Wild Utah

Mark Maryboy made history when he was elected in 1986 as the first Native American county commissioner in Utah’s history — in San Juan County, home to Bears Ears National Monument. A former Navajo Nation Council delegate and longtime advocate for Native people and the environment, he currently serves on the Board of Directors of both SUWA and Utah Diné Bikéyah.

In this episode, Maryboy shares his personal stories about the political history of San Juan County and the struggle of Native people for representation at the county government level. More than half of San Juan County's population is Native American, yet it wasn't until 2018 that a majority Navajo county commission was elected, after gerrymandered commission districts were redrawn by the courts following a successful Voting Rights Act challenge by the Navajo Nation.

Wild Utah is produced by Jerry Schmidt and is made possible by the contributing members of SUWA. Our theme music, “What’s Worth?” was written and performed in Moab by Haley Noel Austin.

Following a public outcry, an outlandish Interior Department order that was proposed to allow off-road vehicles in national parks in Utah was dropped by the Trump administration. But the controversy over the Park Service proposal raises a larger, under-the-radar ORV issue with the potential for long-term damage to America’s redrock wilderness. In this episode, we discuss how the BLM’s travel management planning has been at the heart of SUWA’s work for more than two decades, and how it’s coming to a head over the next few years. Our guests are SUWA Wildlands Program Director Neal Clark and Staff Attorney Laura Peterson.

Wild Utah is produced by Jerry Schmidt and is made possible by the contributing members of SUWA. Our theme music, “What’s Worth?” was written and performed in Moab by Haley Noel Austin.

SUWA Wildlands Attorney Kya Marienfeld speaks with Dave Pacheco about about the Trump administration's new master management plans for what remains of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, as well as the nearly one million acres that President Trump excised from the 23 year-old monument. These plans authorize rampant chaining of pinyon and juniper forests and unbridled energy development, and set the stage for a free-for-all of off-road vehicle abuse.

Wild Utah is produced by Jerry Schmidt and is made possible by the contributing members of SUWA. Our theme music, “What’s Worth?” was written and performed in Moab by Haley Noel Austin.

In May of 2019, Utah Governor Gary Herbert, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, and other high-profile politicians met at the Governor’s Energy Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah — but their discussion and promotion of a carbon-based energy future in the West was disrupted by more than a dozen young climate activists who took the stage to make the case for climate justice. SUWA Latinx organizer Olivia Juarez speaks with activists Brooke Larsen (UPLIFT) and Eliza Van Dyk (Wasatch Rising Tide) about the protest, and about the intersection between the fight for climate justice and efforts to protect Utah’s remaining wild lands.

Wild Utah is produced by Jerry Schmidt and is made possible by the contributing members of SUWA. Our theme music, “What’s Worth?” was written and performed in Moab by Haley Noel Austin.

In this episode, we discuss SUWA’s field volunteer program, which gets folks working outside across Utah to preserve and enhance the lands we are fighting to protect. We work directly with the BLM and Forest Service to identify and implement projects that focus on wilderness and habitat preservation, cultural resource protection, and restoration of damage caused by off-road vehicles. Join us for the discussion, then come join us in the field by visiting SUWA.org/join-service-project.

In this episode of Wild Utah, we bring you exciting news from Washington, D.C. about an issue we detailed in our first episode -- wilderness legislation for Emery County, Utah. What happened in Congress on February 12, 2019 was a long time in the making, and is great news for redrock country.

Dave Pacheco discusses the environmental consequences of oil and gas leasing on public lands with SUWA Staff Attorney Landon Newell. Millions of acres of public lands in Utah are still natural or in a wild condition. It’s these places, proposed for wilderness designation in America’s Redrock Wilderness Act, that SUWA works to defend. So, what happens when the BLM proposes drilling in those wild places?

Dave Pacheco speaks with SUWA's Kya Marienfeld and Wild Utah Project's Allison Jones about the Utah BLM's ecologically destructive practice of "chaining" -- or, in the BLM's vernacular, "vegetation treatment." This practice of mechanically removing trees, shrubs and virtually all vegetation from otherwise healthy pinion-juniper forests -- often to benefit domestic livestock -- is being challenged by conservationists as an extreme overreaction to a non-existent problem.

In this episode, Dave Pacheco speaks with SUWA Board Member Darrell Knuffke about the origins and early days of SUWA. In doing some research for our show, we found Darrell’s name listed as a Board Member in SUWA’s newsletter as early as 1986, just three years after our organization’s founding. He has some fascinating insights to share with us about SUWA’s origins and the early days of the Utah wilderness movement.

In this episode, SUWA Wildlands Program Director Neal Clark takes a deep dive into the Emery County Public Lands Management Act of 2018. Neal explains where this bill originated, what the bill does, why it's an injustice to the wildlands in Emery County -- including the San Rafael Swell and Desolation and Labyrinth Canyons -- and discusses its prospects in Congress.