The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission unanimously adopted the resolution supporting federal public lands

2025/11/13 | Colorado: Logan Co.

The Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission unanimously adopted the resolution supporting federal public lands

The Resolution expresses Colorado’s support for public lands, which are essential for wildlife habitat, recreation, and our economy.

By Matt Barnes

Our public lands, the health of those lands, and our access to them are the foundation of our western way of life. I know, I repeat myself. That’s because nothing is more important here in the American West, save perhaps our fundamental freedoms. This should be a bipartisan issue. And yet, public lands are more threatened now than they have been at any time in the last fifty years.

Today, the Colorado Parks and Wildlife Commission unanimously passed a resolution defending public lands, which are essential for wildlife habitat, outdoor recreation including hunting and fishing, and many other uses. And by extension, the resolution supports the federal employees in the agencies that manage those lands in the Department of the Interior and the Department of Agriculture. This is especially pertinent to the most threatened public lands, which are the multiple-use lands held by the Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service.

I originally suggested this at the Commission meeting in May in Durango. The resolution is based in part on the Colorado General Assembly’s bipartisan resolution on Protection of Colorado’s Public Lands (SJR25-009), which passed in March 2025—unanimously in the Senate and by a wide margin in the House, where it was only opposed by five Republican representatives. It was edited by me and then internally at Parks and Wildlife.

So, a big thank-you to Chair Reading and the Commissioners—and all of our agency staff.

Paddling through public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management in Colorado, in the proposed Dolores Canyons National Conservation Area.