During a lifetime of public service (military and civilian) and public lands hunting, hiking, climbing, and related pursuits, I’ve been privileged to set foot in all 50 states and 47 countries. During May, I traveled to the Patagonia region of South America in Argentina.
As explained in the book Dirtbag Billionaire about Yvon Chouinard, his company Patagonia has an outpost in Bariloche. “The centerpiece was an exquisite historic home built in 1916 by Emilio Frey, an Argentinian explorer who helped draw the country’s border with Chile,” author David Gelles wrote. “Now the house … was being turned into a Patagonia store.”
“Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard is a passionate angler and one of the world’s most outspoken conservationists,” Trout Unlimited emphasized in their Spring 2015 Trout magazine. “His company consistently swings for the fences on environmental matters, and fly-fishing benefits greatly from his passion.”
Much like the Patagonia region, Colorado is a North American angler’s paradise, home to more than 9,000 miles of rivers, 2,000 natural lakes, and hundreds of streams as clear as gin. This natural abundance is a direct result of our 24 million acres of public lands, including 4.2 million roadless acres. When it comes to native trout, roadless areas provide irreplaceable refuge: 70 percent of Colorado Greenback and Colorado River cutthroat habitat is found in roadless areas.
However, since the days of Theodore Roosevelt, people driven by myopic greed have endeavored to remove public lands from public hands. During 2025, U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) spearheaded an effort to sell off over 3 million acres. In February of this year, I joined a diverse group of Coloradans in Washington, D.C. visiting Colorado congressional delegation offices to express our support for public lands.
Our first meeting was with U.S. Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO). In an effort to prevent the sale of public lands through a fast-tracked budget reconciliation process, Senator Bennet recently introduced the Public Lands Integrity Act. The idea of selling federally owned public lands, Bennet said, “is insane and something I will never stop fighting.” If passed, the Act would eliminate the option that currently exists for any senator to propose expedited land sales in a future budget reconciliation bill.
Over 14 million acres were identified in Colorado for potential sale, including parts of the White River, San Juan, and Arapahoe National Forests. “Fortunately, we were able to fight it and stop it,” Bennet said.
“Americans across the political spectrum united in opposition, with hunters, anglers, servicemembers, and veterans playing instrumental roles in killing his plan,” I wrote in a December 2025 Duluth News Tribune op-ed.
“In the lifetime of any living American, there has never been such a melee of concentrated assaults on our hard-won heritage of conservation, public lands, hunting, fishing, and the liberty that they provide,” Field & Stream contributing editor Hal Herring added. “In the luxury of having so much, we underestimated how easily it could all be lost — or taken.”
“We are seeing the newest wave of attacks – a systematic dismantling of the mechanisms of protection and funding that safeguard the places we value as public landowners,” Backcountry Hunters & Anglers (BHA) President and CEO Ryan “Cal” Callaghan said. During our 2018 BHA North American Rendezvous in Boise, we were joined by keynote speaker Yvon Chouinard.
“They say that hunters and tree huggers can’t get together. That’s bullshit,” Chouinard emphasized. “The only way we’re going to get anything done is to work together.” And in the words of 2015 BHA Ted Trueblood Award recipient Rich Landers, “Any sportsman who isn’t an environmentalist is a fool.”
Hal, Cal, Rich, and Yvon know instinctively that as anglers, hunters, and conservationists we stand on the shoulders of giants from past generations. And this is our opportunity to show future generations that they too stand on the shoulders of giants, from this generation. As Yvon said, “To do good … you actually have to do something.” Join us!
David A. Lien of Colorado Springs, Colorado, is a former Air Force missile launch officer and author. In 2014, he was recognized by Field & Stream as a “Hero of Conservation” and urges action at backcountryhunters.org/get-involved/take-action. This is his personal opinion and not that of any other group/organization.
