Patagonia today submitted the following comment to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management regarding the proposed Public Lands Rule.
Our country’s public lands support a thriving outdoor recreation economy and help combat climate change, and the Bureau of Land Management’s Public Lands Rule is a unique opportunity conserve more precious wild places.
Patagonia is an outdoor apparel company based in Ventura, CA. Our business and community—including our employees and customers—rely on access to public lands. We have contributed nearly $200 million to environmental organizations since our founding in 1973, and as of September 2022, all money that is not reinvested back into our business is paid as an annual dividend to protect the planet. We strongly support the idea of putting land conservation on equal footing with the other uses that BLM regulates on public lands.
The Public Lands Rule will boost the economy and help save the planet.
Outdoor recreation generated $862 billion in economic output and 4.5 million jobs in 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Public lands are our secret weapon against the climate crisis. The Public Lands Rule will finally give BLM the ability to better protect habitats and wildlife corridors, rebalance its priorities and develop an inclusive conservation approach that includes co-stewardship and co-management with Tribal nations—the original stewards of this land.
The extraction and production of fossil fuels on public lands account for nearly a quarter of all U.S. carbon emissions. Instead, conservation could be a big part of our climate solution. Across the country, public lands have the capacity to store more than 11,000 metric tons of carbon, and wild spaces make our ecosystems and communities more resilient to the impacts of a changing climate.
For the sake of our economy and, more importantly, the planet and future generations, we must support the Public Lands Rule.