As the Trump administration and Congress urge increased extractive industrial uses of federally managed lands — and even selling public lands to pay down debt — conservation and wilderness groups are ramping up a campaign to increase protections for public lands on the Western Slope.
The Wilderness Workshop in Carbondale, which has worked since 1967 to secure wilderness designations for Western Slope public lands threatened by industrial development, has compiled a list of 10 high-priority landscapes where development pressures are threatening wildlife and communities that rely on wild, untrammeled places.
Just about any resident of the Western Slope will identify with the forests, rivers and deserts highlighted in the Wild for Good report, said Will Roush, the executive director of the Wilderness Workshop.
Roush calls the report “a call to action” hoping to capture the same upswell of support for public lands that nixed a legislative proposal in June that required federal land managers to sell off acres so communities could build affordable housing. The outcry over a plan to auction as much as 3 million acres of public land marked a unifying moment for the outdoor recreation industry, rural communities in the West and conservation advocates.
The report is meant to tap that momentum and galvanize communities around public lands as the Trump administration plans an exponential increase in oil and gas leasing alongside the termination of rules emphasizing conservation as a priority in multiple-use missions for federal land managers and limited development on 59 million acres of Forest Service land.
“We keep hearing from folks that they want to be proactive in protecting these places to get ahead of the onslaught of development,” Roush said. “I think the current whole suite of actions we are seeing right now emphasizing development on public lands is motivated almost entirely by a desire to monetize our public lands. It’s taken us a half a century to bring balance to public lands management … and we continue to log and mine and produce a huge amount of oil and gas while also having conservation. At this moment, the Trump administration and Congress are trying to eliminate that balance.”
Here are the 10 regions identified in the Wilderness Workshop’s Wild for Good report.
- The headwaters of the Colorado River. The report urged the Bureau of Land Management to expand wilderness protections to lower elevations where wildlife wander “to conserve a diversity of ecosystems necessary to maintain biodiversity and provide climate resiliency.” The report asks readers to help advocate for a Wild and Scenic River designation for the stunning Deep Creek, which pours from the Flat Tops into the Colorado River.
- The Continental Divide from the Williams Fork Mountains south to across the Tenmile Range to Leadville. The report calls for increased wilderness designations outlined in the Colorado Outdoor Recreation and Economy Act — or CORE Act — which would expand the Eagle’s Nest, Ptarmigan Peak and Holy Creek wilderness areas.
- The Crystal River from its headwaters in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness to its confluence with the Roaring Fork River. The lack of dams on this river make it one of only a handful of free-flowing rivers in the state. Advocates are hoping to secure Wild and Scenic River designation for a nearly 40-mile river as well as expand wilderness boundaries in the headwaters to better protect the watershed.
- Dolores River Canyon Country. After a failed effort to establish a national monument on some 400,000 acres flanking the Dolores River in Mesa and Montrose counties, advocates are working to expand BLM protections on land around the river.
- Greater Dinosaur around the Dinosaur National Monument. In the 1950s, conservation advocates battled a plan for a dam at the confluence of the Yampa and Green rivers, which would have flooded the then-40-year-old Dinosaur National Monument. The defeat of Echo Park Dam marked a pivotal moment in the environmental movement, establishing a bulwark for conservation. The Wilderness Workshop report notes increased development pressure around the 1915 national monument as part of a plan to fast-track energy production on public lands.
- The Homestake Valley above Red Cliff. The Homestake Valley’s wetlands and acreage inside the Holy Cross Wilderness and the Homestake Roadless Area is targeted for a dam that could flood more than 450 acres of wilderness.
- North Fork Valley. The headwaters of the North Fork of the Gunnison River support farms and public lands in a region with vibrant oil and gas development. The Gunnison Outdoor Resources Protection Act — or GORP Act, which was introduced in 2024 — would remove nearly 75,000 acres in the North Fork Valley from oil and gas development.
- Red Table Mountain in the Sawatch Range south of the Eagle River and north of the Fryingpan River. The 18-mile-long sandstone massif anchors a roadless area where the White River National Forest recommends establishing a 49,849-acre wilderness. Wilderness designation around Red Table Mountain has been championed in several pieces of legislation, including the Hidden Gems wilderness proposals by then U.S. Rep. Jared Polis in 2010.
- The Roan Plateau between New Castle and Grand Junction. Public lands on the plateau above the Colorado River were fully leased to oil and gas companies in 2008, triggering lawsuits from wilderness and conservation advocates that resulted in the cancellation of most leases atop the Roan Plateau. The BLM has identified more than 20,000 acres of wilderness-quality lands on the top of the Roan Plateau but increased pressure to prioritize oil and gas development threatens those roadless areas in the Roan Plateau.
- The 250,000-acre Thompson Divide. President Joe Biden in 2024 removed oil and gas leasing from more than 220,000 acres of the Thompson Divide for 20 years, but wilderness groups are working for permanent protection of the unbroken ecosystem that stretches from Glenwood Springs to Crested Butte.