National Parks

Matt Lee-Ashley and Jenny Rowland write that policymakers must reject attempts to seize public lands while also confronting the underlying ideology behind the anti-parks agenda of people such as the Bundy family.

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For America’s national parks, 2016 was supposed to start differently. On January 1, the National Park Service kicked off its centennial celebrations at the Rose Bowl parade, where colorful floats with grizzly bears and waterfalls rolled past cheering crowds in honor of the creation of the national park system in 1916.

The next day, armed anti-government militants, led by the sons of scofflaw rancher Cliven Bundy, stormed the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. Their demand: that the U.S. government dispose of national forests, wildlife refuges, monuments and other lands that belong to all Americans.

The above excerpt was originally published in InsideSources. Click here to view the full article.

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Authors

Matt Lee-Ashley

Senior Fellow

Jenny Rowland-Shea

Senior Director, Conservation Policy

Department

Energy and Environment

Charting an equitable and just path to a 100 percent clean economy with net-zero climate pollution, protection of 30 percent of lands and waters, and community investments