Twenty-eight redrock volunteers traveled to Capitol Hill in Washington, DC in the waning days of February to participate in our annual Wilderness Week event. Their advocacy will lay the groundwork for the next big step forward in protecting Utah’s magnificent wild lands.

The purpose of February’s Wilderness Week was to ramp up support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act—the flagship legislation for our redrock protection campaign. Coordinated by the Utah Wilderness Coalition, whose leading organizations are SUWA, Sierra Club, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, the 28 volunteers (from Utah and 17 other states) worked together in 12 teams and held 140+ meetings with legislators. Over the course of several days, they crisscrossed Capitol Hill and walked the marble corridors of Congress wearing their highly visible “Protect Wild Utah” buttons.

With activists’ efforts concentrated on the Emery County bill last year—which permanently protected 663,000 acres of wilderness in Utah’s San Rafael Swell and Desolation and Labyrinth Canyons—reintroduction of the redrock bill got a late start in the 116th Congress. Nevertheless, we’re already up to 74 cosponsors in the House of Representatives and 17 in the Senate. You can click here to see if your representative and senators are among them.

If any of your elected officials are not listed, click here to ask them to endorse America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act today!

Just as our Wilderness Week activists were leaving Washington, the coronavirus hit the United States hard. That’s why your emails and calls to Congress are even more crucial today—so that we can sustain the momentum created by these dedicated individuals who volunteered their own personal time to travel to our nation’s capital on behalf of the spectacular landscapes we all love.

Southern Utah’s national treasures need your support! Please click here to contact your members of Congress today.

Thank you!