April 21, 2025 • 12 mins
Note: Audio Only, please see video for visual treats on my Youtube Channel...
Our public lands face serious threats from staffing cuts across National Park Service, Forest Service, and BLM as a former ranger explains actionable steps we can take to help preserve these treasured spaces regardless of political stance.
• Contact congressional representatives through congress.gov to express concern about public lands protection
• Support non-profit partners like National Forest Foundation and National Park Foundation through donations or volunteering
• Practice Leave No Trace principles including proper waste disposal, respecting wildlife, and minimizing impact
• Purchase annual passes like America the Beautiful ($80) that provide access while supporting land management agencies
• Consider supporting specialized organizations like International Dark-Sky Association or regional wilderness advocacy groups
• Volunteer directly with land management agencies to contribute time and effort to conservation projects
Until next time, we'll see you out on the trail.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, it's Craig the Natural Medic.
I apologize for my absence.
I had a 50th birthdayextravaganza beginning of the
month, but now I am back with avideo about how you can help our
public lands.
Let's will help you.
You can go right here oncongressgov.
(00:29):
This will be the first step.
We're putting politics mostlyaside here.
I'm not really going to discusspolitics, but I am here to help
our public lands.
We can find our members ofCongress by going to congressgov
, typing in your address or zipcode.
This is not my address on thescreen, but this is what it
(00:49):
pulled up.
It's based on my location andthis is my reps, or my rep and
my senators, so I click on these.
Let's just go to MartinHeinrich.
If we want to write him alittle nice note about how we
feel about our public lands, hima little nice note about how we
feel about our public lands, wecan write him by clicking on
our little window here.
Everybody's thing is gonna looka little bit different.
(01:10):
I'm gonna fill this out, butI'm gonna cut this out of the
video.
You can pick a variety ofsubjects for this particular guy
.
In my particular case waspublic lands and forestry, and
we're looking at public landstaff from a subject you put to
whatever subject you want.
Feel like a response.
Yes, would you like to sign upfor Heinrich's newsletter?
(01:31):
I'm going to say no and do yougrant permission to use?
We'll say yes, it's fine, andthen, whatever I'm writing here,
then I can hit submit and itwill send out a message to
Senator Heinrich about how Ifeel about the public land
servants being fired.
(01:51):
Me, coming from a parkbackground, before I was in
medicine I was a park ranger forthe states of Arkansas and for
Texas and a lot of us were doingdouble jobs.
We were very shorthanded andjust letting go of a lot of
these people that work for theNational Park Service, forest
Service, blm etc.
Doesn't set a good precedentfor the protection of our lands.
So a good free way to expressyourself about these lands is to
(02:17):
write your congressmen, writeyour senators.
Another way to help our publiclands is to go to places like
the National Forest Foundation.
The National Forest Foundationis a nonprofit that works
alongside the Forest Service.
The Forest Service is in theDepartment of Agriculture.
(02:37):
They provide a similar serviceto us on our public lands.
Forest Service lands, theNational Forest and National
Grasslands are managed for whatthey call multiple use, which
means that they cansimultaneously be used for
timber management, wildlifemanagement, recreation, minerals
, oil and gas, etc.
(02:59):
However, with less people towork out there, there's less
people that can clean restrooms,manage these projects that are
going on out there, less peoplethat can take care of those
things.
They partner with the ForestService to help here in the
Southwest, which would be NewMexico and Arizona.
It says they work alongside 11national forests, so you can.
(03:23):
Obviously they'll take yourmoney to help with some of the
restoration that they do.
But you don't have to.
You can go up here to where itsays get involved.
You can go plant trees.
You can be involved with any oftheir little deals right here.
I'm not going to click on thoseright now, but I'm showing you
this so that you will know aboutit.
(03:44):
Organizations such asnationalparksorg, which is the
National Park Foundation.
They are not part of theNational Park Service, but they
are a nonprofit partner.
Same deal.
They help with volunteers, theyhelp with other projects that
the Park Service is unable tofund, or staff.
They're not federal workers,just like the people of the
(04:06):
National Forest Foundation, andyou can go to Ways to Support
here.
You can do gifts they do workright here different things here
, outreach and you can getinvolved with them that way.
Now the best thing we can do doprobably other than those two
things of getting involved isget.
(04:26):
Of course, we got everybodypopping up here.
Let me close this.
The best thing we can doprobably is get ourselves in
line with the Leave no Trace.
If you're not familiar withLeave no Trace, let me give you
a brief overview.
Leave no Trace was created inthe late 90s or 2000s Land
managers, biologists, ecologists, etc.
And outdoor education and othernatural resource managers.
(04:48):
They came up with this alongwith professors in natural
resource and forestry programs,park management programs
throughout the country, to findways, just some guidelines, to
help our lands.
Principle one is planning aheadand preparing.
Principle two camping,traveling, durable services,
(05:12):
disposal of waste, leaving whatyou find, minimizing campfire
impacts, respect wildlife and beconsiderate of others.
Of course they're happy to takea donation, but they provide a
lot of education.
By adhering to these sevenprinciples, we are protecting
the land and being a goodsteward of the land.
Planning ahead and preparingthat really helps everybody.
(05:35):
You're looking at trails andconditions.
You're looking at parks,national forests, etc.
Of where you're going.
So you're planning ahead, soyou are prepared for things you
might experience.
If you don't have wateravailable, you can plan ahead
and figure out if you need tocarry more water, if you need to
bring certain types of weathergear for colder weather, wet
(05:59):
weather, etc.
That helps everybody.
The traveling and camping ondurable surfaces just helps
protect the land.
You're not causing additionalrunoff and erosion from camping
in places that are sensitive,making your own social trails
when you're walking on thetrails out there.
It really hurts me when I seewaste out there in our national
parks and forests.
(06:19):
So disposing of waste properly,that means pack it in.
You pack it out, leaving whatyou find.
Especially here in theSouthwest, where I live, there's
lots of Native Americanartifacts and ruins and historic
ruins that you may find.
It's perfectly okay andacceptable to take pictures.
You might want to note thoseareas with your whatever app
(06:46):
you're using to travel around,in case some of the land
managers are not aware of thoseresources.
Chances are good, they probablyare aware of them.
But in case they aren't, takepictures, leave only footprints
and note what you find.
Let somebody know if you findsomething of unusual
characteristics.
Minimizing campfire impacts,especially here in the southwest
where it's super dry.
If it's a burn ban, don't havea fire.
(07:06):
If you do have a fire, makesure that you're respecting the
local laws of your area.
Make a fire in a designatedfire ring or rock ring or
whatever they have at the siteand obey those rules.
Respecting wildlife that meansif you're in an area where you
can take your pets, don't letthem off leash so they can chase
(07:27):
wildlife, don't feed wildlife,etc.
And then be considerate ofothers.
That's a tough one sometimesfor people.
Not everybody wants to hearyour music.
Not everybody wants to hearloud voices in the middle of the
night when they're camping.
Those seven principles wereenacted by Leave no Trace so
(07:49):
that people can help be goodstewards and protect the land.
Our next little hit right here.
You can go to recreationgov andyou can buy a pass.
That helps you and it helps theparks and other resources out
there.
I have one called America theBeautiful.
It's $80 a year but any day usefacility.
(08:09):
That includes national parks,national forests, blm, I believe
it also includes Bureau ofReclamation, corps of Engineers
and one other agency.
I can get into those for a yearfor no additional charge Once I
pay the $80, that certainlyhelps.
So that's something you can do.
The other pass that I have Iusually buy a trinket or some
kind of fridge magnet when I'mat a National Park store.
(08:32):
I have a Park Protector Passwhich is $25 a year and that
saves me 10% on my purchases.
But it also gives them money tooperate.
The Western National ParksAssociation does that.
One gives them money to operate.
The Western National ParksAssociation does that one.
I'm sure other non-profitpartners that sell gift items in
the national parks have asimilar type program.
Another thing you can look at iscalled darkskyorg.
(08:56):
Darkskyorg works very hard tokeep light pollution to a
minimum so that we can enjoy theskies like our ancestors did.
Now that we have electriclights everywhere, it's
difficult to get to a place andsee that night sky like we did
hundreds of years ago.
There's a lot of lightpollution out there, so they're
(09:16):
trying to get that better.
You can look in here and youcan get involved in that, but it
also allows you to look upplaces where you can see that.
There's lots of them locatedhere in New Mexico, and I don't
know about every state, but herein New Mexico we have an
organization called New MexicoWild.
New Mexico Wild is a nonprofitthat helps with wilderness and,
(09:38):
as you can see right here, theyare very adamant about a lot of
things, but they are trying toprotect wilderness and other
aspects of our public lands.
Another thing you can do is apeaceful protest.
There are protests going onthroughout our nation and if
(09:59):
you're wanting to get with oneof those groups, you can
probably type in to Google, justlike I did here protests,
public lands and then they haveprotests, probably in your state
capital or wherever you are, totalk about that.
Then we have actual landmanagement agency websites
themselves which help give you alot of information out there.
(10:21):
This is the Bureau of LandManagement, which is the
Department of the InteriorAgency, and they have a whole
menu of stuff you can getinvolved with by being a
volunteer.
They have all kinds of programsthat they do.
A lot of the land here innorthwestern New Mexico is
managed by the BLM and they needall the help you can get in
(10:43):
being a good steward.
Since I live in Farmington, Iam eight miles away from the
northeastern border of theNavajo Nation.
If you live close to NativeAmerican reservations, they
probably have access where youcan get to their lands and enjoy
that.
Another option besides going toyour federal lands I'm close to
(11:07):
the Navajo Nation here and, onthe east side, the Apache Nation
the Hickory Apache nation isover there and they probably
have a similar type program, sosomething for you to check out.
And you can go to the forestservice page, which is fsusdagov
, similar to the BLM.
(11:28):
You can look up your localforest or grassland for
recreation purposes or whateveryou want to look at.
They do volunteers as well.
Lastly, we have the NationalPark Service.
National Park Week is going onright now.
You can find a park, look bytopic.
(11:48):
You can talk about visitingparks, volunteers, all these
things on here.
So there's many ways that wecan help our public lands.
We don't have to get involvedin politics, but I know that
these are very important to you.
If you liked the video, give ita thumbs up, think about
(12:09):
subscribing to the channel formore great content like this.
I hope this video has helpedyou.
If it did, leave me a commentbelow and I appreciate that.
Until next time, we'll see youout on the trail.
Okay, bye.
Hello, it's Craig the Natural Medic.
I apologize for my absence.
I had a 50th birthdayextravaganza beginning of the
month, but now I am back with avideo about how you can help our
public lands.
Let's will help you.
You can go right here oncongressgov.
(00:29):
This will be the first step.
We're putting politics mostlyaside here.
I'm not really going to discusspolitics, but I am here to help
our public lands.
We can find our members ofCongress by going to congressgov
, typing in your address or zipcode.
This is not my address on thescreen, but this is what it
(00:49):
pulled up.
It's based on my location andthis is my reps, or my rep and
my senators, so I click on these.
Let's just go to MartinHeinrich.
If we want to write him alittle nice note about how we
feel about our public lands, hima little nice note about how we
feel about our public lands, wecan write him by clicking on
our little window here.
Everybody's thing is gonna looka little bit different.
(01:10):
I'm gonna fill this out, butI'm gonna cut this out of the
video.
You can pick a variety ofsubjects for this particular guy
.
In my particular case waspublic lands and forestry, and
we're looking at public landstaff from a subject you put to
whatever subject you want.
Feel like a response.
Yes, would you like to sign upfor Heinrich's newsletter?
(01:31):
I'm going to say no and do yougrant permission to use?
We'll say yes, it's fine, andthen, whatever I'm writing here,
then I can hit submit and itwill send out a message to
Senator Heinrich about how Ifeel about the public land
servants being fired.
(01:51):
Me, coming from a parkbackground, before I was in
medicine I was a park ranger forthe states of Arkansas and for
Texas and a lot of us were doingdouble jobs.
We were very shorthanded andjust letting go of a lot of
these people that work for theNational Park Service, forest
Service, blm etc.
Doesn't set a good precedentfor the protection of our lands.
So a good free way to expressyourself about these lands is to
(02:17):
write your congressmen, writeyour senators.
Another way to help our publiclands is to go to places like
the National Forest Foundation.
The National Forest Foundationis a nonprofit that works
alongside the Forest Service.
The Forest Service is in theDepartment of Agriculture.
(02:37):
They provide a similar serviceto us on our public lands.
Forest Service lands, theNational Forest and National
Grasslands are managed for whatthey call multiple use, which
means that they cansimultaneously be used for
timber management, wildlifemanagement, recreation, minerals
, oil and gas, etc.
(02:59):
However, with less people towork out there, there's less
people that can clean restrooms,manage these projects that are
going on out there, less peoplethat can take care of those
things.
They partner with the ForestService to help here in the
Southwest, which would be NewMexico and Arizona.
It says they work alongside 11national forests, so you can.
(03:23):
Obviously they'll take yourmoney to help with some of the
restoration that they do.
But you don't have to.
You can go up here to where itsays get involved.
You can go plant trees.
You can be involved with any oftheir little deals right here.
I'm not going to click on thoseright now, but I'm showing you
this so that you will know aboutit.
(03:44):
Organizations such asnationalparksorg, which is the
National Park Foundation.
They are not part of theNational Park Service, but they
are a nonprofit partner.
Same deal.
They help with volunteers, theyhelp with other projects that
the Park Service is unable tofund, or staff.
They're not federal workers,just like the people of the
(04:06):
National Forest Foundation, andyou can go to Ways to Support
here.
You can do gifts they do workright here different things here
, outreach and you can getinvolved with them that way.
Now the best thing we can do doprobably other than those two
things of getting involved isget.
(04:26):
Of course, we got everybodypopping up here.
Let me close this.
The best thing we can doprobably is get ourselves in
line with the Leave no Trace.
If you're not familiar withLeave no Trace, let me give you
a brief overview.
Leave no Trace was created inthe late 90s or 2000s Land
managers, biologists, ecologists, etc.
And outdoor education and othernatural resource managers.
(04:48):
They came up with this alongwith professors in natural
resource and forestry programs,park management programs
throughout the country, to findways, just some guidelines, to
help our lands.
Principle one is planning aheadand preparing.
Principle two camping,traveling, durable services,
(05:12):
disposal of waste, leaving whatyou find, minimizing campfire
impacts, respect wildlife and beconsiderate of others.
Of course they're happy to takea donation, but they provide a
lot of education.
By adhering to these sevenprinciples, we are protecting
the land and being a goodsteward of the land.
Planning ahead and preparingthat really helps everybody.
(05:35):
You're looking at trails andconditions.
You're looking at parks,national forests, etc.
Of where you're going.
So you're planning ahead, soyou are prepared for things you
might experience.
If you don't have wateravailable, you can plan ahead
and figure out if you need tocarry more water, if you need to
bring certain types of weathergear for colder weather, wet
(05:59):
weather, etc.
That helps everybody.
The traveling and camping ondurable surfaces just helps
protect the land.
You're not causing additionalrunoff and erosion from camping
in places that are sensitive,making your own social trails
when you're walking on thetrails out there.
It really hurts me when I seewaste out there in our national
parks and forests.
(06:19):
So disposing of waste properly,that means pack it in.
You pack it out, leaving whatyou find.
Especially here in theSouthwest, where I live, there's
lots of Native Americanartifacts and ruins and historic
ruins that you may find.
It's perfectly okay andacceptable to take pictures.
You might want to note thoseareas with your whatever app
(06:46):
you're using to travel around,in case some of the land
managers are not aware of thoseresources.
Chances are good, they probablyare aware of them.
But in case they aren't, takepictures, leave only footprints
and note what you find.
Let somebody know if you findsomething of unusual
characteristics.
Minimizing campfire impacts,especially here in the southwest
where it's super dry.
If it's a burn ban, don't havea fire.
(07:06):
If you do have a fire, makesure that you're respecting the
local laws of your area.
Make a fire in a designatedfire ring or rock ring or
whatever they have at the siteand obey those rules.
Respecting wildlife that meansif you're in an area where you
can take your pets, don't letthem off leash so they can chase
(07:27):
wildlife, don't feed wildlife,etc.
And then be considerate ofothers.
That's a tough one sometimesfor people.
Not everybody wants to hearyour music.
Not everybody wants to hearloud voices in the middle of the
night when they're camping.
Those seven principles wereenacted by Leave no Trace so
(07:49):
that people can help be goodstewards and protect the land.
Our next little hit right here.
You can go to recreationgov andyou can buy a pass.
That helps you and it helps theparks and other resources out
there.
I have one called America theBeautiful.
It's $80 a year but any day usefacility.
(08:09):
That includes national parks,national forests, blm, I believe
it also includes Bureau ofReclamation, corps of Engineers
and one other agency.
I can get into those for a yearfor no additional charge Once I
pay the $80, that certainlyhelps.
So that's something you can do.
The other pass that I have Iusually buy a trinket or some
kind of fridge magnet when I'mat a National Park store.
(08:32):
I have a Park Protector Passwhich is $25 a year and that
saves me 10% on my purchases.
But it also gives them money tooperate.
The Western National ParksAssociation does that.
One gives them money to operate.
The Western National ParksAssociation does that one.
I'm sure other non-profitpartners that sell gift items in
the national parks have asimilar type program.
Another thing you can look at iscalled darkskyorg.
(08:56):
Darkskyorg works very hard tokeep light pollution to a
minimum so that we can enjoy theskies like our ancestors did.
Now that we have electriclights everywhere, it's
difficult to get to a place andsee that night sky like we did
hundreds of years ago.
There's a lot of lightpollution out there, so they're
(09:16):
trying to get that better.
You can look in here and youcan get involved in that, but it
also allows you to look upplaces where you can see that.
There's lots of them locatedhere in New Mexico, and I don't
know about every state, but herein New Mexico we have an
organization called New MexicoWild.
New Mexico Wild is a nonprofitthat helps with wilderness and,
(09:38):
as you can see right here, theyare very adamant about a lot of
things, but they are trying toprotect wilderness and other
aspects of our public lands.
Another thing you can do is apeaceful protest.
There are protests going onthroughout our nation and if
(09:59):
you're wanting to get with oneof those groups, you can
probably type in to Google, justlike I did here protests,
public lands and then they haveprotests, probably in your state
capital or wherever you are, totalk about that.
Then we have actual landmanagement agency websites
themselves which help give you alot of information out there.
(10:21):
This is the Bureau of LandManagement, which is the
Department of the InteriorAgency, and they have a whole
menu of stuff you can getinvolved with by being a
volunteer.
They have all kinds of programsthat they do.
A lot of the land here innorthwestern New Mexico is
managed by the BLM and they needall the help you can get in
(10:43):
being a good steward.
Since I live in Farmington, Iam eight miles away from the
northeastern border of theNavajo Nation.
If you live close to NativeAmerican reservations, they
probably have access where youcan get to their lands and enjoy
that.
Another option besides going toyour federal lands I'm close to
(11:07):
the Navajo Nation here and, onthe east side, the Apache Nation
the Hickory Apache nation isover there and they probably
have a similar type program, sosomething for you to check out.
And you can go to the forestservice page, which is fsusdagov
, similar to the BLM.
(11:28):
You can look up your localforest or grassland for
recreation purposes or whateveryou want to look at.
They do volunteers as well.
Lastly, we have the NationalPark Service.
National Park Week is going onright now.
You can find a park, look bytopic.
(11:48):
You can talk about visitingparks, volunteers, all these
things on here.
So there's many ways that wecan help our public lands.
We don't have to get involvedin politics, but I know that
these are very important to you.
If you liked the video, give ita thumbs up, think about
(12:09):
subscribing to the channel formore great content like this.
I hope this video has helpedyou.
If it did, leave me a commentbelow and I appreciate that.
Until next time, we'll see youout on the trail.
Okay, bye.
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