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Officials in New Mexico recently celebrated the purchase of about 54,000 acres to create its largest state-owned recreation area, and it’s one of the biggest public land acquisitions in the U.S. this year.
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The addition has more than quadrupled the size of the Marquez Wildlife Area and re-established tribal access to religious sites in the area.
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Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is launching an Indian Youth Service Corps with new guidelines. The corps was established in 2019 as part of an amendment to the Public Lands Corps Act. Now, Haaland has published actual guidelines. One of its goals is fostering natural resource and land stewardship skills for young tribal members aged 16 to 30, or 35 if you’re a veteran.
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In Las Vegas, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Tuesday announced new efforts to facilitate more renewable energy development, including cutting by 50% rent and fees charged for wind and solar projects on public lands.
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The money targets at least 277 high-priority polluting wells on federal public lands in nine states, including Utah.
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A new report shows that Western states vary widely in how much federal public lands within their borders have been protected from extractive uses over the last decade – with some surprising discrepancies.
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A proposed lithium mine along the Nevada-Oregon border would produce critical materials for electric car batteries along with local jobs, but critics say the damage to the environment, including the ancestral lands of multiple tribes, isn't worth it.
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A housing crunch in the West has some looking to public lands as a solution…and a place to live.
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A Wyoming court case involving public land access may soon head to federal court. Landowners there want damages from four Missouri men who went over a corner where four pieces of land meet: two private, two public. They didn’t touch the private land, but landowners argue they still went over it and, therefore, trespassed.
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Across the West, women are changing the ways land and livestock are managed. Ashley Ahearn saddled up for the Mountain West News Bureau to chronicle their big dreams – and daily challenges. This is the first story of a three-part series.