President Trump recently signed an Executive Order as a first step towards chopping up public lands and making them more vulnerable to development and mineral extraction. The Executive Order opens up 27 national monuments to the possibility of drilling, mining and other private exploitation.

We need you to contact Secretary of the Interior Zinke by July 10, 2017, and let him know that full protection of national forests, parks, rangelands, and national wildlife refuges should be his priority of the highest order. NOW is the time to nip in the bud any thoughts of diminishing land, waters, and wildlife that belong to us all.

Please contact the Secretary of the Interior right now to voice your support for protecting public lands from drilling, mining, and other private interest development. This is the first test of the Trump administration’s attempt to eliminate protections and turn over control of public land to private interests. We need overwhelming support to show just how significant public lands are to South Carolina’s citizens. Remember that tens of thousands of South Carolinians travel every year “out west” for adventure and inspiration in the great outdoors owned by all of us! 

Please encourage others to act by sharing on social media. Forward this link to friends and family who also may be interested in protecting our public lands.

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Copy and paste the following message into the block below or feel free to customize the letter to let the administration know how important National Park Service lands are to you. Dear Secretary Zinke, Countless wildlife, including endangered and threatened species, rely on our national monument protections for survival. And I rely on you and your agency to protect our historic, cultural, and natural heritage for my family and future generations to come. I strongly oppose any attempts to shrink or reduce protections for our existing national monuments—including Utah's Bears Ears—and expect you as Interior Secretary to do all you can to protect these wild public lands and our wildlife. Bears Ears is home to mountain lions, bighorn sheep, black bears, and peregrine falcon, as well as 100,000 archaeological and cultural sites. The monument honors the voices of five tribes who joined together to seek protection of their shared ancestral lands and traditions. National monuments are a vital part of our nation's $887 billion outdoor recreation economy, and are critically important to local, small businesses. For example, Utah's Grand Staircase Escalante is so popular with local businesses that the Boulder-Escalante Chamber of Commerce unanimously supports retaining the monument and its current boundaries, and by a 2-to-1 margin, in recent surveys, Utah voters believe its protection has been a positive development for the state. As you know, our national monuments are vital to wildlife survival and help make the United States one of the most beautiful and inspiring countries in the world. I ask you to follow the will of the American people, and uphold existing protections and boundaries for all national monuments and public lands.