Kate hosts a live episode in Salt Lake City on CWP’s Keep Parks Public tour! Guests: Erika Pollard, National Parks Conservation Association; Davina Smith, Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and Grand Staircase Escalante Partners; Scott Braden, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance; Doug Tolman, Save Our Canyons.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

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Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: Keep Parks Public Salt Lake City event on 8/21/2025; Photo by Ken Kraus

The post LIVE: Utah conservation all-stars on how to Keep Parks Public appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Aaron hosts a live episode in Denver, kicking off CWP’s Keep Parks Public tour. Scott Fitzwilliams, former supervisor of the White River National Forest in Colorado, Kelly Nordini, CEO of Conservation Colorado, and Kara Matsumoto, public lands director at the Conservation Lands Foundation, join us to discuss threats to Colorado’s public lands posed by the Trump administration and Congress—as well as what YOU can do to fight back.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

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Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: Keep Parks Public Denver event on 8/13/25; CWP photo

The post LIVE: Colorado’s public lands are under attack. Keep Parks Public tour highlights threats and ways to fight back appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

What the heck is Utah up to now that it’s land grab lawsuit has been snubbed by the Supreme Court and Senator Mike Lee has made public land sell-off untouchable in Congress? Kate and Aaron put that question to John Ruple, a Professor of Law and Stegner Center Fellow at the University of Utah, and Steve Bloch, legal director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: Red rock formations on the Cedar Creek Canyon Road in Utah; Source: Murray Foubister/Wikimedia Commons 

The post What’s next for Utah after SCOTUS snub and Mike Lee flame out? appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron interview author Barret Baumgart about his new book Yuck: The Birth and Death of the Weird and Wondrous Joshua Tree. Baumgart became obsessed with Joshua trees during the pandemic and ended up uncovering some interesting facts and stories about them.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

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Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: JOSHUA TREE NATIONAL PARK; NPS/Wikimedia Commons

The post The strange and mysterious history of the Joshua tree appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron talk to Steve Ellis, a 38-year veteran of both the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management and current chair of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees, about what the Trump administration is doing, and trying to do, to the Forest Service, and what that means for everything from logging to wildfires.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: Oregon Mt. Hood National Forest Trillium Lake; USFS/Flickr

The post Former Forest Service leader on how Trump is hollowing out the agency appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron talk to writer, photographer, and adventurer Josh Jackson about his new book, The Enduring Wild, which beautifully captures the variety and vastness of California’s public lands—with a particular focus on lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Josh is also the man behind the @forgottenlandsproject Instagram account, which he uses to share photos and stories of “forgotten” BLM lands in California, and soon, Nevada. Kate and Aaron also break down the public land sell-off and Roadless Rule repeal news.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: Carrizo Plain National Monument; Credit @forgottenlandsproject

The post How do we protect BLM lands? We tell their stories appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron talk to experts at the National Parks Conservation Association about illegal mining inside of Mojave National Preserve and a recent uptick in mining claims on public lands, including those near national parks.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

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Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: Mojave National Preserve; Jeff Hollett/Flickr

The post Mining companies are knocking at the doors of our national parks appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Trump’s Department of Justice just released an opinion stating that the Antiquities Act gives presidents the power to shrink or eliminate national monuments at will. But what does that mean, for example, if Trump tries to undo Chuckwalla National Monument or shrink Bears Ears? Will this DOJ opinion stand up in court? We put those questions and more to John Leshy, professor at UC Law and former Solicitor of the U.S. Department of the Interior under President Clinton. 

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

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Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: Bears Ears National Monument – Indian Creek; Photo by Bob Wick, BLM

The post The DOJ just told Trump he can eliminate monuments. Now what? appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron talk to Tracy Stone-Manning, former director of the Bureau of Land Management and current president of the Wilderness Society. Tracy tells us what it was like to inherit an agency that was decimated by the first Trump administration and what she’s worried about this time around—but also, what’s giving her hope for America’s public lands.

We also cover the news that a provision to sell-off hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands in Utah and Nevada has been stripped from the budget reconciliation package.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: Courtesy TWS

The post Tracy Stone-Manning on the biggest threats to public lands right now appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.

Kate and Aaron talk to Kurt Repanshek, founder and editor of National Parks Traveler, about President Donald Trump’s proposed funding cuts to the National Park System as well as how staffing cuts imposed by Elon Musk’s DOGE are affecting the Park Service.

Hosts: Kate Groetzinger & Aaron Weiss 

Feedback: [email protected]

Music: Purple Planet

Featured image: U.S. Dept of State/Flickr

The post How are the national parks holding up against DOGE and Trump’s attacks? appeared first on Center for Western Priorities.