Public lands are crucial to jobs, economy

This month, President Trump accepted Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s recommendations to shrink national monuments in Utah, affecting both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.

This was the first step in unraveling Theodore Roosevelt’s signature public lands policy, the Antiquities Act. This move will result in the largest reversal of public lands protections in American history.

We join hundreds of businesses and business organizations around the country who do not support Zinke and Trump’s rollback of national monuments. It doesn’t matter that these places are in Utah, what matters is that the precedent of removing protections from public lands like our national monuments is detrimental to surrounding businesses, and a slippery slope for threats to other, similar places.

This opinion is signed by Jeff Welch, Mercury CSC (Bozeman); Maggie Carr, Dropstone Outfitting (Choteau); Yve Bardwell, Dropstone Outfitting (Choteau); Jake Kreilick, Lake Missoula Tea Company (Missoula); and Maggie Doherty, Kalispell Brewing Company (Kalispell). They are members of Business for Montana’s Outdoors.

http://missoulian.com/opinion/columnists/montana-businesses-to-zinke-public-lands-are-crucial-to-jobs/article_7209246e-82e0-53fe-a4c4-5cd94e19fc81.html