The Wilderness Is Calling, and I Must Go Protest

Unleashing the power inherent in our connection to the land

When I researched how greenways fit into community development, I chose to speak to people at different levels of power in how the land was developed. So I categorized people into three broad groups of decision making power:

1. Those who resided near the greenway

2. Those who planned and maintained the greenway

3. Those who funded it.

Based on previous research, I kind of had the power of those three categories ordered from least to greatest. But as I interviewed participants, I came to understand that the degree to which each individual felt a sense of agency was less hierarchical than it might seem.

Residents who cared about the greenway trail had found ways to make their voices heard. They joined boards or commissions or pursued careers in which they could contribute to the endeavor of building and improving the trail. They organized neighbors and protested encroaching development to City Council. Others used the trail devotedly, participating in creating a culture or patterns of usage that influenced future development of the trail, like establishing commuting routes, running groups, or walking patterns.

City employees independently found ways to add things from their positions that furthered the efficacy and accessibility of the trail. Things like adding bike lanes into new street designs, requiring new businesses to incorporate the trail into their designs, and to create an understood coalition of advocates who would petition for trail expansion in future city plans.

Council, though they had the most formal power in the process, had come to understand that their role was to approve and fund the greenway. It was so popular that they had a persistent demand from their constituents to maintain and improve it. With all of the outdoor industry, property value, and business development revenue it generated, it wasn’t a hard sell for them either.

One person I spoke with said that the greenway had become such a mainstay demand that it was considered safe from spending cuts. He said there were so many eyes on it that the moment any aspect of it was threatened people said, “Hey, don’t touch that! That’s ours!”

This weekend I watched as thousands of people stood up for our public lands, fiercely defending our national parks and forests. They stood together with signs that said, HANDS OFF OUR PARKS, OUR PARKS AREN’T FOR SALE, and PROTECT OUR PARKS AND RANGERS! They showed up in wheelchairs and strollers. They stood on the sides of roads. They hiked to peaks and hung upside down flags.

With their megaphones, chants, and footsteps these protesters challenge old school ideas about who has the right to the land. This land is ours. They refuse the proposal that anyone can modify or degrade it. Don’t touch it! And they confront the top-down power structure that Trump is clinging to, asserting themselves in a way that laughs at the idea he can do anything he wants, wherever he wants. Let’s see you scale a mountain. We have power too.

By themselves, Saturday’s protests were by no means a thing that will stop Trump and his cronies from trying to abuse our common land. We have a long road ahead of us, where there will likely be heartbreaking hardships and times when it feels like nothing we do matters. But in time, if we continue on this path, it becomes monumentally forceful.

Our connection to the land is strong. Every story, every letter, every person standing up to plant a collective stake in the ground, they all add up. Together, they can become something wild and fearsome that no politician dare cross. If we continue down this path, we can come out of this stronger, with a renewed commitment to the land and a new understanding of who is entitled to its power.

Let’s keep the pressure going.

With love and hope for the future,

Stephanie

Please share your stories of protest for our land, or what has inspired you about this movement.