On our nation's conservation legacy: Interview with TWS Governing Council Member Ted Roosevelt IV

President Roosevelt believed that conservation was one of the highest forms of patriotism. In fact, at the Progressive National Convention in Chicago on August 6, 1912, he said, “there can be no greater issue than that of conservation in this country.” He understood that some places are so special, so important to the American people, that they should be protected not for a season or a generation, but forever. 
 

I believe carrying that legacy forward is about embracing the same responsibility he felt. As a hunter, an angler and someone who has spent a lifetime enjoying public lands, I’ve experienced firsthand the freedom these places provide. 

Whether you’re hiking in a national monument, fishing a public river or hunting on public land, these places belong to all of us, regardless of our income or where we live. 
 

I serve on The Wilderness Society’s Governing Council because I believe we have an obligation to conserve these lands not only for the clean water, wildlife habitat and outdoor opportunities they provide today, but so that our children and their great-grandchildren can enjoy the same experiences that shaped us. That’s the essence of conservation: receiving something valuable from previous generations and making sure we pass it on in good condition to the next. 

The Antiquities Act is one of the greatest gifts any generation of Americans has given the next. I'm proud that Congress passed and President Roosevelt signed the law in 1906 and used its authority to establish our nation's first national monument. For 120 years since, presidents from both parties have used the Antiquities Act to protect places that tell our nation's story and preserve landscapes that otherwise might have been lost forever. 

The law is important because it allows us to act before it's too late. Once a sacred cultural site is damaged, once wildlife habitat is fragmented, once a remarkable landscape is industrialized, we can't simply recreate what was lost. 

I know from my own life that these places are not abstractions. When I returned from my second tour in Vietnam, I spent time in the California Sierras, and those mountains helped restore my equilibrium. Several years later, my wife and I spent time camping there together on our honeymoon. She had never camped before, and those experiences became a source of connection, healing and wonder for both of us. 

That is part of what is at stake. It is more than acreage on a map. It is our freedom to experience these places. It is clean air and clean water. It is wildlife habitat. It is the opportunity for future generations to stand in extraordinary landscapes and feel the same sense of wonder, renewal and connection that so many of us have found there. 

As we celebrate America's 250th anniversary, it's worth remembering that our public lands are among the most uniquely American ideas ever created. No other country has the variety, scale and access to public lands as we have in America. 

National monuments preserve the stories of our nation. They protect Indigenous cultural sites, battlefields, historic landmarks, working landscapes, and the wild places that helped shape the American character. They remind us where we came from and who we aspire to be. 

But public lands aren't just about our past. They are one of the greatest promises we make to the future. They guarantee that every American, regardless of background, has the freedom to experience extraordinary places. They protect the clean water, wildlife habitat, and outdoor traditions that sustain our communities. 

As we mark 250 years as a nation, I can't think of a better expression of American optimism than the idea that some things are worth conserving not just for ourselves, but for people we'll never meet. That's what public lands represent. 

For more than a century, Republicans and Democrats largely agreed that some places were worth protecting because they belong to all Americans. Today, we're seeing efforts to weaken protections, undermine public land agencies, and prioritize short-term private interests over the public good. 

As we celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, this administration and Congress should be strengthening the institutions and traditions that have made our public lands the envy of the world. Instead, too many leaders are moving in the opposite direction. 

We have a fiduciary responsibility to care for these lands on behalf of future generations. When we strip protections from national monuments and public lands, we are not simply changing policy. We are taking something that was entrusted to us and denying it to those who come next. That is a form of intergenerational theft.  

The question is not simply what these lands are worth now. It is what kind of country we want to leave behind after 250 years, and whether we will honor our duty to pass on the same opportunities, freedoms and shared inheritance that were entrusted to us.