Wilderness advocate urge support for 10 West Slope landscapes

As the Trump administration and Congress urge increased extractive industrial uses of federally managed lands — and even selling public lands to pay down debt — conservation and wilderness groups are ramping up a campaign to increase protections for public lands on the Western Slope.

The Wilderness Workshop in Carbondale, which has worked since 1967 to secure wilderness designations for Western Slope public lands threatened by industrial development, has compiled a list of 10 high-priority landscapes where development pressures are threatening wildlife and communities that rely on wild, untrammeled places.

Just about any resident of the Western Slope will identify with the forests, rivers and deserts highlighted in the Wild for Good report , said Will Roush, the executive director of t