Our Vision
What is the
New Direction for
Public Lands?
Public lands, watersheds, and wildlife are currently under attack — and have been for decades as a result of ineffectual laws, legal loopholes, and agency mismanagement. Industry controls the levers of power and has an iron grip on Congress. It’s time to reimagine a future where public lands are managed for their ecological integrity and public benefit, not private industry exploitation.
The New Direction for Public Lands is a shared vision to protect, rewild, and reimagine our nation’s public lands by offering legislative solutions at the federal level. Our collection of impactful policies point the way towards the future we envision for public lands and wildlife.
Our coalition of advocates, scientists, recreationists, and concerned citizens is united to end exploitation of these lands and ensure they serve the public good.
Inspired by the generations before us who rose to safeguard America’s natural heritage, we call for a new era of responsible stewardship and conservation that reflects the values of everyday Americans nationwide.
A future where public lands are wild, whole, and safeguarded in service of people, wildlife, and the natural world — not private industry. These lands are protected for their own sake and the shared good they provide: clean water, biodiversity, cultural survival, and connection to something bigger than ourselves.
Our Vision
The New Direction for Public Lands exists to protect what remains, rewild what’s been damaged, and transform how public lands are governed. We reject the failed model of industrial “multiple use” and instead champion policies rooted in ecological integrity, Indigenous sovereignty, and public accountability — so that public lands serve life, not profit.
Our Mission
Revive the Wild
Our 640 millions acres of public lands encompass a rich diversity of ecosystems — forests, grasslands, wetlands, deserts, rivers, mountains, coastal shorelines, and marine habitats — all essential to the diversity and vitality of our natural heritage. These places frequently experience natural disturbance events — such as fire, flooding, or storms–that play an essential role in ecosystem balance and renewal.
Ecological integrity across our public lands is declining under the pressure of industrial logging, commercial livestock grazing, energy development, and mining. These activities are routinely marketed as compatible with — or even necessary for functioning ecosystems and robust wildlife populations.
Alternatively, we propose to:
Protect what's left of the most-intact ecosystems through protective land designations like federal Wilderness.
Allow nature to recover and rewild where it has been damaged.
Embrace natural processes like fire and natural regeneration to maintain the intricate balance of ecosystems and variety of habitats.
Offer voluntary grazing permit buyouts and stop “active forest management” (logging) projects on public lands.
Reimagine Our Role
Public lands belong to everyone–and everyone has a stake in their future. This includes: hunters and hikers, anglers, artists, rural communities and urban youth, tribal members, and local volunteers.
We seek to:
Expand opportunities for people to connect with public lands, including acquisition of new lands near communities that lack access to public lands.
Support tribal rights, including treaty rights, and reduce or remove agency administrative barriers to traditional Indigenous cultural burning and gathering.
Give wildlife the habitat and space they need to thrive.
Reinvest in local jobs that restore, protect, and sustain these lands.
Craft laws and systems that support the self-regulating dynamics of ecosystems, with minimal interference.
Rethink the System
Much of how public lands are managed today is based on outdated ideas. In many places, practices once common no longer serve the best interests of the land or the people.
Our goal is to:
Lead with independent science — not industry or agency funded/directed “science.”
Promote traditional ecological values.
Redefine what “management” means to “nature knows best.”
End “multiple use” mandates that put extractive interests over ecosystems’ natural functions.
End taxpayer-subsidized exploitation.
Check out the issues we’re tackling.
