So following the advice of fellow Snowesters, I emailed the congressmen of my state (Paulsen, Franken, and Klobuchar) of residence expressing my concern about additional wilderness designations. I got the automated emails back quickly, followed by another email slightly more personal but still just a general email about land use. A week and a half went by and I had nearly forgotten about it all, then around 9pm tonight I got a call from US Rep. Erik Paulsen (MN-R) asking about my email. I was shocked! I told him that I am in school in CO but grew up in MN and am still a resident, so I contacted him as he represents the district of my hometown.
I'm in the middle of finals week in college (can be a bit crazy, pretty focused on organometallic chemistry and world history at the moment) and in retrospect I feel like I should have said alot more than I did. I did manage to make it clear to him that I, along with many others, am opposed to additional wilderness designations. I explained that in the winter I snowmobile in CO to access snowboarding terrain, then in the summer I backpack in wilderness regions that seem very much devoid of other users. I continued to explain that I don't agree with closing more land to motorized use by designating additional land as wilderness when hardly anyone uses the wilderness lands we already have. He told me that he didn't know alot about this, but that he generally has a similar stance, and that he supports National Parks.
Anyway, I found this to be encouraging (some are listening), and I hope that it prompts more people to contact their representatives about keeping public land open to those who actually use it.
I'm in the middle of finals week in college (can be a bit crazy, pretty focused on organometallic chemistry and world history at the moment) and in retrospect I feel like I should have said alot more than I did. I did manage to make it clear to him that I, along with many others, am opposed to additional wilderness designations. I explained that in the winter I snowmobile in CO to access snowboarding terrain, then in the summer I backpack in wilderness regions that seem very much devoid of other users. I continued to explain that I don't agree with closing more land to motorized use by designating additional land as wilderness when hardly anyone uses the wilderness lands we already have. He told me that he didn't know alot about this, but that he generally has a similar stance, and that he supports National Parks.
Anyway, I found this to be encouraging (some are listening), and I hope that it prompts more people to contact their representatives about keeping public land open to those who actually use it.
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