A statement from Camilla Simon, Executive Director of Hispanics Enjoying Camping, Hunting, and the Outdoors (HECHO), on the approval by the Bureau of Land Management of the Moab Region Master Leasing Plan.
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Decision-making about where to drill typically excludes diverse stakeholders, including Latino communities that hunt, fish, camp, and use public lands. As a result, our access to public lands for recreation, subsistence, education, and traditional cultural uses are impeded. And, worse yet, sometimes the landscape, wildlife, or water is irreparably damaged.
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Whether it is hiking, camping, fishing, or recreating in the Moab region Latinos have been enjoying the great outdoors for generations. It connects us to our ancestors, and guides how we see our future. Yet over the years we have seen these public lands increasingly impacted by development, and our access compromised. Development is a reality, but should not come at the expense of the lands that we continue to depend upon for recreation, sustenance, and the growing tourism economy.
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“Latinos have a long and enduring heritage on the Colorado and Wasatch Plateaus starting with the expedition of Fathers Dominguez and Escalante who crossed this area in 1776,” said Camilla Simon, Director of Hispanics Enjoying Camping, Hunting, and the Outdoors. “The Old Spanish Trail crossed the San Rafael region where traders brought goods from Santa Fe to Los Angeles. Latino heritage continues today with Hispanic populations in Price and Green River, Utah.”
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America's National Parks Service recently celebrated its centennial and Secretary Sally Jewell laid out her vision of the next 100 years of American Conservation in her speech commemorating the event. In a letter to Secretary Jewell, HECHO voiced its support of her vision, including promoting landscape-level planning and increasing diverse stakeholder input when managing public lands, supporting the protection of our national treasures through the Antiquities Act, and emphasizing the importance of permanently authorizing and fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund.
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Making our voices heard in regards to the Moab MLP isn’t just about protecting public lands. It’s about protecting Hispanic heritage. Within the planning area is 43.2 miles of our history – the Old Spanish Trail.
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The U.S. Department of the Interior regularly leases public lands in order to extract natural resources, but that leasing process has not always been fair to the citizens of this country who are collectively the technical owners of these public lands. Which federal public lands do you think deserve protections?
It was refreshing to hear Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) voice his concern in a Senate hearing last week over oil and gas development in the northwest New Mexico, and its potential impact on Chaco Canyon, which in the Senator’s words is “an incredibly rich cultural destination as well as sacred place to the tribes of the Southwest.”
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In a speech last Wednesday in Washington, DC, Secretary Jewell set the stage for what she called “common sense reforms” to better manage our public lands. At HECHO, we applaud the Secretary for her support of a balanced approach to energy development on America’s beautiful public lands across the West.
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Regardless of the elections, much can still be done through executive and regulatory actions to conserve public lands that are important to our communities and heritage.
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We were thrilled to celebrate HECHO's One Year Anniversary with so many friends and supporters last week in Washington around Hispanic Heritage Month! We are grateful for everyone's creativity and energy.
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The Arches and Canyonlands of Utah evoke thoughts of remoteness and mystery, fantastical vistas, wild geological formations, and voices echoing impossible distances. For many of us who live out west, these places represent the heart of what it means to find solitude and be in touch with the land, in love with the landscape, tiny in comparison to creation, and more grand in spirit than one could ever imagine. These places open the soul.
Now imagine if oil and gas rigs marred the stunning vistas, and a spaghetti of access roads scarred the solitude. Instead of hearing ravens and wind, you could hear the clank and clamor of the extractive industry. Imagine mountain biking or hiking on trails criss-crossed by truck traffic and heavy machinery, or fishing a polluted river.
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