Anyone passing through the state for more than 5 minutes knows one thing for certain: you don’t mess with Texas. The unofficial state slogan covers souvenirs, billboards, and bumper stickers everywhere from Amarillo to Houston. It is ubiquitously visible in the landscape, but even more than that, the attitude that comes with it seems to be worn proudly on the sleeve of everyone you meet there.

Last month, I was so happy to see that bullish spirit in the opposition to the ongoing border wall construction in Big Bend National Park.

Thousands of land advocates showed up on the steps of the Texas Capitol with posters and megaphones to tell their leaders what a horrible idea the new construction is. With a bold sense of righteousness—that, honestly, we can all learn from—locals declared that they are not backing down.

Event organizer Drew Heugel wrote in an Instagram post: “Hold the f***ing line.” The protest featured state politicians, popular musicians, and land advocates, all with fiery words to share with a raucous crowd.

Democratic State Senator Sarah Eckhardt said, “Our land, our rivers are our public…vitality, and our heritage. And we’re gonna keep it. Come and take it!”. Republican congressional candidate Brandon Herrera declared that he had “never found a single person who thinks this is a good idea.” Another speaker led the crowd in chanting, “No! Damn! Wall!”

These Texans’ battle cries are powerful, in part, because they are very well-backed.

Border wall opposition across the Southwest is in lockstep. Judges in all 14 counties along the border are calling on DHS to listen to communities before they start construction. The region’s Republican and Democratic leaders alike are speaking out against the border wall in their communities. They cite very real concerns about disruption to tourism, down-river pollution, and a general degrading of feelings of home.

Tribal communities are sounding alarms about irreparable harm done in regions of the border wall where construction is already destroying their land.

Last week, DHS construction of a border wall through a mountainous region of Arizona’s Sonora Desert tore through sacred tribal land, a 1000-year-old fish-shaped walking trail, and vital migration paths for wildlife.

Lorraine Marquez Eiler, Elder of the Hia-Ced O’odham tribe, said that amidst conversations with DHS about the importance of the federally protected land, a construction crew bulldozed it at an accelerated speed behind their backs. The tribe is now seeking legal repercussions and working with their congressional representative to find justice.

The worst part? It’s all shamelessly unnecessary.

No one crosses the border through this area because of its inherent natural obstacles.

Sheriff Thadeus Cleveland in Texas’s Terrell County stood in front of a view of towering mountains and massive canyons along the border. He said, “If someone’s willing to cross the wall that is behind me, another 30 foot barrier isn’t going to stop them.”

In response to all of this pushback, DHS changed the description of their proposed border wall to a “virtual wall” on their website. They haven’t made an official statement, or said that a physical wall is off the table. And while there is relief in the changed classification, our land advocates in the Southwest are not taking their foot off of the pedal.

What Comes Next

For Big Bend, watchdogs are keeping an eye out for any new construction while environmental legal groups and localities fight back in court. An alliance is forming across the southern border. Advocates are sharing successful tactics in stopping construction, and communities are amplifying those efforts to create a unified defense.

They are demanding reinstated environmental protections, a halt to the border wall construction, and meaningful citizen involvement in the decision-making process.

Advocates are also spreading the word so that more people across the country join the resistance.

This fight is all of ours. Don’t mess with Texas. Don’t mess with our land. We’re not giving an inch of it away.

With love and hope for the future,

Stephanie

Thank you for spending some of your time here with me today.

To support my work, share, subscribe, and then get outside and get loud!

Subscribe now

What aspects of the Southwest’s border wall protests are applicable to your local activism?

What characteristics of your local protests do you think other places might learn from?

Leave a comment

After a three-week hiatus, I headed over to my sister’s house for a visit. She suggested it offhand the day before: “Hey, you should come see the backyard. It isn’t done yet, but we’ve been working on it.” She’s a master at downplaying her accomplishments, but I knew when she mentioned it that it would be worth seeing.

It didn’t disappoint.

Emerging from the disarray of winter, her garden was shining bright. Flowers bloomed in fresh beds of mulch, and vibrant groundcover blanketed the gentle hillside where fall leaves had been cleared. The space was full of life, and it was evident that a massive amount of energy had been poured into its revival.

Maintaining this backyard is a true commitment. It was originally created by the previous owners, who were passionate gardeners with the time and focus of empty-nesters. The view from the back porch captures a lush array of greenery, a stream flowing into a quiet pond, and a little manicured stepstone pathway winding through it all. When they sold the property, they chose my sister’s family over higher bidders, because they loved the idea of children enjoying the home they had built.

They chose their stewards well.

As we walked, my sister excitedly pointed out new plantings, trimmed trees, and improvements to the vegetable garden. She’s discovered that by doing just 30 minutes of work every day, she can keep up with it all. For her, it isn’t a chore—it’s a favorite escape.

This exchange highlights the importance of our relationship to the land, even in a capitalist world.

When people feel a soul-deep attachment to their environment, they care for it well and pass it on thoughtfully. The idea of “maximum gain” begins to mean something far more than bottom line costs. Calculations of money and time are replaced by a sense of sustainability and legacy.

The bounty of nature is valuable, and it’s even more awe-inspiring when it’s shared. While the preservation of such a treasure is a responsibility, it is also a gift.

From church plant sales to “Friends of the Trails” groups, and from backyard caretaking to city park volunteerism, we are part of something beautiful when we connect to one another through nature. As our government challenges the definition of public lands, we are invited to explore that bond more deeply, and to participate more fully with our fellow citizens in protecting what we love.

With love and hope for the future,

Stephanie

Thank you for spending some of your time here with me today.

To support my work, share, subscribe, and then get outside!

Subscribe now

In what ways do you steward the environment for others?

Leave a comment

The importance of environmental protection is back in the national spotlight, thanks to a brazen attempt by Republicans to attack the Endangered Species Act (ESA) on Earth Day. In the wake of the public’s defense of the law, discussions about biodiversity have finally permeated the mainstream. I haven’t seen energy like this since I was a wide-eyed Planeteer in line to see Free Willy in the third grade.

Now the conversation is renewed—this time refreshingly full of nuance and an awareness of environmental injustice.

While news reports often lead with GOP lawmakers and their one-line quips about the law’s weaknesses, they are really just teeing up the response. Researchers are countering those claims with evidence of the ESA’s success, while highlighting the modern tools needed to make the law as effective as critics claim it should be.

What stands out to me is how the need for quality, connected landscapes has become central to the movement. There is a growing collective awareness that species require more than just isolated pockets of land. They need widespread habitats that allow for migration and population dispersal. And in this modern landscape, those are hard to find.

For decades, experts have worked to rectify habitat fragmentation with wildlife overpasses, land remediation, water cleanups, and more rigorous environmental reviews. On a smaller scale, individuals are contributing through pollinator gardens and backyard bat houses.

I believe today’s resurgence of concern for the ESA will push us toward even more innovative urban planning for biodiversity.

Imagine greenways designed specifically for native bird migration, or parks that restrict foot traffic and off-leash pet areas so that they don’t disrupt critical habitats.

Picture cities that implement permeable paving and unmanicured green areas, as standard infrastructure rather than afterthoughts.

Most measures that promote biodiversity are doable, but they simply lack the political will.

I think that is changing.

Americans are increasingly seeing how industrial interests intrude on their right to a healthy environment.

A person who previously ignored “ecosystems” might care now because they see them linked to fights against corruption and wealth inequity. Or perhaps they saw Leonardo DiCaprio calling the attack on the ESA “an existential threat to our national security” and felt it on a personal level.

For those of us who know what’s at stake, we are finding a greater understanding of our right to a truly healthy world. We’ve seen how quickly politicians will trade public land for private interest—asking them to invest in the public good is not just reasonable—it’s mandatory.

Underneath the anger I feel toward those abusing our public lands, there’s a tinge of excitement. Momentum is rebuilding, and I can’t wait to see how it grows.

With love and hope for the future,

Stephanie

To support my work, please like and share this article. Subscribe to be a part of the Parks People conversation.

Subscribe now

Where are you noticing environmental activism?

What conversations and ideas get you excited to fight for clean environment?

Leave a comment

After the Senate voted this week to approve toxic mining in Minnesota’s treasured wilderness recreation area, conservation leaders responded en masse. I’m grateful for their insight and rapid information sharing, and I am following their lead on how to best respond.

In all of this, one message in particular stood out to me. Ingrid Lyons, Executive Director of Minnesota’s Save The Boundary Waters rallied supporters with words I think we all need to hear right now.

If they resonate with you, please pass them on.

Lyons’ fiery words are emblematic of the passion defining the resistance right now. While Republican leadership continues to turn a blind eye to the destruction of our public lands in favor of corporate interests, the rest of us are not standing for it. We band together with force, and we will be triumphant in the end.

With love and hope for the future,

Stephanie

Please like and share this article to support my work, and become a subscriber to join our Parks People community.

Subscribe now

What battles will you recommit to this Earth Day?

Leave a comment

Listen to Lyons’s full statement here:

In a social sciences grad school course, a classmate asked about how we should navigate community organizing with a Congress that worked against local needs. My wonderful professor practically scoffed when she answered. “That matters,” she said. “But real change comes at the local level—in-person, grassroots mobilizing where people come together and take action.”

I’ve reached for that sentiment many times in my career, especially when citizen voices feel ignored. I found the truth in it while researching community activism in urban greenways. I saw its wisdom as residents doggedly pursued safe green spaces in our city parks.

I turn back to it again today, in light of recent disheartening news out of D.C.

This month, the dismantling of U.S. Forest Service field offices and the passage of H.J. Res. 140—a provision that stripped environmental protections from beloved public lands—hit hard. Both moves flew in the face of millions of Americans who participated in public comment periods, lobbied their Reps, and organized locally.

Right along with the loss of protected land, there is a perceived loss of voice. The avenues we depend upon to affect change feel blocked. The landscape is disorienting and, frankly, dismaying.

Then I remember the North Star. That guiding light of grassroots organizing—the place where“real change” is always in the works—is still beaming. It is resilient and it is showing us the way forward.

Already, organizations supporting now-unprotected land are raising money to counter mining in their communities.

Resident-advocates are working with state legislatures to protect their land and water through permitting and comprehensive watershed planning.

And legal groups are already forging challenges to the legality of the government’s actions, which stripped public participation from the decision-making process for federal lands.

More people are becoming more involved in the civics of public land stewardship, and because of it, we are finding groundbreaking ways to protect the environment. Shared experience, patriotism, compassion, and wonder bring unexpected allies together to fight for a common goal. Something much bigger than ourselves.

We are discovering as a nation how the health of our democracy is tied intricately to the health of our public land.

All the corruption and greed going on in the Capitol–yeah, it matters. But I’m more interested in what’s going on everywhere else, from town halls and club meetings to coffee shop conversations and trail hikes. Real change is happening at the local level with all of us, responding and innovating to make the world better. And I am so excited to see the bold, brave country we are creating now.

With love and hope for the future,

Stephanie

To support this publication, please like and share this article, and become a subscriber today.

Subscribe now

Tell us what game-changing activism you see where you live!

Leave a comment

It’s official, we’ve got a new job. After this week’s environmental shenanigans, it has become clear that our new call of duty is to call and write Congress every day to oppose the consistent assaults on our public land and water.

We can just count on them trying a new tactic when we defeat their last one.

This week, we have a few important land-steal a…

Read more

Just a few hundred feet from a bustling river-adjacent greenway, a local resident explained just how remarkable its success truly was. He marveled at how far his city’s relationship had come with its waterway, and his eyes grew large as he said, “I mean for years it was used essentially as a sewer. No one wanted to go near it.”

The subtext was somethin…

Read more

Watching Americans enter the Olympic arena during the games’ opening ceremonies, I felt a cringe of dread. On the international stage, I wondered how our appearance would be met, and I couldn’t imagine too many well wishers among our once-close international friends.

Our world-class athletes wa…

Read more

Years ago, I visited communities around my small city and asked residents what they would like to see in their neighborhood parks. Over months, people sent in comments, answered questionnaires, or had discussions with me in local events and meetings to answer this question.

Reliably, there were three things that people agreed upon, no matter how big the…

Read more

Yesterday evening, the House passed a bill that, if signed into law, will open up 225,000 acres of federal land for toxic mining by a foreign company. It now moves on to the Senate.

The bill, known as H.J. Res. 140, is one we all need to quickly get familiar with.

Here’s what the proposal does:

1. Uses the Congression…

Read more

As Minnesotans stand up against ICE agents, another attack is looming large over their precious community. Last week, a Republican US House Representative quietly introduced a bill that would undo protections for land around the pristine Boundary Waters, a collection of over one thousand gorgeously untouched lakes in Northern Minnesota.

For over 50 year…

Read more

A note to my red homestate, MAGA friends and family members, sorting through complicated feelings:

You helped me tie my shoes, we hunted Easter eggs together, you cheered me on at my soccer game. You held me when I was a baby, we explored Grandma’s backyard together.

I g…

Read more

Amidst the explosive chaos Trump is brewing, there are steady battles for justice that continue to need our attention. This one, thankfully, didn’t slip under the radar of environmental advocates.

The outcome gives us a chance to celebrate the power o…

Read more

Over the last 12 months, we’ve seen attacks on our wildlife and natural lands that were devastating precursors to the assaults now brewing against humanity.

Those in power are validating the…

Read more

Valuing nature is a gift.

It is part of seeing ourselves as a part of something bigger, and, though it may make us feel weak or insignificant with its grandness, it is a vital part of understanding our worth.

If we can treasure a herd of deer that wanders into our backyard, we are more apt to treasure the quiet parts of ourselves that delicately tread t…

Read more

But luckily, we are a country full of multitasking people. Between tree trimming and cookie decorating, we jo…

Read more

Here are a few hopeful legal challenges to get you inspired and keep you fighting.

1. The infamous park pass photo:

Park enth…

Read more

We need all hands on deck as lawmakers try to sneak in a barrage of last-minute legislation that, if successful, would degrade our public land for decades to come. The attempt is truly Scrooge-worthy, and undermines…

Read more

Lately, I’ve noticed a change in Americans’ approach to blocking harmful industrial development that I can’t praise enough: we’re developing a zone defense.

Whether a result of our rapidly expanding collective knowledge about how to effectively organize national, attention-grabbing protests or our heightened awareness of the abuse that comes with fast-t…

Read more

If you haven’t heard yet, Trump’s narcissism has found yet another way to disrupt our American experience.

Instead of featuring majestic wildlife photography, as is standard, our 2026 National Park Passes will feature Donald making his repulsive-as-ever mugshot face. …

Read more