This week on the podcast we have a conversation with author and traveller Walter G Meyer, who we caught up with while on a trip in Colombia.
Meyer worked for two summers in Grand Teton National Park and for one summer in Denali, Alaska, where he taught about the park and led hikes into the park.
He has visited 43 of the country’s 63 national parks, plus over 100 of the other sites administered by the NPS, as well as visiting dozens of national monuments, national forests, and other natural areas, including Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.
Our conversation covers the US government’s potential removal of protections for some national monuments, which Meyer believes could mean an end to hiking or public use of any kind as companies may be given permission for mining or oil exploration on these lands.
All is not lost, however, as previous administrations gave partial control of these lands to some local tribes. Those tribes, along with environmental allies such as the Sierra Club and NRDC, with help from some outdoor gear companies such as REI, will be mounting opposition in court to the rollback of the protections for the largely untouched lands.
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