{"id":17942,"date":"2019-08-24T13:51:35","date_gmt":"2019-08-24T19:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.skyhinews.com\/?p=59645"},"modified":"2019-08-24T13:51:35","modified_gmt":"2019-08-24T19:51:35","slug":"stand-for-our-land-speakers-call-on-protestors-to-vote-get-involved-talk-about-public-lands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/local-news\/stand-for-our-land-speakers-call-on-protestors-to-vote-get-involved-talk-about-public-lands\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Stand for Our Land\u2019 speakers call on protestors to vote, get involved, talk about public lands"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
About 400 protestors gathered for the Stand for Our Land rally Friday at the Routt County Courthouse in response to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s visit to Steamboat Springs.<\/strong>
Eleanor C. Hasenbeck<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS \u2014 In conjunction with U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt\u2019s visit to Steamboat Springs, about 400 people gathered in protest on the Routt County Courthouse lawn Friday evening in downtown Steamboat Springs.<\/p>\n

The Stand for Our Land rally was organized by opponents of Bernhardt\u2019s policies as Interior Secretary as he spoke at the Steamboat Institute\u2019s Freedom Conference earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

A similar rally was organized last year when then-Secretary Ryan Zinke attended the same conference. Last year\u2019s protest brought a crowd of about 1,400 to Steamboat.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s crowd waved protest signs as the occasional car passing by on U.S. Highway 40 honked in a show of support.<\/p>\n

Hayden resident Megan Walker said she came to the rally because her husband and her son were camping on public land in Moffat County, and either through raft trips, camping or mountain biking, most of her friends were spending time on public land Friday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I wanted to come out and be a presence and a voice to show support and say, \u2018this is important,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Her friend Izzy Sucha, of Steamboat, said she came out because she was raised on public lands and it\u2019s still where her favorite activities take place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need them to be around for me and the kids I teach. They\u2019re some of our most valuable resources,\u201d Sucha said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s important to have land that everybody has access to,\u201d Walker added.<\/p>\n

In the hour-long event, speakers shared reasons why they disapprove of Bernhardt, the Interior\u2019s recent public lands policies and why they care about public lands. At their feet, 15 children sat listening in front of the crowd of mostly adults holding signs and wearing \u201cStand for Our Land\u201d T-shirts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe land, the land is here, and it\u2019s here in all of you,\u201d organizer Cody Perry said. \u201cIt\u2019s here for those experiences that you\u2019ve shared with your friends, that you\u2019re passing down to your children and for a future that we want to see. For the mountain biking trails, for the ski trails, for all the wildlife \u2014 wildlife that flies and walks and swims. Endangered species that we want to see stick around.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, the list goes on and on, right?\u201d Perry asked. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot to be done. Last year, apparently, they must have not got the message.\u201d<\/p>\n

Emi Cooper, a Steamboat Springs High School student who has been leading weekly climate strikes every Friday on the courthouse lawn, was the first to speak.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis place is so special,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is a community where we can ski all winter and camp in those same mountains all summer. Watching a sunset over these hills has instilled a strong love of these places. Possibly Secretary Bernhardt has never had this experience. He views the earth as a commodity, something to be extracted for financial gain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe secretary has worked as a legal advisor for timber and mining companies and as a lobbyist for oil and gas companies, so how can we trust this secretary to protect our public lands?\u201d Cooper asked the crowd. \u201cI don\u2019t believe we can. \u201d<\/p>\n

She added that public lands are \u201ccritical in the fight against climate change\u201d in conserving biodiversity, acting as a buffer from natural disasters and absorbing greenhouse gases.<\/p>\n

Both Cooper and the speaker that followed her, Routt County Commissioner Tim Corrigan, urged the audience to vote.<\/p>\n

Corrigan opened with the list of items he\u2019d like to talk to Bernhardt about.   <\/p>\n

\u201cThere may be some of you that came here today to see Secretary Bernhardt,\u201d Corrigan told the audience. \u201cI\u2019ve got to tell you, you\u2019re in the wrong place, or you don\u2019t have enough money, and it\u2019s too bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corrigan said Bernhardt was invited to speak at the rally, just as Zinke was last year.<\/p>\n

Corrigan said that he\u2019d like to ask Bernhardt why it was a good idea to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante national monuments, to appoint William Perry Pendley as acting head the Bureau of Land Management \u2014 who Corrigan said \u201cis an avowed proponent of the transfer of public lands to private interest\u201d\u2014 as well as the decision \u201cto lease hundreds of acres here in Routt County for oil and gas leasing within critical sage grouse habitat\u201d and to \u201crollback protections for the Endangered Species Act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Steamboat resident Kent Vertrees took the stage to share how public lands impacted his livelihood, joking that without public lands, he\u2019d have to get a real job. Vertrees teaches canyon and river experiential classes at Colorado Mountain College and operates the backcountry skiing company Steamboat Powdercats.   <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not anti-oil and gas. I\u2019m not anti-extraction, but I am for smart and reasonable use,\u201d he said. \u201cI drive a car. I power my house. I eat food. I love steaks, and they\u2019re grown on public lands. This stuff is very important, but I see a change that\u2019s happening right now, and I\u2019m worried about our public lands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Issac Madson spoke about his and his family\u2019s experiences as members of the Navajo tribe in Utah and Colorado. He described gerrymandering in San Juan County, Utah, and discrimination his brother faced that drove him to move away from Blanding, Utah, as, 35 miles away, the acreage of Bears Ears National Monument was reduced.<\/p>\n

 \u201cWhat I want to say is, please, keep fighting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

via:: Sky-Hi News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About 400 protestors gathered for the Stand for Our Land rally Friday at the Routt County Courthouse in response to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt’s visit to Steamboat Springs.Eleanor C. Hasenbeck STEAMBOAT SPRINGS \u2014 In conjunction with U.S. Interior Secretary David Bernhardt\u2019s visit to Steamboat Springs, about 400 people gathered in protest on the Routt County Courthouse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17942","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-13 23:22:22","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KRKY Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}