In Washington DC, parks, forests, and refuges—and the very idea of "Our Wild"—face truly harrowing challenges. The Trump regime has already unveiled a host of anti-conservation policies, pandering to special interests and working with ideological allies in Congress to roll back some of President Obama's greatest accomplishments, including deep cuts to Bears Ears National Monument.
Meanwhile, ordinary Americans value their wild heritage as much as ever. Polling has shown that about 90 percent of voters nationwide support permanent public land protection (while 69 percent oppose measures to prevent it). Even in what seems to be an unusually political and polarized age, the value of Our Wild is all but universal. In a survey conducted after the 2016 election, most Trump voters said they oppose efforts to privatize or sell off public lands. Millions of Americans submitted comments to the Trump administration opposing its punitive review of national monument lands.
Now more than ever, strong political leadership is critical. One of the clearest exercises of such leadership is the Antiquities Act—a law authorizing presidents to protect special places as national monuments if Congress won’t. Our nation’s history is full of great presidents who used it and other tools at their disposal in the name of conservation.
Given the climate in Washington, we feel it is important to salute the greatest among them. By our admittedly subjective criteria, incorporating both the conservation standards of their times and the precedents set by their administrations’ words and deeds, these are the White House’s most prominent champions of public lands.
Barack Obama
President Barack Obama's plaque for the Wilderness Hall of Fame has to start with this: he protected more lands, waters, and cultural sites than any other president, culminating with the Gold Butte (Nevada) and Bears Ears (Utah) national monuments and the expansion of the California Coastal and Cascade-Siskiyou (Oregon) national monuments.
As the threat of climate change became ever more urgent, President Obama met the challenge head-on. He committed the U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris climate accord; pioneered the Clean Power Plan to reduce emissions from coal-fired power plants under the Clean Air Act; and even released a rule to reduce methane pollution from oil and gas operations on public lands.
President Obama also recognized that some places are simply "Too Wild to Drill." He undertook historic actions to finally cancel most of the remaining oil and gas leases located in the Badger-Two Medicine area of Montana's Rocky Mountain Front, canceled many leases in Colorado's Roan Plateau and Thompson Divide, and even blocked new drilling in much of the Arctic Ocean.
As if all that wasn't enough, President Obama sought to help his fellow citizens connect with nature. His Every Kid in a Park initiative, which was recently extended beyond his presidency, aims to get more kids playing and learning outdoors by providing 4th-grade students and their families free admission to all national parks and other federal lands and waters.
Put simply, few presidents—if any—have done as much as President Obama did to safeguard our planet and our country for future generations. He is a thoroughly deserving inductee into the Wilderness Hall of Fame, and a figure whom other leaders present and future would do well to emulate.
“Teddy” Roosevelt’s energetic commitment to the wild may be best exemplified by his famous words before designating the country’s first national wildlife refuge in Florida in 1903. Concerned that brown pelicans in the area were being overhunted, the president asked an aide, "Is there any law that will prevent me from declaring Pelican Island a federal bird reservation?” Told that there was not, Roosevelt, ever direct, reportedly snapped “very well, then I so declare it.”
It was not the first time the government had protected land, but it set in motion a pattern of active natural stewardship that echoed over the next century. Roosevelt’s administration went on to establish more than 50 more bird reservations; preside over the creation of the National Forest Service and massive expansion of forest reserves; and sign the Antiquities Act into law, granting presidents the authority to protect natural and cultural landmarks as national monuments when Congress would not or could not get the job done (Roosevelt would use this method 18 times).
In all, the 26th president set aside over 230 million acres of land for conservation. Fittingly, more National Park Service units have been dedicated to him than any other American. Roosevelt’s acts in the service of wilderness could—and have—filled many volumes, and no list of White House conservation champions could credibly include any name other than his at the top.
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