Home 9 Areas of Work 9 Parks and Public Lands ( Page 47 )

Protecting America’s Parks & Public Lands for All

Approximately 600 million acres of land and water in the United States are managed for public use. These public lands include federal lands like national parks, forests, wildlife refuges, and monuments, as well as state and local areas owned by the public.

Many federal agencies manage these public places, including the National Park Service, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. With the help of employees in these agencies, PEER is committed to safeguarding our public lands so that they provide habitat for wildlife, opportunities for people to enjoy nature, and the preservation of intact, undisturbed ecosystems.

PEER also supports increased staff levels in land management agencies. Rangers and land managers are facing declining budgets, lower staffing levels, and an increase in responsibilities as the use of our public lands grows dramatically.

Here’s how PEER is pushing back against efforts to undermine our public lands for the benefit of special interests.

U.S. BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT

Photo of black and white cows standing on a mountain road

Grazing & Rangeland Health 

Livestock grazing allows heavily subsidized private operators to destroy our public lands. PEER is a leader in challenging government agencies to protect and restore wildlife and ecosystems from the effects of overgrazing.

Oil & Gas

Too often, regulatory agencies ignore the environmental and public health harm caused by oil and gas development on public lands. PEER works to minimize the impacts of the fossil fuel industry on public lands.

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

Wilderness Areas

National parks contain some of the most magnificent wild lands in our nation and, for that matter, the world. PEER advocates passionately for increased protections for existing wilderness areas and expanding existing wilderness designations.

Photo of a lava flow from inside a helicopter

Park Overflights

Excessive commercial intrusions in the skies above national parks are too common. PEER is continuing its successful work to limit commercial air tours over parks that disturb wildlife and ruin the visitor experience.

Photo of a cell tower amongst green and yellow trees

Cell Towers on Public Lands

Cell phone towers are spreading across national parks without proper planning and public input. PEER is challenging the National Park Service to involve the public and protect the wilderness experience in its decisions on building new telecommunications infrastructure on public lands.

Photo of plastic water bottles on the ground in a forest

Plastic-Free Parks

Plastics are inundating our national parks, harming wildlife and public health and wasting precious government resources on managing the waste. PEER is working to speed up the phaseout of single–use plastics in national parks and is calling for steep reductions in plastic usage at parks.

A SNAPSHOT OF PEER’S PAST EFFORTS

Here are some examples of how PEER has made a difference:

Helped get genetically modified crops out of National Wildlife Refuges
Halted off-road vehicles from destroying national forests, parks, and fragile desert lands
Successfully forced reductions in disruptive air tours over many of America’s national parks