Right now, under the Trump administration, the country is facing a threat level never experienced before. From travel bans, a boondoggle of a border wall and thinly veiled racism, to unfettered access for the fossil fuel industry to the denial of basic science—climate and otherwise - the potentially disastrous decisions coming from the Trump administration jeopardize the social and environmental progress of the past decade.
Trump’s cabinet is filled with climate deniers, ethics concerns and an almost aggressive ignorance among those who are supposed to lead. Money and power are running the show without a care for the broader public good. Both the severity and number of threats is unprecedented. On public lands and waters alone, Trump has issued orders imperiling some of our most cherished wild places undermining the very integrity of the Antiquities Act, threatened to divide families and wildlife by building a wall through wildlands on the U.S.-Mexico border, and aims to offer our western landscapes up to coal companies for pennies on the dollar. The list goes on. And this is only a start. In the wings are plans to open one of our country’s last wild places, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, to drilling and to strip endangered grizzly bears in the Yellowstone region of critical protections.
Yes, these threats are new. But they are also old. A brief look below the surface shows that many of these decisions have some disturbing common threads—a profound disrespect, and even antagonism, toward indigenous rights, and a prioritization of industry’s desires, no matter the cost.
For instance, Trump’s Secretary of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, has refused to even speak with leaders of the five tribes that came together to help propose and design the Bears Ears National Monument (the first National Monument to be planned jointly with Native Americans), but has chosen to spend his time with pro-industry local officials during his anti-monument “listening tour.”
But we are also witnessing an inspiring movement of tribal leaders pushing back on this long history of abuse. “The Grizzly: A Treaty of Cooperation, Cultural Revitalization and Restoration” recently became the most signed tribal treaty in history, with Tribal and First Nations coming together to defend the future of the grizzly bear and offer an alternative to the hostile state management of these magnificent animals that will inevitably come with the removal of endangered species protections for these bears. Similarly, this week leaders of the Blackfoot Confederacy and the Great Sioux Nation reignited a historic union in signing a treaty to send a message of opposition to the Keystone XL pipeline. In Utah, a historic coalition of tribes pushed for and is now defending the Bears Ears National Monument against abolishment. And Gwich’in leaders are traveling all the way from the Arctic to the desert southwest to raise the alarm about the threats facing the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Porcupine Caribou herd, on which they rely.
Time again tribal efforts have been met by the Trump administration with a figurative (and in one case literal) wagging finger and admonishment to know their place. It’s so deeply disappointing to see our country’s leaders returning to the rhetoric of Andrew Jackson - but I take heart in the fact that unprecedented numbers of people are standing with the tribes, contributing to an outpouring of support manifesting in marches, fundraising campaigns, and international attention. Though Trump is unlikely to grow a conscience any time soon, the cause is not lost. There are opportunities to defeat the bad and to grow the good.
As I think of the road ahead, and my role as the new director of the Sierra Club’s Our Wild America campaign, I’m excited to embrace the thoroughly positive nature of our public lands work – joining with tribes to help protect sacred places, working with communities to increase access to the outdoors, and championing the truly restorative impact of spending time in nature. I’m excited to engage with this groundswell of activism eager to protect these special places, to be a part of the environmental movement as it connects with broader social change, and to inspire a new generation of environmentalists. I hope you’ll join us.