TOPICS & TIMES
- Why Tommy got involved with the Access Fund (1:41)
- What’s in the National Resources Management Act? (2:19)
- How did it achieve bipartisan support when so little does? (6:20)
- Which parts have the biggest impact on climbers? (11:24)
- What is the Land and Water Conservation Fund? (13:40)
- Ways for climbers to be better advocates (16:30)
- Other exciting projects with the Access Fund (20:32)
- Plans for Climb the Hill 2019 (22:25)
We talk to Tommy Caldwell and Access Fund Policy Director, Erik Murdock, to discuss a massive public lands bill that’s moving through congress called the Natural Resources Management Act. We dive into what makes it so important, hear about Tommy’s involvement with the Access Fund, then Erik helps us unpack the Natural Resources Management Act — what it is, how it was created, and why it matters to climbers.
Urge your representative to pass this historic public lands bill
I realize I am late to the game on this one, but just having listened to this podcast I wanted to reply:
I have two major responses after listening to this podcast. One, I was surprised to hear Erik gloss over how this package will negatively impact the indigenous people of Alaska; how their lands will be “redistributed” to make room for more oil and gas exploration and development. And two, how he placed Lisa Murkowski and Mitch McConnell on a pedestal for prioritizing this package of bills as an example of how bipartisan work can be accomplished. To me, this was a red flag right off the bat and to think these two have the natural outdoors as their priority is more than naive.
My instant impression while listening to Erik was that he really didn’t want to address this redistribution of indigenous lands. His voice inflection, tone and words impressed upon me that, “yes, this is a bad part of the package but not all bills are perfect.”
I understand where Erik and the Access Fund are coming from, I understand compromises need to be made in order to get some of the things we want. But I am tired of the indigenous peoples of this world constantly being not just negatively impacted, but their lives completely changed, uprooted, and quite blatantly destroyed. I found this quote from Outside magazine’s recap of this Act:
“Alaska’s public lands often tend to be the political grease for land-conservation initiatives in the Lower 48, and that’s wrong,” Adam Kolton of the Alaska Wilderness League told the Outside contributing editor Christopher Solomon in an article for the Washington Post. “These are the last fully intact ecosystems in the United States. They shouldn’t just be trade-bait to pass broader public lands bills.”
Couldn’t agree more.