In 1846, Henry David Thoreau ascended Maine’s �ѴdzܲԳ��������ٲ���徱����and shouted, in a fit of exuberance, “Who are we? Where are we?”��

Author Donovan Hohn, in his new collection of essays,��,��writes that, for Thoreau,��those two questions are inseparable.��We can’t truly know ourselves without knowing the world around us, and vice versa.��

These interlocked��questions, which animate much of Thoreau’s work, echo throughout The Inner Coast, Hohn’s second book of nonfiction.��His��method in these essays is to look outward and then inward, and��his��conclusion is that we’re mistaken when we see ourselves as separate from nature. When I called Hohn at his home in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he reflected on the human tendency��“to pretend that we aren’t, in some extremely vulnerable and permeable way, profoundly connected to the natural world.” Hohn, who writes in a voice reminiscent of Annie Dillard or John McPhee, returns to this subject again and again��as he dives deep into topics ranging from the forgotten thrill of piloting an ice canoe to the long-standing cultural significance of mammoths.

A former editor at Harper’s and GQ,��Hohn��now teaches��creative writing at Wayne State University in Detroit. In one piece, he describes a��kind of��cartography��project��he assigns to his students that��asks them to map both physical and emotional space. Like explorers venturing into an unknown land, the students��walk Detroit and take detailed notes on what they see. “From those notes they are to��re-create their walks for readers, the sights and sounds, but also their own reaction to the sights and sounds, their unbidden memories and thoughts,” he writes. By exploring where they are, the students are expected to discover something about who they are.��

Like his students, Hohn traverses local geographies and comes to see familiar places with fresh eyes. In a far-reaching essay called “Watermarks,” he explores the way water moves through the world, especially in his home state of Michigan, drawing on insights from philosophy and literature. “Whenever I visit a river, I have the urge to follow it,” he writes. Part of what motivates Hohn’s search is the notion that water, perhaps the fundamental element of life,��has become something we take for granted. We can turn a valve when we need it, but otherwise we don’t think much about it. “Living in the age of indoor plumbing is a bit like living beside a stream whose headwaters and mouth are distant rumors,” he writes. Though most of this country was initially navigated by waterways, Hohn notes, “in the 21st��century, it’s not easy to follow the water.” Nonetheless, we find him��following��rivers and canals all over the Midwest, ultimately plunging into the depths of Lake Michigan with a team of commercial divers searching for a lost shipwreck. He joined the divers, he writes, “because I’d imagined that descending the water column would be like time travel, like flippering into the past, as if fathoms were centuries.” He is diving into physical space, yes, but he’s hoping to find something else, too.��

While Hohn offers personal reflections throughout the book, his focus never strays far from the subject at hand. In��“Falling,”��however, he turns the magnifying glass on himself, beautifully describing��his childhood years living on Mount Davidson in��San Francisco. “This may be my oldest preoccupation,” he told me “the relationship between memory and place.” As a boy, Hohn had a religious devotion to the natural world around him. He memorized��the names of butterflies and spent��full days wandering the hillside with his��net or searching for creatures in tide pools. But these��experiences were��interwoven inextricably with his parents’ troubled relationship, his mother’s bouts of depression, his brother’s acting out, and a tragic accident that left Hohn himself in a body cast. The reader gets the sense that, instead of serving��as merely the backdrop, the landscape of Hohn’s childhood home is a character as real and prominent as any of the humans in the story. Compared with��family, he writes, “trees make few demands, and you can hear whatever your heart desires in the lyrical soughing of their branches.” Nature was��an ally��and a source of refuge and comfort.��

Of course, humans don’t always treat the natural world as an ally—when we pollute and destroy it, the effects can be brutal.��In “The Zealot,” an essay��on the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, Hohn follows Marc Edwards, a civil and environmental engineer at Virginia Tech University, whose research into contaminated��drinking water across��the U.S. has turned him from a dispassionate scientific observer into a kind of activist. This is a tension familiar to medical professionals amid our current pandemic��and climate scientists whose dire warnings about a warming planet seem to fall on deaf ears. Edwards’s role in Flint was complicated: residents welcomed him as someone who could bring attention to their cause, but when his tests said the water was once again safe to drink, many who had grown rightfully suspicious of the water weren’t ready to accept his findings. Others criticized him for seeking the spotlight instead of standing behind city��residents, who, critics thought, should have been the focus. In this essay, Hohn demonstrates how humans’ vulnerability in the natural world is almost always felt most acutely by marginalized communities, and the tension he��illustrates is one��we’ll continue to grapple��with as��events like climate change exacerbate existing inequalities.����

For Hohn, “at a time of bewildering and accelerating changes to habitats and geographies,” Thoreau’s questions—Who are we? Where are we?—“continue to invite new answers.” And because those changes have only further accelerated��in the months��since The Inner Coast went to print, the reader will discover��answers that Hohn himself couldn’t have foreseen��while��writing these essays.��

The coronavirus, too, is of the natural world. Like us, it’s naturally occurring��and composed of genetic code. Hohn told me that one unanticipated effect of the virus might be to “disillusion some of us who have mostly joyous experiences with the natural world.” We may see nature as something beautiful to escape to—but��also something brutal that can upend our lives at a moment’s notice.��

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On June 17, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) launched the campaign, which asks businesses to suspend advertising on Facebook’s services��during the month of July. The campaign’s partners, including , ,��, and ,��assert that the social-media platform��has enabled “the incitement of violence against protesters fighting for racial justice” and has repeatedly turned a blind eye to issues that threaten American democracy.

Two days after the launch, the North Face became the biggest corporation to make the pledge,��: “We’re in. We’re Out @Facebook #StopHateForProfit.” REI followed suit shortly after, : “For 82 years, we have put people over profits. We’re pulling all Facebook/Instagram advertising for the month of July.” Two days later, Patagonia . Its��statement read, in part, “For too long, Facebook has failed to take sufficient steps to stop the spread of hateful lies and dangerous propaganda on its platform.” In recent days, Arc’teryx and Eddie Bauer have also joined the boycott.��

In all, nearly 100 companies have joined forces, but those within��the outdoor industry��have been��at the forefront.��An ADL spokesperson said they were not surprised by the outdoor industry’s involvement��but were “pleased to see them lead the charge,” adding��that “all of these companies have already shown a strong commitment to standing up to racism and taking action to make changes for the better in society.”

The campaign’s organizers say that Facebook makes 99 percent of its $70 billion��in annual revenue through advertising. “Let’s send Facebook a powerful message,” the campaign’s website reads. “Your profits will never be worth promoting hate, bigotry, racism, antisemitism��and violence.”��

Outdoor recreation is among the nation’s largest economic sectors; the Outdoor Industry Association says it represents��about ��in consumer spending. The majority of that is spent on travel and transportation, but nearly��$200 billion is spent on gear, apparel, and services.

Though that the campaign will barely dent Facebook’s revenue—according to Quartz, Facebook has around eight��million advertisers—the campaign’s organizers note that their��goals are not strictly financial, pointing��to the symbolic impact of industry leaders joining the boycott. And it might be working. On June 18, the day after the campaign was announced, Facebook from President Trump’s reelection campaign that featured Nazi��symbols.��

For years, many outdoor companies have been vocal on political issues, primarily those focused around environmental concerns related to climate change and public lands. However, it’s not entirely unprecedented for the industry to speak up on social issues. Patagonia, for example, of Facebook in the past, and several of the��companies currently involved have expressed support for��. The North Face cites��its Explore Fund as an example of its commitment to equitable access to outdoor spaces. But “the outdoor industry as a whole has a lot of work to do,” says Steve Lesnard, global vice president��of marketing and product��for the North Face.

On June 1, Grace Anderson, director of operations and strategic partnerships at the advocacy organization , wrote a����listing��seven “starting points” for those in the industry serious about racial equity,��including divesting from companies that “create harmful/unsafe environments for Black folks.” The story, titled��“Outdoor Industry: We Don’t Want Your Hashtags, We Want Action!,”��was widely circulated in the outdoor community. “A global uprising against anti-black��racism and white supremacy is happening and yet the outdoor industry is mostly silent,” Anderson wrote.

“We’re in a major cultural moment of pain and recognition that is long overdue,” Lesnard says. “We have a role to play in supporting the Black community and combating systemic racism in the U.S. and within our own organization.”��

In the past, it’s been good for business for outdoor companies to take a stand. But it’s too early to know how this move will affect any company’s bottom line. “That’s yet to be seen,” says Scott Borden, director of the Outdoor Industry MBA program at Western Colorado University. “But if I was a betting man, I would bet on it being a good business strategy.” More importantly, he��adds, “it’s the right thing to do.”��

Borden is optimistic that the outdoor industry is in a position to lead the way. “It’s a values-driven��industry more than pretty much any other industry I can think of,” he says. “I like to think that’s the piece that’s driving this, instead of just the bottom line.”

For her part, Anderson is glad to see outdoor companies quickly signing on to the campaign. “I think it’s a really solid step in the right direction,” she says. She hopes the companies are addressing equity and justice internally, too, “by supporting their BIPOC��employees and standing up against hate and White supremacy within their organizational culture.”

Of course, it will take much more than a single campaign to achieve the goals social-justice leaders have laid out. “We are just getting started,” Anderson wrote in early June.��“Join us or get left behind.”

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The National Park Service (NPS) announced Wednesday that it will temporarily suspend the collection of entrance fees at all parks that remain open. “This small step makes it a little easier for the American public to enjoy the outdoors in our incredible national parks,”��said Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt in a news release. As of Saturday, some��parks have closed entirely, including Yosemite and Rocky Mountain. Those that remain open are significantly scaling��down operations, including closing visitor centers and group campgrounds. (You can check the status of individual parks on the .)

The decision��comes as some rural communities near major national parks are urging visitors to stay away.��Earlier this week,��the medical director of the local hospital in Moab, Utah, that “the best thing we could all do is stay at home.” The Southeast Utah Health Department, which includes Moab, on Monday��closing theaters, bars, and restaurants (except for drive-up and take-out services), and prohibited hotels and other lodging facilities from renting rooms to tourists. A spokesperson for Arches National Park, located��just outside Moab, could not be reached for comment on the recent announcement.

Tom VandenBerg, chief of interpretation��at Big Bend National Park, in Texas, told ���ϳԹ��� that he doesn’t think the announcement will result in bigger crowds at his park. “Since Big Bend is so remote, I don’t think that the entrance fee [waiver] would result in more people coming. People have either planned to come or not,” he says. Before the NPS announcement, Big Bend, which is in the midst of its peak season, closed its entrance stations as part of its local COVID-19 response, effectively waiving entrance fees.��

VandenBerg said that Big Bend is fully staffed, though some volunteers have left due to concerns about coronavirus. Employees who would otherwise be working indoors at the visitor center are roving trails and making themselves available to��visitors throughout the park. Staff at��Saguaro National Park in Arizona are��.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the most visited national park in the country, never collects��an entrance fee. A spokesperson for the park told ���ϳԹ��� that they would expect the announcement to affect their numbers “nominally, if at all.” They also confirmed that the park continues to experience visitation numbers roughly on par with its��average for this time of year.

Some agree with the decision but take issue with the priorities expressed in the announcement. “The Park Service should be waiving fees, but not to make parks more accessible,” said Theresa Pierno, president and CEO of the National Parks Conservation Association. “Waiving fees prevents park staff and visitors from having close interactions during this ongoing pandemic. We remain concerned about the health and safety of park staff and visitors, and strongly urge everyone to follow the guidance of public health experts before planning a trip to any park in order to protect themselves and their communities.”

The NPS is urging all visitors to follow CDC guidelines for social distancing, hand washing, and other measures designed to stem the spread of the virus. And anyone planning to go should ��from the agency and announcements from specific parks.

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Despite the COVID-19 pandemic that’s led to international travel bans, shuttered schools, and other measures, the National Park Service (NPS) is continuing to operate, and crowds are turning out in droves. However, a number of parks have started to close visitor centers and various��facilities to help stem the spread of the virus, even while the gates remain open.

Last week��park superintendents were told that they did not have the authority to close their��facilities, , leaving many administrators and employees at individual parks upset with the decision. A set of guidelines sent to park leadership from NPS headquarters said that “all operational changes in parks (cancellations and closures) must be made through the proper NPS leadership channels.”

An NPS spokesperson told ���ϳԹ��� last week that local conditions could influence decisions. “State and local public-health authorities, in consultation with the CDC, may issue recommendations for specific areas based on local interests,” said the spokesperson.

On Tuesday, the NPS reversed course, giving individual parks authority to close visitor centers and other facilities along with other preventative actions. “The NPS is working with federal, state, and local authorities, while we as a nation respond to this public health challenge,”��NPS deputy director David Vela said in a press release.��“Park superintendents are assessing their operations now to determine how best to protect the people and their parks going forward.”��

A number of individual parks immediately began closing certain facilities. In Utah, Zion National Park shut down its shuttle system, instead allowing visitors to drive Zion Canyon Scenic Drive until the main canyon parking lot was full. Two campgrounds in the Florida Everglades were shuttered.��

Last week��the National Park Service unit closures at Golden Gate National Recreation Area, in the Bay Area;��the National Mall and Memorial Parks, in Washington, D.C.; and the Statue of Liberty National Monument, in New York City.��The fact that the sites are in major cities��made it impossible to adhere to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines concerning large gatherings of people. Several states—including Illinois, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania—have closed state-park systems in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Several private concessionaires have also started to close facilities in the parks. Aramark, the company that operates concessions at Yosemite, Monday that it would close lodging and dining facilities in that California park. Eastern National said that it will no longer provide staffing for the gift shops it operates at more than 150 NPS-managed sites, .

The NPS is continuing to post developments and guidance to the page of its website. The agency is also directing potential visitors, “particularly the most vulnerable, including the elderly and people with underlying conditions,” to heed CDC guidance on handwashing, face touching, and staying home if they’re feeling sick.��

“The NPS is focused on ensuring employees, their families, volunteers, and visitors are safe by following the most current guidance from the CDC, OPM [Office of Personal Management],��OEM [Office of Emergency Management], and other federal, state, and local health authorities,” the NPS webpage reads. As recently as��Friday, it pointed to��a 2007 Department of Interior Pandemic Influenza Plan as a road map to addressing the current pandemic, though officials��say the plan will be updated, “should the need arise.” (Reference to the 2007 plan has since been removed from the site.)��

Despite the spread of the virus, recommendations for social distancing,��and other precautions, travelers were still flocking to the parks this week. And on Wednesday, the NPS announced that entrance fees for parks remaining open would be waived. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is experiencing visitation numbers roughly on par with what they would expect this time of year, a spokesperson told ���ϳԹ��� on Friday. While a��number of seasonal facilities remain open there, the park announced on Tuesday that three visitor centers would temporarily close.��

At Big Bend National Park in far west Texas, was reportedly lined up waiting to enter the popular Chisos Basin last week. The park is in the midst of its . “It is a very busy time in Big Bend, and the coronavirus is raising some concern among visitors and park managers,” chief of interpretation Tom VandenBerg told ���ϳԹ��� on Friday. Reached for an update on Monday, VandenBerg said it was more of the same. “The park is packed,” he said. “Lots and lots of people here.”

As facilities continue to close, the best way to stay informed is to monitor updates from the NPS and announcements from the individual parks, and whether you plan to be inside or out, the best advice is to follow the to avoid crowds.

Howard Frumkin, an epidemiologist and professor emeritus at the University of Washington School of Public Health, who has held leadership roles at the CDC, told ���ϳԹ��� that he believes it’s a good thing the parks have remained open. “In addition to the risk of infection, the other problems we’re all facing, in terms of health and well-being, are anxiety and social isolation. We know that going to the outdoors is pretty effective at addressing both of those problems.”

However, Frumkin��added,��“When I speak positively about getting into the outdoors, what I have in mind is small groups of people who can leave space between themselves going along trails. I think crowds are to be avoided now. Nothing that I say, when I’m recommending time in the outdoors, should be seen as an alternative to any of the standard public-health recommendations. It’s compatible with doing all the things we need to do, but it’s kind of an underappreciated, but potentially very substantial, source of relief and benefit at times like this.”

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After a dizzying series of announcements in a 24-hour window, two critical, long-sought components of��public lands funding are closer to becoming a reality.

On Tuesday, via Twitter, President Trump�� congress to send him a bill that would provide full and permanent funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which allocates money from offshore drilling leases to support public access, recreation, and ecosystem preservation on public lands. The president also called on Congress to support the��National Park Service in the same tweet. After receiving the��signal that the president would sign off on it, despite his administration’s��budget proposal��calling for drastic cuts to those��programs, a bipartisan group of Senators announced Wednesday morning that they’ll introduce legislation��that includes bills for the full��and permanent��funding for the LWCF and the , which will provide $6.5 billion over five years��to address the National Parks Service’s maintenance backlog.

In a statement in response to this news, former Secretary of the Interior and interim CEO of the Nature Conservancy, Sally Jewell, said “addressing these important issues together makes sense, has bipartisan support, and will go a long way toward ensuring that one of America’s greatest legacies—our public lands and waters—are kept healthy and thriving for all to enjoy.”

According to the last update, the National Parks currently have a maintenance backlog close to $12 billion. The president’s budget, released in February, proposed a $581 million cut to NPS funding with no substantial relief for upkeep.

The full $900 million allocation��for the LWCF would be a boon to conservation and recreation throughout the country. However, as the Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee following the president’s Tuesday tweet, his proposed 2021 budget called for a 97 percent cut to the program. ��

While the reason for the dramatic reversal isn’t clear, it was driven in part by the urging of Senators Steve Daines (R-Montana) and Cory Gardner (R-Colorado), both of whom hail from states where voters support and��who are��both facing re-election bids in 2020. (Gardner’s facing , and it was reported later on Wednesday that Montana’s incumbent Democratic governor, Steve Bullock, will challenge Daines for his seat this fall.) The two last week to discuss the issue. Both Senators following the president’s tweet announcing that they had secured the president’s support and calling it “a great day for public lands.”

Putting aside the possible 2020 implications at play, some Democrats embraced the announcement.��“I welcome the president’s apparent newfound support,” Senator Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) . Udall then had the opportunity to question Department of the Interior Secretary David Bernhardt Wednesday morning.��“Secretary Bernhardt, there is tremendous excitement in the conservation community today.��Can you assure us that the whole administration is now supporting the president’s call for permanent mandatory LWCF funding, and will you work with us in a bipartisan way to get this done as soon as possible?”��Udall asked.��

“The president made his comment and I’m pretty—100 percent—confident everybody’s getting in line,”��Bernhardt responded.��

Reached for comment on Wednesday, some Democrats were more cautious��of Trump’s stated intentions given his administration’s proposed budget. In a statement to ���ϳԹ���,��New Mexico Congresswoman Deb Haaland, Vice Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, said “I’m always skeptical when the president announces via tweet his support for anything that would be good for people in New Mexico or anywhere else.��Instead, my team and I check the receipts—his budget guts the Land and Water Conservation Fund by 97 percent. His tweets yesterday appear to be a move to bolster GOP candidates and that was reinforced with Senator McConnell’s expected action today to move a combined LWCF-Restore Our Parks bill closer to the Senate floor. I’m grateful that Senators Udall and Heinrich played a role and I look forward to fully funding the LWCF and supporting our National Parks, while keeping the pressure on the Administration to get it across the finish line.”

from February shows that 70 percent of voters in Western states, with a strong majority in both parties, support full funding for the LWCF. “Fighting every year to figure out how much money the program will receive doesn’t provide the long-term planning certainty that our outdoor and conservation community deserves,” Gardner said in a press release.

The LWCF was established in 1964 by a bipartisan act of Congress.��It was designed to set aside $900 million from��royalties on offshore oil and gas leases��for public lands. After its first 50 years, the LCFW was only renewed for three years in 2015. It was allowed to briefly expire in 2018, but in February 2019 congress passed a law to permanently re-authorize it.��That law did not, however, ensure full funding (hence Trump’s proposed 97��percent��cut).����

In fact, complete LWCF funding has only been allocated in-full twice in the history of the program because congress regularly diverts much of that money elsewhere.��Usually, it gets of its intended budget.��Conservationists and a broad coalition of politicians have been pushing for full funding since permanent authorization was secured last year.

“As great as it is to finally have certainty for the program, there’s still more work to do,”said��Tom Cors, Director of Lands for U.S. Government Relations at the Nature Conservancy, . “Now, Congress must finish the job by also providing full, dedicated funding to LWCF. It would be the greatest conservation win in generations.”

“We’ve been working on this for more than a decade with Congress, and we’ve gotten closer,” Cors told ���ϳԹ��� on Wednesday.��“We believe that with the president’s��tweet, that ensures us a pathway.��We’re very pleased and encouraged by it, and now we are working to figure out what the next steps look like.”

A��bipartisan bill is said to be on the way and assured a vote on the floor—but, given the position changes in just the last day, this potentially historic victory for public lands won’t be assured until it’s signed into law.��

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The Bureau of Land Management announced February 24��that it would remove two parcels of land within the Sand Flats Special Recreation Area near Moab, Utah, from an upcoming oil and gas lease sale. The plan would have allowed exploratory drilling under the Slickrock Trail, one of the world’s most popular mountain biking destinations. While the move is a victory for local political leaders and conservation groups, ��that places like Slickrock should never have been vulnerable to damaging resource extraction to begin with.

These were considered low value leases (similar parcels were purchased at just $1.50 per acre) in a region where a growing segment of the economy relies on recreation and tourism.��Sand Flats gets over 160,000 visitors a year, and, , Moab’s Grand County received $5.1 million from tourist accommodation taxes in 2018. The BLM seems to have taken that into consideration.��

“Recreation access is a priority of ours—as well as responsible energy development—and both provide important economic benefits to Utah,”��BLM acting Canyon Country District Manager Brian Quigley said in Friday’s news release.

Local officials opposed to the lease sale praised the agency’s announcement. “Let’s celebrate this decision because they are listening,” Moab mayor Emily Niehaus, who was outspoken against the proposal, . Niehaus had asked the state government to intervene on behalf of Slickrock, and local government.

Utah Governor Gary Herbert weighed in on the issue days before the BLM reversed course. A spokesperson for his office ,��“the governor appreciates the unique beauty of the Slickrock area and wants to ensure that nothing is done that would be detrimental to the visitor experience or local water quality.”��

“I am deeply grateful to our governor.” Niehaus said. “The state of Utah is doing a good job of balancing the economic implications of our public lands. This move says to me we have a partner in the governor’s office. We have a partner in the BLM. We are moving forward.”��

The Outdoor Alliance, a public lands advocacy group, also spoke out against the proposed lease. Before the official public comment period for the proposed lease sale even began, the nonprofit and its supporters to BLM officials in opposition to the move within a day of the agency’s decision to withdraw the two parcels.��

The organization then used news of the reversal to about the Trump Administration’s “American energy dominance plan” that prioritizes resource extraction on public lands. “It’s tempting to say that the public spoke up, the agency listened, and the system worked, but that would not be an accurate telling.” Instead, according to the Outdoor Alliance, “this illustrates…what ‘energy dominance’ run amok looks like.”

In this situation, where there was an economic argument to be made for the recreational value, it wasn’t hard to get local politicians to speak up. That’s not always the case. For instance, the BLM is finalizing a plan to open the ecologically significant Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas leases. Earlier this month the agency issued a final management plan for the reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments that could open the door for logging and mining in the area, despite an ongoing legal battle over the status of those two areas. The Slickrock reversal is good news for bikers, conservationists, and economies dependent on the outdoor industry, but it’s certainly not a bellwether for all public lands.

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“I honestly believe that the future of the American public lands is as important to our nation as the Bill of Rights��or the Constitution itself,” journalist Hal Herring declares about halfway through Public Trust, a documentary that premiered��at the����in Missoula, Montana, on February 17. Environmental ethics are often built on such provocative statements, which force people to consider:��Do I agree with that? If I do agree, what responsibilities do I have to act on my convictions?

Public Trust is an environmental film for this political moment. Directed by David Garrett Byars and executive-produced by Robert Redford and Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, it delves into��the polarized environmental politics in Washington, D.C.,��and at state capitols throughout the country��but��contends that we’re not as polarized on the subject of public lands as politicians and corporations would have us believe. Instead, it argues—or, at least,��bets—that the vast majority of Americans favor the long-term ecological health of our parks and monuments over short-term resource extraction.��It also makes a strong case that corporate interests are now actively shaping public-land policy.

Herring, a contributing editor to , acts as the audience’s Virgil—if Virgil were a mountain man with an Alabama drawl. He guides us through the film’s three primary settings: Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. We learn that conservation advocates in each location had achieved significant,��protective policy advances at the end of the Obama Administration, often after long and protracted battles. Those achievements have begun to unravel under the Trump Administration, which has consistently acted in favor of industry in those locations.��

Perhaps Public Trust’s��central questions surround the rights and responsibilities of democratic citizens (or “public landowners,” as some in the film prefer to call them) in a country with vast and vibrant public spaces. It is not enough anymore, the film seems to argue, for us to simply appreciate the United States’ 640 million acres of publicly owned land. If we want to continue to enjoy the benefits of these places and preserve them for future generations, we must start to advocate for them the way conservationists have advocated to protect the Boundary Waters, the intertribal coalition has advocated for Bears Ears, and the Gwich’in in Alaska have advocated for ANWR.��

That perspective is likely to resonate with viewers who were at the documentary’s Big Sky premiere, and in the western U.S. more generally, where people are surrounded by public land and tend to actively engage with it. ( that voters in the West support conserving public lands over resource extraction by a wide margin.) But if you look at of our nation’s public lands, most of those 640 million acres are located in the western third of the country, and not every American has equal access to these protected places��or an equally enthralled relationship with them. Public Trust��acknowledges that gap��only to a degree: at the beginning of the film, Herring recalls moving to the West from northern Alabama, where, he says, “the idea of public land wasn’t really in our vocabulary.” All of the conservationists featured in the film have deep ties to the land they’re trying to protect; that’s what motivates their activism. While a single film can only cover so much,��it remains unclear what advocacy might look like for people who do not��have a strong personal or cultural connection to protected areas��but��are “public landowners” nonetheless.��

It’s worth noting that in the first several weeks of 2020 alone, as Public Trust’s��production team was wrapping the final cut of its film, the Department of Homeland Security ecologically and culturally significant sections of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in Arizona to install a border wall. And the Department of the Interior announced plans to allow drilling, mining, and grazing in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase–Escalante National Monuments (a move that would further undo the work of the activists featured in the documentary). Meanwhile, the Bureau of Land Management environmental-impact studies for future planning processes.

Let’s hope that painting a vivid, compelling picture of public lands, and the advocates��dedicated to protecting them, will encourage people to fight for conservation in myriad forms, however they are able to, from afar as well as up close. Bridging that gap will be an integral part of protecting these lands for generations to come.

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On Monday, the National Park Service��announced a significant loss to a small group of mountain lions in California’s Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. , an adult male cat,����by a local landowner��under the state’s new depredation law. He was presumed to be the father of several other animals who are part of a group the NPS has been tracking for nearly 20 years.

“The loss of a breeding male is a concern for the study, especially when the population is already very small,” Jeff Sikich, the park service’s lead field biologist for the project, .��

Other conservationists were more blunt.��“We are in a dire situation,” says Beth Pratt, the leader of the ��and regional executive director at the National Wildlife Federation.��“P-56 was one of only two known, or collared, males within the region, and we just took him out. What if the other male gets hit by a car tomorrow?”��

When a mountain lion attacks livestock or pets, California laws allow property owners to kill the animal, with a permit, but in 2017, the California Department of Fish & Wildlife (CDFW) made an exception specific to the threatened populations in the Santa Monica and Santa Ana mountains. The so-called “three-strike”��policy requires property owners to use non-lethal means to deter a mountain lion that has attacked pets or livestock. However, if the same cat is responsible for three depredation incidents, the state can grant a land owner��a lethal permit for��the animal.��The incidents involving P-56 took place outside the area covered by the policy, but, according to CDFW, the property owner, who lost 12 animals in nine separate incidents, took several deterrent measures before P-56 was killed.��

Pratt said that she and other conservationists wish they had a chance to help these property owners implement effective measures, so that lethal action could have been avoided.��

Los Angeles is one of only two megacities in the world that limits, giving researchers the opportunity to��monitor how these at-risk predator species adapt to increasingly urbanized and fragmented habitats.��The Santa Monica Mountains are surrounded by the 101 Freeway to the north, the Pacific Ocean to the south, and��highways and development to the east and west, creating an isolated environment��for this group of mountain lions, who face .

The three-strikes policy is aimed at helping Southern California’s most threatened��big cat populations that have struggled in recent years because of habitat loss and inbreeding (a result of being cut off from other groups of mountain lions). But it appears those efforts aren’t doing enough.��In the last year, several members of��this community, including at least four adult males, have died or been killed. P-61, a male born in 2015, was killed while trying to cross the 405 Freeway. P-38, a male born in 2012, was illegally shot in the head. A male born in 2013, P-30, died from rat poisoning, which��is also suspected to have caused the death of P-47, a male born in 2015, last March.

The recent deaths pose a grave threat to a group already��lacking genetic diversity. In one illustrative example of the claustrophobic conditions: the mother of P-56’s four potential offspring (P-70, P-71, P-72, and P-73) is also his grandmother, . (She’s the same animal known to the Park Service as the because she appears to pose for a game camera.)��The of the cats depends on their ability to mingle with other groups in order to maintain the population’s��overall health.��

A ��currently in the design phase, would include a bridge��over the freeway to��allow the Santa Monica mountain lions to reconnect with surrounding habitats and other cougar populations. Many see it as an integral part of the solution, a sterling example for other species threatened by urbanization and habitat fragmentation. Fundraising for��the $87 million project is well underway, and organizers hope construction will be completed by the end of 2023.��

However, an��overpass may not have precluded the death of P-56. A mountain lion’s nature is to attack prey, but NPS, CDFW, and other conservationists say that attacks on domestic animals can often be avoided��when are taken, including using properly trained guard dogs and keeping livestock in predator-proof enclosures at night.��

To prevent conditions like those that lead to the death of P-56, Pratt says, “we��have to fix this coexistence issue. And the good news is: it’s possible. These are not hard fixes.”

Editor's Note: This story has been updated to clarify the agency that investigated the incident and the extent of the property owner's deterrent measures.��

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