The U.S. House of Representatives on Feb. 26 approved the Protecting America's Wilderness and Public Lands Act (HR 803) that aims to permanently protect nearly three million acres across Colorado, California, Washington and Arizona.
The legislation is a collection of eight separate public lands bills the House approved last year – including Rep Diana DeGette’s Colorado Wilderness Act (CWA) and Rep. Joe Neguse’s Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act (CORE). The Colorado bills include 1,060,000 acres, about 1.6% of the total area of the state.
Here's just three of the areas included in the CWA and CORE.
CWA: Badger Creek gathers waters across a wide expanse of land before flowing into the Arkansas River. Photo, Kate Spinelli
CWA: The Palisade is one of western Colorado's rugged canyon country Wildernesses. Photo, John Fielder.
CORE: designates a National Historic Landscape around Camp Hale to preserve and promote the 10th Mountain Division’s legacy. Photo, Sierra Club
What you can do
Contact our Senators
Senate passage is not a slam dunk! Contact Colorado and/or your Senators to champion the PAW+ Act, and let them know that it should remain as one large package so that the most Colorado and US public lands and water will be protected!
Wild Connections' mission is to identify, protect, and restore wildlands, native species, and biological diversity in the Arkansas and South Platte watersheds. They are the ancestral lands of the Ute, Cheyenne, Arapaho and other indigenous peoples.
