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Articles by Campbell Leonard
The New Third Rail
Today, voters will cast their ballots and put forward their hopes for the second half of the Trump administration’s term. Tomorrow’s results will show which of those hopes won out, but when it comes to the issue of public lands, polling from the past year shows that voters—particularly in the West—are unequivocal: public lands should not be up for sale.
A Designation Isn’t a Plan
My wife grew up in Tucson, which means we've made the eight-hour drive from Santa Fe more times than I care to count. On those earliest road trips, as we headed west on I-10, I remember seeing the Chiricahua Mountains for the first time out the left-hand window, along with the exit signs for the national monument. I also recall being surprised that there was a national monument in what looked like such a desolate place. The Chiricahuas will fool you.
If Doug Burgum Got a Performance Review
Hi, Doug, come on in! Please, make yourself comfortable. We appreciate you making the time. We know your calendar is packed, what with all the "clean coal" promotion, those mandated lease sales no one shows up to, the baseball stadium in Teton National Park, and, well, the reflecting pool.
Good Will Hunting
It’s the tail end of bowhunting elk season here in New Mexico, with friends heading out with bow and arrows in hopes of filling the freezer with steaks and tenderloin. Meanwhile, on September 17, President Trump issued a couple executive orders that may help hunters and fishers everywhere: Reinvigorating America’s Hunting Heritage and Restoring American Saltwater Angling and Recreation.
Ghosts in the Machine
We founded RE:PUBLIC to confront two crises that have deepened dramatically over the past few decades: the threats facing America's public lands, and the threats facing the journalism that holds their stewards accountable. Most of the time, that means we write about public lands—a lot about public lands. But every so often, a story about journalism itself is worth telling, particularly when it reflects the wild AI era we’re now living through. This is one of those times.
Public Lands, Bipartisan as Ever
For decades, one of the few constants in American public opinion has been support for public lands—it holds up across red states and blue states, hunters and hikers, ranchers and remote workers. New polling out this month suggests that support isn't just holding—it's growing.
After the Flood
On August 29th, a flash flood swept down Bright Angel Creek and through the Grand Canyon, leaving two people dead and one person missing as of Thursday morning. Park visitors were evacuated, lodging was closed indefinitely throughout the park, and officials are still working to assess the full damage to the park’s infrastructure. That includes the Transcanyon Pipeline, a water system meant to last 30 years that has been in use for 55.
What We've Built Together
I miss the days when August was a reliably quiet month for politics and policy in America. But, alas, it has been yet another huge week in public lands news. Within the span of 36 hours, three major announcements have come down that could reshape and redefine stewardship for years to come.
Redrock and Rocky Top
There’s an awful lot of redrock in public lands journalism. Bears Ears, Grand Staircase–Escalante, Chaco Canyon: canyon country is under threat, and the media landscape is full of stories chronicling the blows raining down on these iconic landscapes. Most public lands news happens out west. More than 90 percent of our federal public lands lie in America’s 12 westernmost states, and the federal government owns almost 47 percent of the land west of the Mississippi.
From Haaland to Erasure
In 2021, when former New Mexico congresswoman Deb Haaland was confirmed as Interior Secretary, it meant something more than what most of the headlines captured at the time. Yes, she was the first Native American to hold a cabinet position, but what mattered more than that symbolic historical milestone was this: Native peoples were moving from the margins—from aggrieved parties begging for a hearing—to actual governance authority over American public lands.
Young Women and Fire
Today, as we look forward to Independence Day’s cookouts and parades, wildfires burn from Florida to Washington State. As the National Interagency Fire Center reported on July 2, “Yesterday, 75 new fires were reported nationwide, including four new large fires.
The Colorado River Math Problem
Ever since we launched RE:PUBLIC, we've been following the slow-motion car crash playing out on the Colorado River—surfacing in the headlines for a week and then receding, in fits and starts. A bad snowpack number here, a tense round of negotiations there, a federal deadline inching closer. Lately those fragments have started to add up, and the wreck is no longer slow or distant.
The Arctic Is Open for Business
Today the Bureau of Land Management will auction off lease sales on the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Oil and gas companies will have the opportunity to bid on leases, buying drilling rights to parts of America’s largest wildlife refuge. The sale marks the first of four that were mandated by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, each offering a minimum of 400,000 acres.
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