Student Disrupts Utah Land Grab

Wacky sandstone formations in Canyonlands National Park.

Ever since this story came out, I’ve been fascinated. Several hundred thousand acres of public land in southern Utah was essentially being given away to oil and gas developers by the Bush administration. In the waning days of his presidency, Bush was pushing through the sale of huge swaths of sensitive wilderness to developers at flea market prices. Much of the land in question, most notably, is located in and around Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. . . Exactly where Matt and I spent our Christmas vacation!

View of Island in the Sky from a distance.

In fact, each evening as Matt and I left the park(s), we could already see flames shooting out of the earth at current oil and gas development sites dotting the landscape. This was particularly unsettling due to the bitter cold and thick blanket of snow covering the ground.

Enter University of Utah student Tim DeChristopher. He got out of his final exams, and went down to the land auction at the BLM office in Salt Lake City. A testament to the rushed nature of this auction, DeChristopher was able to register and begin bidding on the land immediately. He was able to purchase leases for about 22,000 acres of land around the national parks, and bid up the price for many other parcels before he was arrested.

Utah Hwy 211 on the way to Canyonlands.

You can help keep DeChristopher from being charged with fraud by helping him raise the funds to follow through on this purchase of the land leases, thereby protecting some of the amazing wild lands in southern Utah. I wonder what would happen if everyone who wanted to save the planet were as brave as Mr. DeChristopher?

I also joined the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, a group dedicated to preserving the one-of-a-kind natural places found in southern Utah.