Over the course of more than a century, Congress—or the executive branch using expressed authorities granted by Congress—has established various systems for the conservation, management, and enjoyment of federal and other lands and waters. On the whole, these systems are bold, visionary, and remarkable.

Until the first judicial injunctions brought most logging of northern spotted owl habitat to a halt, the monies came mostly from the sale of old-growth forest. These forests were being logged at a rate of more than three square miles each week on federal public forestlands in Oregon

It costs more to feed a domestic house cat than to graze domestic livestock on federal public lands. This has generally been the case since the early 1900s, when the federal government first required ranchers to pay a fee for grazing their livestock on millions of acres of federal land, primarily in western states.

Trump’s two immediate predecessors, Democratic President Obama and Republican President Bush, broke records in proclaiming national monuments for this and future generations. By contrast, it’s clear that Trump is no Theodore Roosevelt, who signed the Antiquities Act of 1906 in which Congress granted the power to the president to proclaim national monuments.

The Elliott State Forest is not, in fact, public land. Rather, it is trust land with public value and public access, so the public generally considers it public land. The legal distinction is vitally important in this saga.

The present president doesn’t seem to enjoy the outdoors, unless it is on a great big beautiful golf course. Though the presidential retreat in Maryland does have a modest driving range along with one hole and several tees, don’t bet on Trump spending any time at Camp David, tucked in western Maryland’s forests.

President Trump signed an executive order on April 26, 2017, that directs Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke to review sixty-two of the last three presidents’ national monument proclamations, dating back to 1996. Source: Wikipedia

National heritage areas (NHAs) are a way to conserve and restore important natural, historical, and cultural resources for this and future generations while at the same time generating local economic activity through tourism. NHAs are established by Congress but administered by local entities with the assistance of the National Park Service.

Though President Trump has said he “loves” public lands and doesn’t want to sell or give them to states, counties, or private industry, he does favor increased logging, grazing, mining, drilling, and just about anything else bad for these lands.

There is no question that an Act of Congress can eliminate, shrink, or weaken a national monument proclaimed by a president pursuant to authority granted by Congress. What Congress giveth, Congress can taketh away.

National monuments are “proclamations,” not “executive orders.” The president issues executive orders under the faithful execution clause of the Constitution (in Article II, Section 3). A president may expand, revoke, or modify a previous executive order. An executive order and a presidential proclamation under the Antiquities Act are absolutely not one and the same.

Limits have been considered on visitors to Oregon’s Mount Hood Wilderness and Washington’s Alpine Lakes Wilderness, which are within easy reach of the Portland and Puget Sound metropolitan areas. In some cases, the Forest Service has contemplated visitor reductions as large as 60 and 90 percent. Such limits are already common on popular floating rivers including the Rogue and the Colorado.

During this Trumpian Quadrennium, with a Congress hostile to conservation, the chances of expanding the National Wildlife Refuge System (NWRS) approach zero. Yet the need to double the size of the system has never been greater, so now is the time to start.

The purposes and boundaries of Oregon’s Malheur National Wildlife Refuge can only be divined by examining at least a dozen acts of Congress, presidential actions, and administrative decisions.

Pelican Island in the Indian River Lagoon in Florida was the home to an extraordinary number of native birds, many of which were threatened by plume hunters meeting the hot market for feathers (and even whole birds) for women’s hats.

Without enough wilderness America will change. Democracy . . . must be fibred and vitalized by regular contact with outdoor growths—animals, trees, sun warmth and free skies—or it will dwindle and pale. —Walt Whitman

Following are seven examples of high-public-value BLM Zone 3 lands in western Oregon that should be reclassified or transferred. The parcels in question are shown on the map segments to the left of their descriptions. I’m confident that a similar analysis of BLM eastern Oregon lands will yield similar examples.

Until the latter third of the nineteenth century, forests in the United States were considered inexhaustible—not renewable, but inexhaustible. But by the 1880s, with watersheds on public and private lands were being decimated by unrestrained logging and grazing, an emerging conservation movement was beginning to convince the public—and would eventually convince Congress—that something needed to be done.

History has shown we cannot rely on the private sector to conserve forests, protect drinking water, and provide other public values, including wildlife habitat, recreation opportunities, and scenic views. The private values of timberlands are in conflict with these public values and are driven by a desire to maximize profit, return on investment, and net present value.

Given Oregon’s historically close ties to the timber industry, it is hard to imagine that a U.S. senator from Oregon could be a co-sponsor of the original legislation that became the Wilderness Act of 1964.