Code Red: Earth Day 2025 Sees Unprecedented Attack On Public Lands

This Earth Day, we’re not celebrating incremental progress; we’re sounding the alarm on an existential threat to America’s natural heritage and the future of rewilding efforts in the United States.

Among the headlines this week, this one in particular stands out as something I never imagined possible:

“U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum just handed the country’s public lands over to a DOGE staffer and former oil exec.“ –Slate, 4/22/25

The U.S. Department of the Interior, the very body charged with safeguarding our nation’s most precious wild places, has been hijacked by DOGE. The appointed Secretary has abdicated their solemn duty, replaced by an unqualified ideologue—a sycophant beholden to tech whims and meme economics. 

“This move may sound merely bureaucratic on the surface, but a little probing reveals deep cause for alarm. For one, this indicates that Burgum, who underwent Senate confirmation for his position, is abdicating a sizable portion of his responsibilities to a staffer who—as this official order fails to note—is purportedly acting in a temporary capacity and has not been approved by Congress as required.” –Slate

This isn’t just a personnel change; it’s a declaration of all-out war on wild nature.

Hundreds of millions of acres—our national parks, Wildlife Refuges, and wilderness areas—are now viewed not as sacred trusts, but as commodities on a spreadsheet. They are on the chopping block, vulnerable to exploitation, privatization, and irreversible destruction.

This likely illegal move signals contempt for science, for ecological integrity, and the public trust. It puts the very soul of wild America—and the critical role these lands play in planetary health—in immediate peril.

This Earth Day, passive appreciation is not enough. We need emergency mobilization:

SOUND THE ALARM: Make sure everyone knows this isn’t business as usual. This is a five-alarm fire for conservation. Use #EarthDayRedAlert

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY: Flood the phone lines and inboxes of your elected officials—Representatives, Senators, the White House. Demand they challenge this appointment and defend our public lands. Find your reps here.

SUPPORT THE FRONT LINES: Organizations fighting for public lands and rewilding need emergency support now. Donate, volunteer, amplify their work.

EDUCATE AND ORGANIZE: Talk to your friends, family, and community. Explain what’s at stake. Organize local awareness events or protests if possible. Public outrage is our most potent weapon.

DEFEND WILDNESS: This is a direct assault on the vision of a wilder, healthier planet. We must defend the lands that make rewilding possible.

This Earth Day, the fight isn’t just for nature; it’s against those who are actively dismantling its protections from the inside. Stand with us. The time for complacency is over. The time for fierce defense is NOW!

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Quick Facts

• Interior manages about 507 million acres (2,050,000 km²) of surface land, or about one-fifth of the land in the United States.
• It manages 476 dams and 348 reservoirs through the Bureau of Reclamation.
• 433 national parks, monuments, historical sites, etc, through the National Park Service.
• 544 national wildlife refuges through the Fish and Wildlife Service.
• The largest land management agency is the Bureau of Land Management, managing about one-eighth of the land in the United States. –Wikipedia