Public Lands Under Threat — Season Premiere
America holds more than 600 million acres of public land—forests, canoe country, deserts, and backcountry that belong to all of us. Right now, for the first time in a generation, their future is genuinely up for debate.
In this opening episode, host Griffith Pugh lays out the roadmap for the season: the sell-off proposals, agency shake-ups, and battles like the Boundary Waters mining ban—and the deeper questions beneath them. Most importantly, he explains why these issues matter to anyone who's ever fished, hunted, paddled, or walked a trail they didn't have to pay to use.
Throughout this season, we'll hear from the people who have spent decades managing, defending, and studying America's public lands—not to tell you what to think, but to help you understand what's changing and what's at stake.
Featured Voices This Season
Hal Herring — journalist and author, on why public lands remain one of America's greatest democratic ideas—and the underlying political forces reshaping them.
Mike Dombeck — the only person to have led both the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, on the long pendulum of conservation history and what real stewardship requires.
Dave Zentner — lifelong Minnesota conservationist and past national Izaak Walton League president, on sixty years of building coalitions across the aisle to support environmental conservation.
Becky Rom — national chair of the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters, from the front lines of one of the country's defining public-lands fights.
How This Season Works
Episodes release weekly over the coming weeks. Follow along, then take the conversation off the algorithm and into the real world through Podclubs—community-led discussion groups modeled after book clubs.
Ready to keep the conversation going? Find a Podclub near you—or start your own—at theyoungike.org/podclub.
Sources & Further Reading
Federal Public Lands
Federal land ownership overview — Congressional Research Service
Mike Lee's public-lands sell-off proposal — Utah News Dispatch
Idaho's study on taking over federal lands — Boise State Public Radio
Federal Agencies
Forest Service headquarters moving to Salt Lake City — USDA
Closure of 57 research stations — PEER
Proposed U.S. Wildland Fire Service — Department of the Interior
Boundary Waters
Public Land Order 7917 (20-year mining ban) — Save the Boundary Waters
H.J.Res.140 challenge — Congress.gov · Center for Western Priorities
Background
Where the West's water comes from — U.S. Forest Service
