Utah has often been described as “ground zero” for anti-public lands efforts. Yesterday, the state’s leaders took this sentiment to a whole new extreme. The Governor and Utah’s elected leadership proudly announced that the state had filed a lawsuit at the US Supreme Court that would turn over 18.5 million acres of federal public lands to the state. 

Make no mistake: this is an unprecedented land grab. It would take public lands and give them to the State of Utah and ultimately to developers and extractive industries. The consequences for Southern Utah – beloved places like Labyrinth Canyon, the Dirty Devil, the Deep Creek Mountains, and Fisher Towers – would be beyond devastating. If the state wins, it would cause chaos and similar lawsuits affecting nearly 200 million acres of land across the Western US and Alaska. 

Rather than celebrating that Utah has some of the nation’s (if not the world’s) – most stunning public lands and redrock wilderness, Utah leaders are hard at work to take millions of acres of these lands away from the American people. 

Utah’s short-sighted politicians have been trying this Land Grab game on-and-off-again for decades. While the politicians clearly think that the ultra-conservative Supreme Court is leaning their way, we’re taking this unprecedented threat seriously. It’s beyond outrageous and we’ll be fighting it in every way we can.

Over the coming weeks and months, we will keep you informed on this latest fool’s errand and what we’re doing to stop it. You can read our statement from yesterday as well as news coverage from the Salt Lake Tribune, Fox 13, the Associated Press, and Utah News Dispatch. If you’re able, please consider a donation to support our work. 

Cover image: The Dirty Devil area, part of the 18.5 million acres of public land the state is trying to seize.