Mission

View precious Wyoming lands with Tribal leaders, conservationists, and stakeholders to increase opposition and public awareness of a bad bill for public lands.

Our overflight examined iconic landscapes like the Adobe Badlands, Sweetwater Canyon, Copper Mountain, and Honeycomb WSA. These cherished outdoor spaces and the critical wildlife habitat they provide are threatened by a widely-criticized proposed legislation.

Senator Barrasso introduced the Wyoming Public Lands Initiative Act (WPLI) in 2023. The bill addresses sixteen Wilderness Study Areas (WSA) in Wyoming, and it has some good elements but overall is a poor plan that does not serve the people of Wyoming or its wildlife. The WPLI would protect 20,00 acres of Wilderness, but it would release about 130,000 acres of Wyoming’s best-protected BLM lands with lesser or no protections, and would prevent these lands from acquiring future Wilderness designations.

This release would open lands to oil and gas development, mining, new roads, and inadequate management of resources and values. Many Tribes carry strong connections to this landscape and the WPLI ignores Tribal consultation and sovereignty.

Our partners are working to protect Wyoming’s amazing badlands, towering butters, rivers, and canyons into perpetuity by advocating for more permanent protections, not less.

Click for photos from the flight. Click for geo-referenced flight photos.