John Leshy: The Hollowing Out of America’s Public Lands

John Leshy has spent sixty years tracking the arc of federal public land policy, which makes his assessment of the current moment unusually grounded and unusually sobering. He is an Emeritus Professor at UC Law San Francisco, former Solicitor of the Interior Department under President Clinton, and the author of Our Common Ground: A History of America’s Public Lands (Yale University Press, 2022).  In this conversation, Leshy traces the founding-era origins of America’s public lands, from the thirteen colonies’ negotiation over western land claims to the Great Transition of 1890, when Congress first authorized presidents to reserve lands for protection. He then turns to the present, naming the Trump administration’s approach not as a policy disagreement but as something new: a deliberate strategy to hollow out the agencies that manage these lands, make the management visibly bad, and use public disillusionment to justify divestiture. He also examines why Bears Ears National Monument drew an immediate public backlash while rescinding the Roadless Rule has not, and what that difference means for conservation organizers.The hollowing out of agencies is not something that can be reversed quickly; rebuilding the expertise and capacity that has been stripped away could take a decade. Whether public support, which Colorado College’s annual western polls show remains strong and even growing across the political spectrum, can translate into political action remains, in Leshy’s words, “a big, gigantic question mark.”Learn more about today's conversation and find the links and resources mentioned at our website, thewildidea.com.