New Mexico Wild Fall 2024 Newsletter – Keep Big Bend Wild!

New Mexico Wild Fall Newsletter article about Keep Big Bend Wild

New Mexico Wild Fall 2024 Newsletter – Keep Big Bend Wild!

Visiting Big Bend National Park provides a powerful and rare opportunity to experience vast wild lands and almost unlimited vistas. Hikers can venture for days without encountering the sights or sounds of modern civilization. Even though most of us enjoy Big Bend without leaving the roads or trails, the knowledge that these undeveloped wild lands are protected is one reason we love Texas’s oldest and largest national park.

The good news is that National Park Service (NPS) policy commits to protecting Big Bend’s Wilderness-eligible lands in their undeveloped state forever.

In 1978, the NPS formally recommended that about two-thirds of the park be designated as federal Wilderness. In 2023, the NPS found that an additional 63,500 acres were eligible for Wilderness designation. But an act of Congress is required to make a Wilderness designation permanent, as agency policy and commitment can change. Without legislation, there’s no guarantee future park managers or political leaders won’t act on a different view.

Formal designation as Wilderness has many advantages. Foremost is assuring that future management will continue to protect the Wilderness experience so that our grandchildren can enjoy the park as we do.

A Wilderness designation will also permanently protect dark skies, iconic Chihuahuan Desert habitat and wide-open spaces beloved by park visitors.

We can fulfill the vision of previous generations at Big Bend National Park. A loosely organized Keep Big Bend Wild (KBBW) citizens group is working closely with park leadership to raise the visibility of this issue. KBBW is building community support that will make it more likely our political leadership will introduce a bill in the next Congress.

How can you help? Engage the people you know! The goal is to show that a broad spectrum of people and businesses believes protecting the wild lands of Big Bend forever is in the public interest. New Mexico Wild has been a supporter from the beginning. Please let us list you as a supporter, too especially if you live in Texas.

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