A Declaration of Public Lands Independence

On July 4th, we remember what this country was meant to be and who it’s meant to belong to.

The Founders promised life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. They also knew none of it meant anything without land beneath your feet.

The Constitution did not use the word “park.” It did not mention wilderness or trails or hiking. But it made one thing clear: the land was meant to serve the people.

Article IV, Section 3 gave Congress the power to manage the lands of the United States. It was a quiet clause with enormous consequence. It meant millions of acres would be held in reserve by the government, not for kings or corporations, but in trust for the American people.

This was a break from everything the Founders had known. In Europe, land belonged to monarchs and aristocrats. Forests were fenced. Rivers were owned. The best views were reserved for the wealthy. The poor were punished for trespass.

The United States rejected that. It created a new model – a republic where the land could be shared, not hoarded. The first country in the history of the world to set aside its most beautiful places not for royalty, but for everyone.

This was not an afterthought. It was a cornerstone. A civic inheritance. A democratic ideal written into mountains and canyons and coastlines.

Franklin Roosevelt said it plainly, “There is nothing so American as our national parks.” He meant it as more than praise. He meant it as definition. This is who we are when we are at our best.

The generations that followed carried that idea forward. They turned it into parks, monuments, trails, forests, refuges. They understood something we are now in danger of forgetting.

That liberty means nothing without access.
That happiness includes the right to roam.
That freedom without place is just a word.

We were never meant to be a nation where access to nature required a reservation number and a high-limit credit card.

We were meant to be something better.

National fireworks display from the top of the Lincoln Memorial

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The Generational Relay

This promise did not sustain itself. It was carried.

Passed hand to hand, era to era, shaped by drought and depression, by war and political will. Each generation picked up the idea and made it real again.

Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant in the middle of civil war. He protected a valley and a grove of giant trees not for economic gain, but because he believed the Union would outlast the war and the people would need places worthy of it.

Ulysses S. Grant made it federal. With the stroke of a pen, Yellowstone became the first national park in the world. The land would stay public. The geysers would keep erupting for everyone.

Theodore Roosevelt took the baton and ran. He protected over 230 million acres of forests, rivers, and wild ground. He warned of “unprincipled present-day minority interests” trying to drain the country for short-term gain. His mission was not beauty. It was permanence. He spoke of “unborn generations.” He meant us.

Franklin Roosevelt fought on two fronts. Against economic collapse and against the erosion of civic trust. Through the Civilian Conservation Corps, he gave millions of jobless Americans a shovel, a uniform, and a purpose. They planted trees, built trails, fought fires, and restored the land. FDR called it the “service of the millions.” He knew conservation was not just for the privileged. It was a public works project for the soul.

Lyndon Johnson expanded the vision. He signed the Wilderness Act. Protected rivers, seashores, and open space. He warned that if we failed to act, we would leave behind a country of “concrete and cement.” He understood the stakes. “If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt,” he said, “we must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning.”

Jimmy Carter protected more land than any president in American history. In a single act, he doubled the size of the National Park System, tripled the wilderness in the United States, and tripled the Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Over 157 million acres of wild ground – mountains, rivers, forests, coastlines, sacred Indigenous lands – were set aside under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act. He faced oil companies, industry lobbyists, and members of his own party. He signed it anyway. “We're the stewards of an irreplaceable environment,” he said. “That's an awesome task, as well as a precious gift.”

Bill Clinton brought conservation back to the center of federal policy. He used the Antiquities Act to protect redrock canyons, sacred tribal lands, and remote plateaus. His Roadless Rule kept 58 million acres of national forest free from development. And he created the National Landscape Conservation System, giving the Bureau of Land Management a clear mandate to protect land for its own sake. “We must preserve what is best about our land,” he said, “not just for history’s sake, but for our children’s sake.”

Barack Obama picked up the baton and widened the lens. He protected over 550 million acres of land and water – more than any president in history. He honored tribal leadership in the creation of Bears Ears. He expanded marine monuments and designated civil rights landmarks. He said, “Conservation is not something that belongs to one party. It’s an American tradition.”

Each of these leaders, across centuries and ideologies, answered the same quiet question –

Will you care for this?
Or will you sell it?

Now the question is ours to answer.
And there is no more time to wait.

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The Peril We Face

For decades, those seeking to dismantle and sell off our public lands operated in backrooms. They made their deals quietly, buried riders in spending bills, softened their language for the press. Because they knew the truth: if the American people saw what they were doing, the fallout would be too great to survive.

No longer.

Today, the effort to undermine the public estate is open and emboldened. Politicians introduce bills to privatize federal lands. Lobbyists campaign to roll back protections on wilderness, monuments, forests, and wildlife refuges. Oil and gas leases are rushed through while public comment periods are cut short. Concession contracts are extended, rewritten, handed to the highest bidder. Recreation is rebranded as revenue.

This is not hypothetical. It is not future tense. It is happening now.

Hundreds of millions of people visited the national parks last year. Staffing is down more than sixteen percent and falling by the day.

Our public lands have accumulated billions of dollars in backlogged maintenance. Despite being one of the best investments the government has ever made they are now being woefully purposefully underfunded by those seeking to privatize it all. To shift the shareholders from public good to private interests. To enrich the wealthy at the expense of us regular folks.

The reservation system for public lands – Rec.gov – is managed by Booz Allen Hamilton, a defense contractor that has invoiced over $140 million in fees since 2018. A website dressed in .gov garb that redirects public access into a private revenue stream.

Backcountry permits. Trailhead access. Campgrounds. All gated by lottery systems, dynamic pricing, and third-party vendors. The open invitation that once defined public lands is being rewritten – slowly, then all at once.

Park rangers have been replaced with “partners.” Lodges inside national parks are now run by private contractors who care only for profit. More and more families trying to visit a national treasure is met not by a ranger, but by a QR code and a payment portal.

This is the new barricade. One built not of fences, but of friction. Not of armed guards, but of quietly and deliberately shifting systems.

The result is a creeping privatization of the American commons. It is not a metaphor. It is not a warning.

It is the present. And it is accelerating.

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The Crossroads

We are the generation standing at the fork.

Behind us is a legacy that was carried forward through war, recession, political upheaval, and greed – and still held. A legacy that was fought for. Expanded. Passed down.

In front of us are two paths.

One leads toward restored stewardship. Toward access that is equal, spontaneous, and real. Toward fully funded agencies, hired rangers, living wages, and trail systems maintained by people who know the land and care for it. Toward Indigenous partnership, ecological protection, and a renewed sense that this country still knows how to leave something better behind.

The other path leads to loss. Not theoretical loss. Not poetic loss. Real, irreversible loss. This is the path we’re being pushed down.

Loss of places. Loss of access. Loss of the idea that America promised something to everyone, not just those who can afford a reservation and a resort rate.

Unless something changes, unless we take a stand, unless we set our feet in the ground, our ground, and say no, we will be remembered as the generation that lost the commons.

There is no neutral ground. The infrastructure of democracy does not maintain itself.

You either carry the baton, or you let it fall. We must nont let it fall.

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The Choice

We talk a lot about patriotism in this country. About flags and speeches and sacrifice.

But patriotism is not performative. It’s not just what you say. It’s what you protect.

To care for public land is to care for the republic. To fund the Park Service is to fund the country’s soul. To hire rangers, restore trails, remove barriers, and open gates is not a luxury. It’s a democratic responsibility.

You cannot separate freedom from place. You cannot say the land belongs to the people while quietly selling off access to the highest bidder. You cannot call this a government of, by, and for the people – and then hand it to vendors, contractors, and concessions firms.

This is not about nostalgia. It’s about obligation.

The Founders knew the pursuit of happiness required land beneath your feet. Lincoln knew it in wartime. Roosevelt knew it when he warned about the “unborn generations.” Johnson knew it when he said the test of a nation is what it chooses to preserve.

And if we know it too, then we have one job.

Pass it down better than we found it.

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A Declaration of Public Lands Independence

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to dissolve the private ties that have quietly replaced public trust, the people must speak with clarity and purpose.

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That access to the wild beauty of this country is not a privilege for the wealthy, but a right of the people.

That public land is not the government’s to sell, lease, or gate – it is ours to defend.

That liberty means nothing without access. That the pursuit of happiness includes the freedom to roam. That democracy cannot survive if the commons disappear.

And so we declare the following:

That the land management agencies of this nation must be fully funded, fully staffed, and treated as essential public infrastructure.

That corporate contractors must be removed from public access systems. No private firm should stand between the people and their land.

That affordability, spontaneity, and equity must be restored – not as amenities, but as guarantees.

That any policy designed to restrict access in the name of efficiency or modernization must be met with scrutiny and public oversight.

That our parks, forests, rivers, monuments, and trails are not for sale.

That no more public assets shall be handed over quietly, by rider or lease or loophole.

That the land belongs to the people.

That we will not give it up.

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A Call to Stand Up and Speak Out

This is not symbolic. This is not someday. This is right now.

If we let the commons vanish, we lose more than access. We lose the soil beneath the promise of democracy.

This isn’t about one campground, one permit, one trail fee. It’s about whether the idea of public land and the public itself still means anything in this country.

July 4th is not about nostalgia. It is a test.

Will we be the generation that handed over the mountains for a tax write-off or the one that said enough?

Will we keep waving flags while the land beneath them is carved up, leased out, and fenced off?

Or will we remember what the flag was supposed to stand for?

Freedom means a trailhead with no gate. A forest without a price tag. A river you don’t have to win a lottery to stand beside.

So share this. Say it out loud. Paint it on signs.

The land belongs to the people.

Happy fourth,
Will