TWI_012_Ingrid_Lyons
Wed, May 14, 2025 2:49PM • 45:16
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Boundary Waters, wilderness preservation, public lands, Save the Boundary Waters, National Wilderness Coalition, copper mining, wilderness protection, legislative process, environmental advocacy, wilderness Act, Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, wilderness ecosystem, local leaders, wilderness conservation, political engagement.
SPEAKERS
Bill Hodge, Ingrid Lyons, Anders Reynolds, Speaker 1, Voiceover


Voiceover  00:00
The following is a production of wild idea media,


Bill Hodge  00:05
and welcome back to the wild idea podcast, where we are exploring the intersection of wild nature and our own human nature. Today. Super excited. We're going to be joined by Ingrid Lyons, who is the Executive Director of save boundary waters, and I think it'll be a great conversation. She's also intimately involved in the National Wilderness coalition, or the new wilderness coalition. It is the National Wilderness coalition. We'll talk about what, what's the proper way to refer to it, when, when we bring Ingrid on but Andrew, it's good to have have you with us again today, our usual weekly check in.


Anders Reynolds  00:41
Oh, hi, Bill. I am. I'm gonna spare our listeners and and refuse to humiliate myself for a second week in a row by ranting about how jealous I am about your fact finding mission through the South, which is ongoing. I can see palmettos behind you right now, but truth be told, knowing you're spending this week talking in and about some of my favorite landscapes, and here I'm talking about Georgia's Cumberland Island and Okefenokee Swamp has pushed me to like DEF CON one, or DEF CON five, or whatever the highest DEF CON is for jealousy. I'm at DEF CON Hodge. I'm at DEF CON Hodge, and I'm, I'm gonna let it go. There's me, and you know, maybe instead, I'll do something proactive and and shift gears here. You sure you don't want to


Bill Hodge  01:37
talk about where I am, like we can talk about being in the in the low country of South Carolina right now, having stopped by the Gullah Geechee Cultural Center on St Helena Island. I mean, what else would you like to know about what this day and this week has involved for me? Because, yes, it did. It did start out in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. So just kind of want to make sure you knew where all I have been.


Anders Reynolds  02:00
Oh, I know you. You text me an hourly but if you listen, if you want to tell our listeners a little bit more about what you're saying, I'll, I'll spend this time looking inside myself and asking why this hurts me.


Bill Hodge  02:11
Well, you know what I'm doing is talking to some amazing conservationists in the work to preserve the wild in the south which Anders is going to be a part of. Obviously, Anders has a deep passion for so you'll see that on an upcoming special series we're going to call southern currents. And yeah, it's been, it's been great to be back in the South. I am a child of the South, but now live in Montana, so, but yeah, it's been great. And I'm glad you're jealous. It just like, it's like my happy place. I'm glad


Anders Reynolds  02:37
you're having a good time. I guess we both want to alert folks to the very real possibility that the reconciliation process, which is really kicking into high gear this week, will target the selling off of my, of your, of our public lands as a revenue raiser. I think people are more and more savvy about legislative process, but just a step back, the reconciliation process is a legislative maneuver that allows Congress to change current law in order to bring revenue and spending levels into conformity with the policies of a budget that they've passed, and the House and Senate have already passed that budget This year. It's also a way, in this particular example of the selling off of public lands, it's also a way that the folks who have always wanted to privatize our public lands might finally accomplish their goals. This would be really, really devastating to see in the reconciliation process. Yeah,


Bill Hodge  03:35
it's tough. And I'll just say, as somebody who is pretty rooted in pushing back on this idea, folks, you can't have an impact. I'm begging you to get engaged in this process. If you think it's a bad idea for our government to use the selling off of our shared, common holdings of our public lands, make some phone calls, because it can be effective. As a citizen of Montana, I have been engaged in making sure that our two senators, Senator Steve Daines and Senator Tim Sheehy, understood and they listened. They voted against or voted for, specifically an amendment that would have not allowed them to sort of zero out the value of public lands while selling them off to balance the tax cuts that they're wanting to put forward. So I just ask you to make some phone calls get engaged. Make sure your friends are getting engaged. It can make a difference. Sadly, that resolution, or that you know, that amendment that Senator Heinrich offered up did not pass. But again, we were able to make sure that our two senators from Montana knew that that was a third rail to not be touched. And so maybe if you could stand up wherever you live, I highly, highly encourage you to get engaged in the process and make sure you have your voice heard. I think it's probably time that we quit letting them all hear our voices. And let's get to the voice that we really want to talk to today. We are super excited to have Ingrid Lyons join us today. She is the executive director of Save the Boundary Waters, and has worked for the organization going back to 2015 she's been super involved in a lot of the victories that the organization has had in the last few years. And honestly, those victories are sort of like our usual battles, where our victories are always temporary, but our losses can be permanent, but thankfully, they keep winning and keep protecting the amazing resource it is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area wilderness outside Ely Minnesota Ingrid's got a long record of working on sort of government, government issues, following up on her master's degree in nonprofit management and governance from the University of Minnesota's Humphrey School. She lives in Minneapolis, but we're going to learn that she is not originally from there in this conversation. So Ingrid, welcome to the wild idea podcast. Thank


Ingrid Lyons  05:49
you both so much for having me. I'm really, really stoked to be here today. I'm


Anders Reynolds  05:53
so excited you're here, Ingrid. Ingrid and I first met each other at the at the fly in last year for the newly reimagined National Wilderness Coalition, which we're going to get to in a little bit. But first, I think we want to talk Boundary Waters Ingrid. You grew up in the country's most populated city, New York, and now you're the executive director of Save the Boundary Waters, the nonprofit leading the fight to permanently protect America's most visited wilderness area. So before we hear more about, say, the Boundary Waters and the landscape it aims to protect, can you share more about your journey from one place to the other?


Ingrid Lyons  06:29
Yeah, totally Yeah. Do you know, when you're a kid, you don't really think about kind of what you're you're just being sort of brought along on these adventures or your parents ideas, and you just don't really have as much appreciation for them at the moment that then you do later in life. But yeah, so I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, born in Manhattan, and, you know, really just had a childhood in New York City, and so constant people, noise, etc, was just sort of extremely normal for me. And my dad is originally from Minneapolis, so we've come out here for Christmas occasionally, but he never really went up north, as we call, you know, the sort of boundary waters area. And he had a pretty high pressure job, as folks in New York are wanting to do sometimes. And we were going back to Minnesota, and he pulled out a map of the state, and just sort of said, I wonder where we could go, where people couldn't reach me on my cell phone. Wonder where we could go, where people would just like not be able to bother me. And he pointed to Ely Minnesota, and said, This looks like the very literal end of the road we should go there. And that was when I was four, and we drove from New York City to Ely Minnesota every summer after that, essentially. So, you know, from the time I was four, I was getting this contrast of literal millions of people to Ely, Minnesota on the boundary waters were just pure quiet, not a ton of people. You know, I think Ely is about 3000 people at this point, and that contrast, I mean, I really think it shaped my appreciation for the environment and natural spaces, but also made me appreciate, you know, Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York, and how much joy that space brought me. So, yeah, it's a funny story, but now we have a cabin, a sort of off the grid cabin up there, and it's definitely why I'm here, working for shape the boundary wires today. So feeling, I feel super grateful get your kids outside


Bill Hodge  08:37
such a magical place you got to go to, starting when you were four. I mean, the Boundary Waters is a just a critical component of the entire National Wilderness Preservation System. It's even specifically called out in the Wilderness Act. It's, it's, and people are gonna think, this is a bad thing. I actually think it's a good thing. It's an example of the compromises that laid the foundation for the success of passing the landmark legislation that is the Wilderness Preservation System. I see the Boundary Waters is one of the anchors of the system, a place for flat water paddlers to have a true back entry experience with, like almost a million acres of just pristine waters and forest. Would you agree with with that summary, that the Boundary Waters, Canoe Area wilderness helps us understand the fights of today? Because of it was a part of what it took to to get the Wilderness Act itself passed, that they had to have compromises about, you know, power, you know, motors on on boats, and they allowed some forestry to continue for, you know, the first few years. But it seems like it's an example of that our work never stops, right?


Ingrid Lyons  09:36
Yeah, I think that's totally right. I mean, it's, it's pretty interesting that it is. It's so unique in so many ways. It's unique in its character. It's unique in its geography. You know, so many wilderness areas are on the West Coast. There's obviously some on the East Coast, and there's really not a ton in the Midwest. And so unique from that standpoint. It aligns. And or, you know, abuts Canada. So when you put it all together, what we call canoe country, which is really the Boundary Waters critical Provincial Park, voyageurs National Park, you're talking over 4 million acres of super interconnected, super clean, fresh water. It's a really unique global ecosystem. And so there's that, there's sort of the ecological uniqueness of it, but then, yeah, to your point, I think it is so emblematic of the National Wilderness Preservation System, and sort of the original parcels of wilderness that were called out for needing these additional protections, and at the same time, it's unique, because, yeah, there was a lot of compromise that went into how the Boundary Waters is managed today, and we, we like to say that it's the most contentious wilderness area in America, because we've really been working for over 100 years to sort of Go back and forth on acknowledging so special and important. And fragile this place is, but how people want to engage with it and how they want to use it, and it's just a really, really fascinating sort of social, social and cultural context that surrounds this wilderness as well. So I totally agree with you. I


Anders Reynolds  11:20
want to hear more about that history. I know save the Boundary Waters, has decades of experience advocating on behalf of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area wilderness. Can Can you tell us more about the people who have been involved over the years and the approach your organization has taken to protect the Boundary Waters?


Ingrid Lyons  11:40
Yeah, yeah, definitely. So save the Boundary Waters is actually a project of an organization called Northeastern Minnesotans for wilderness. So our headquarters is in Ely, Minnesota really up close by the Canadian border. Northeastern Minnesotans for wilderness was founded in 1996 and then a few concerned citizens from some wilderness edge communities realized that there was a lease coming up for renewal in about 2012 and it really caught their attention and sort of opened this whole conversation about, why are there federal mineral leases in the watershed? What are they looking to develop? Oh, it's copper mining. What does that all entail? And so this really specific effort that we've called Save the boundary wires, which is actually a coalition of over 400 businesses, organizations, sporting groups, etc, was really formed then. So I think collectively, you know, with folks on our team and folks on our board, we have decades of wilderness preservation experience, but as an organization, we're actually only about 10 years old, or as save the Boundary Waters. When Northeastern Minnesotans for wellness took this project on, I think it had no staff, and like, a budget of like $5,000 a year. And so within that 10 year period, we now have a staff of 16 and a board of 23 you know, it's just, it's really grown tremendously, and not too much time. But in terms of, you know, we've got a really fabulous group of people who are extremely passionate. And I think one of the main things about, you know, what our approach has always been to protecting the Boundary Waters is local leaders and local voice, and really having it be a locally rooted effort. So that's why we feel like it's important that our headquarters is in Ely. We've got a lot of our board members up there, but it is so powerful to have people from Ely, Minnesota, business owners and wilderness advocates coming from Ely or coming from other wilderness such communities like grammar a and telling your story in Washington, DC. And so we're, we're really trying to be engaged with the business community, with the different YMCA camps. There's so many points of entry, so many folks who are responsible for introducing the Boundary Waters to generations of kids who are now Boundary Waters advocates. And so a lot of our a lot of our a lot of the folks involved in our organization had previously been with other organizations that had done Boundary Waters protection work, friends of the Boundary Waters as an organization that was really involved in the 1978 Boundary Waters Wilderness Act. And they still, they're still around another organization in Minnesota do great education work in particular, and so yeah, sort of all told we have a lot of really great wilderness advocates, and we learned a lot from actually another campaign to protect Yellowstone from a gold mine, and sort of thinking about how in the pursuit of wilderness protection and place based protection, how do you leverage all these different elements? How do you leverage litigation? How do you leverage the state policies, the federal policies, the advocacy, the awareness, the communications and so we've really created this sort of matrix. Of all the things we've kind of got our fingers in such that to really undo the sort of record of why this place needs to be protected, you got to work at the State Capitol in Minnesota. You got to be in DC. You have to be in courtrooms. We've really tried to make a complex web as complex as the need to protect this place, and an extremely robust Record of Decision so that when we inevitably, you know, lose ground on some of our wins we really have. You know, I the current moment certainly makes me nervous. And I think a lot of what we kind of other questions that we get are around, yeah, but Okay, so the protections you got are just going to be gone. They're just going to be out the window. So what does it really matter? And maybe I'm like, a naive optimist, but I do think eventually we'll return to some version of like the rule of law and sort of respect for regulations and whatnot, and we have really worked to build a super robust scientific, economic, cultural and political record that all show unequivocally that this is the wrong place for this type of mining, and at the end of the day, I think that's going to win the day. And so that was a long and ranting answer to your question, but part of one of our main approaches is like, build the record, get the facts, get the information, get the experts and create a seven layer dip that you can't you got to really work your way through that's a bad metaphor. But you know what I'm saying? It's, you know, it's, um, I'm really proud of what we've been able to accomplish. Yeah, it's


Bill Hodge  16:35
a great metaphor. Like you have to have the engagement in Minneapolis, but you got to be on the ground at Ely, and you got to have local communities understanding how significant their local place is on a national level, and how it's connected. You know, I love that you brought up that you know, that your fights are similar to the fight against the gold mine, that that are, that are friends at the, you know, Greater Yellowstone coalition, you know, led the fight against and you know, as we mentioned at the top, I was at Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge over the weekend. And, you know, there's, there's a mine proposed there that could literally drain the swamp, even though the interest in mining say, oh, they'll never let that happen like, you know, but it is at seven, you have to have all of those components that D that ability to be in DC, the ability to be in Minneapolis, but functioning on the ground and Ely, it's just so important. I can imagine other groups are engaging with you guys too. Like, how important of a role is, like backcountry hunters and anglers play with, you know, with, say, the Boundary Waters. What's the partnership matrix kind of look like for you guys?


Ingrid Lyons  17:37
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, we are so grateful to our partner organizations. We really have incredible working relationships. There are some that are sort of, it's informal, but sort of almost like a steering committee. You know, we're constantly on the phone with the Wilderness Society and Earth justice. And then we actually started an in house program that was called sportsman for the Boundary Waters back in, I believe, about 2016 and it has since spun off to be its own organization. And so they sort of serve as a liaison a bit for backcountry hunters and anglers, trcp, NWF, a lot of different sort of hunting organizations, and they represent an absolutely critical contingency of boundary waters users. I mean, it is an incredible fishing destination. It is a globally recognized hunting and fishing recreation destination. And so that constituency really matters, and they have been so vocal on this, and we're so appreciative, especially to back country hunters and anglers. But really, to me, the matrix we want to make the tent as big as humanly possible, honestly, because also from from the jump. And I think this is even more true now, you know, public lands really shouldn't be a partisan issue. The boundary water shouldn't be a partisan issue. We've done polling in the state that says 70% of Minnesotans across geography, across other demographics, across political alignment, want to protect the boundary permanently from this type of mining. And so we try to, we try to have our coalition reflect that as best as we can, and also reflect the some of the access groups that I talked about before, you know, the folks who are really facilitating deep connection with this place. Because fundamentally, folks aren't going to advocate for places they don't have a connection to, or at least maybe on that sort of deeper level. So yeah, we have we are so grateful to our coalition partners. We really wouldn't be where we are without them, we've been able to generate incredible reactions to comment periods because of this coalition. I think we might have the record for the most number of comments submitted for a mineral withdrawal. I think with 675,000 comments, 98% of which were in favor. Protecting the Boundary Waters. So coalitions are powerful. Teamwork makes the dream work, as they say, wow. Well, we'll talk


Anders Reynolds  20:08
a little bit more about a different kind of coalition in a minute, but I just want to say less. Anyone think Ingrid is not a really important layer to this dip I saw with my own eyes Ingrid standing outside the Russell Senate office building maybe a month, six weeks ago, and two days later, I think you guys had some really big and good news, right?


Ingrid Lyons  20:31
It's true. It's true. Yeah, that was the that was too short a visit, but nice to see you in passing. Yeah, I've been to DC, I think, about six times since the election, which has been, you know, just a bit of a whirlwind, but it has been very productive despite kind of everything else that's going on. So about three weeks at this point, Senator Tina Smith from Minnesota introduced the first broadly protective bill for the Boundary Waters in the Senate since the 1978 Boundary Waters Act, which is just awesome. I mean, this is the first time we've had bicameral support for permanent Boundary Waters protection legislation. It's always been in the house, which has been fabulous. Also representative Betty McCollum, who replaced representative Bruce Vento, who was a big Boundary Waters champion, she has really been our boundary waters champion for a long time, and it's really great to see Senate support and having bicameral support, so we've been giving Senator Smith a lot of love, and are excited to be working with her and other folks in the Senate to really make this a conversation on the Senate side of things, and use that as a like you were talking about reconciliation, we really want to make this a big old no go in the Senate. So that's step one, and we're absolutely thrilled to be there.


Anders Reynolds  21:57
So let's talk about the National Wilderness coalition now, the National Wilderness Coalition, which, depending on how you'd like to define it, is either a new or a rejuvenated coalition of local, statewide, national conservation and environmental justice organizations, which has decided to prioritize Wilderness Conservation as a critical tool for ensuring wildland integrity, for addressing climate change, to protect biodiversity and to reconnect people with nature. I'm curious what got you interested in the National Wilderness coalition?


Ingrid Lyons  22:39
Well, I think it kind of harkens back to a little bit of what Bill said. But I really think of, you know, the Boundary Waters was one of the original partial of the 1964 Wilderness Act. And so to me, I think of it as a real sort of backbone, one of the many, sort of like base columns to this National Preservation System, along with all its sort of eccentricities and the things that make it unique, like the compromise, like the, you know, we don't have mountains. I think people are always just like, their minds are blown. And I'm sure you get this with the swamp too, you know, like they're just like, I don't see a peak. How is this? How is this wilderness? How is this fit in this? So it's, you know, I think, with all it's different, sort of the things that make it unique, I think it really has a powerful story to tell and a powerful role to play within a coalition of people who are thinking about the wilderness movement moving forward. I think we've seen firsthand a lot of the conflicts and dialogs around wilderness that really need to be addressed as we sort of rebuild the National Wilderness movement. I think part of what I understand the coalition to have been sort of responding to is sort of a almost like a sort of lull in the energy around wilderness in Washington, DC, and where is that coming from? And how do we rebuild the fervor for protecting America's lands under this absolutely highest designation of protection in a way that is actually better than it was before, because the the Wilderness Act itself is, you know, critical guiding law, but it also fundamentally excludes people, um, which I know is kind of the point I mean When you're talking about protecting wilderness character and keeping ecosystems and landscapes as sort of natural as they can possibly be, you don't think of including humans in that. But the reality is that, you know, you can't, you can't exclude people. You certainly can't exclude indigenous folks who have been. Stewarding and living on the lands for generations and generations, but also as like, the political dialog is so much about people and what people care about, and so it's sort of like, how do you meaningfully build power for wilderness? You got to bring people, you got to let people see themselves in wilderness, and the movement to protect wilderness. So it's been a really interesting sort of thought challenge to be such a kind of old, quote, unquote, old wilderness and Og wilderness. But then I want the Boundary Waters, and those who fight for it to be in wilderness legacy from the very, very start to wherever it goes. I think the boundary water should always have a seat in the wilderness conversation. But that's just me.


Bill Hodge  25:45
Well, that's just so beautifully put. I think you know what you what you said about what sort of the the siren song for this coalition is, is that it feels like wilderness is sort of, I don't know, you didn't say it this way, but fallen out of favor maybe isn't enough of a priority. I think as part of the reason we're here doing the wild idea podcast, like Anders and I are deeply rooted in believing that wilderness is a really good tool. I also believe that there are a lot of other good tools in the toolbox. Wilderness is just one of the really good ones. It's the tool that I'm skilled. You know, if I'm if I'm a master of one, that's the thing I'm the master of, right? But as the as the coalition has been coming together, I'm curious if you could speak to this idea. You know, our wilderness community is pretty diverse in thought. I'll just put it that way. There are people who zero in on one particular word, let's say, of the Wilderness Act like the word untrammeled, and that becomes like they're not going to deviate from that, that that's the primacy of the act. Is this idea of untrammeled, that we're not going to manipulate landscapes into becoming what we want them to be. We're going to let them be free and unencumbered by human hand. But then there's also, like you said, there's a modern day recognition of some of the flaws in the law itself. You know, the line where man as a visitor does not remain is pretty problematic to what you just spoke to about. It's all people is not part of it, and people are, have always been, and should always be a part of but I'm curious how hard it's been for the coalition to find enough common ground that people can have meaningful conversations without people getting shut down or walking away. Has it, and I'm not asking you to sort of out any internal fight. I can imagine, making sure that you have solid common ground can be a challenge, because that's part of what's beautiful about our community, is we have a range of perspectives, right? Yeah,


Ingrid Lyons  27:41
absolutely. I mean, I think, I think that's exactly right. We get, we gain so much from the difference of perspective and opinion, and we also have to wrestle with it. And I think this is one of the first times that I've kind of been at the inception, or like the near inception, of a coalition forming, and especially one that has so much there's so much passion, there's so many ways people view land protection in particular. Yeah, I think the most obvious one is the folks who really kind of go by the book, go by the Wilderness Act as written, and don't really want to talk about shifting the act that it's really that's kind of the rigid thing. I think, you know, even though this coalition was formed prior to the election, I do think that what we're seeing, especially at the executive level, is stripping away some of the, okay, maybe at the very end of the day, this is the type of sort of execution towards the Wilderness Act that we'd like to see. And this is our hard line. But right now, everything is at risk, and we just have to sort of strip that, this sort of fluff off and come together and say, how do we prevent the sell off of public lands. How do we, you know, if we want to, if we're thinking about wilderness, not just existing wilderness, but wilderness yet to come, you know, what's the pathway to wilderness and what do we need to protect to make sure not only the existing wilderness areas are protected, but all the places that have wilderness potential? There's so much more fundamentally on the table right now that, yes, that dialog is going to be hard. It has been hard. It will continue to be difficult. But I think this political moment does also, has also sort of forced us into shared values a bit, or really just made that abundantly clear.


Anders Reynolds  29:38
I think that's right. I've, I've noticed that too, like the the large looming threat on the horizon has been a really good organizer, I think for the folks involved in the National Wilderness coalition, I would also say one of its strengths is its focus on, on on some. Sub national groups, unlike regional groups, state groups, local groups, because I think what I my experience with the National Wilderness coalition has been that there's a lot of agreement that wilderness is a great tool for protecting natural areas, and then there's a lot of interesting discussion about whether or not it is the right tool in particular areas. And I think that's really fascinating, because many groups are like, this is absolutely what we want to pursue. And then there's other groups who are like, You know what? It makes sense in other places, we'll totally support, you know, your effort to protect your place with wilderness, but we've got a different idea for our area. But because, I think everybody's open to seeing those different perspectives, it's made the conversations Much, much richer. Yeah,


Ingrid Lyons  30:44
I would agree with that. And I think right now, there's about 45 members, and it's pretty, like, equally split, truly, between local based, state based, regional and national. So I think that's a really nice representation, because to my point earlier, and to what you're saying Anders is like, yes, you have to grapple with the fact that it's a an area of national significance, or it's an icon, or America's most visited wilderness, but also has to work for the people there. Has to work for the people on the ground. And there's got to be buy in, and there's got to, you got to figure out how to there's just nuance. There's nuance to those local and state and regional levels. And so I really appreciate that the coalition has good representation on on those different scales.


Anders Reynolds  31:31
I agree. So earlier, you were mentioning in your role as executive director, your trips to DC and your successful advocacy on the Hill. I'm curious how you see the National Wilderness coalition engage in Congress on wildlands protection. I mean, if you, if you ask me, we've got a Congress that has a lack of public lands literacy, especially when compared to sort of historic levels in the understanding. We've got sort of asymmetrically partisan support or opposition to policies impacting public lands. Like the Democrats tend to go with the loudest Democrats. Republicans tend to go with the loudest Republican. And a lot of the decisions are made at the leadership level level, rather than sort of as parochial decisions for what's best for the district. I think members are worried about, like, the diminishing pipeline of public lands champions, and what that means for who comes next, but also who's offering them cover for their own bills. So I'm curious if you have a sense of how the coalition is going to engage those members of Congress.


Ingrid Lyons  32:34
Yeah, I think I really appreciated that. I think as we've sort of settled into this Congress, there's a recognition that like, yes, so many things are very urgent, and they are speaking out and and advocating against the sell off of public lands, and they're sounding the alarm on the impacts of de staffing and defunding land management agencies and all these good things, but recognizing that there's a lot of education and a lot of messaging work, good political messaging work that I think, I think hasn't really been done for wilderness in quite some time. And so going into offices that maybe know nothing at all, and treating them with the same respect and with the same sort of like robust appreciation for the need that they're with a need for education, as a member who, say, is from Montana, or from a place that has more wilderness or wild places, wild public lands. And so I think that type of engagement and really leading the way there, although it it's not as sexy as getting the wins, and it's not as sexy as sort of, you know, having the rallies. If folks don't know what wilderness is, then you don't if this is an audio medium. I'm shrugging. I'm struggling in this audio medium. And so I really appreciate that. I think they're taking a step back. The coalition's taking a step back to understand some of these fundamental challenges. And they're both the urgent sort of hair on fire moments, but also just the like the need to re elevate wilderness as this concept with broad support, that with a big tent of people who want to see wilderness in the wilderness system expand, and are willing to perhaps adapt it a little bit to better meet the current moment. And so I know that they're working on, sort of figuring out their exact arguments for the right offices, finding folks who might be flexible on this side or the other issue. And so they're getting, it's nice to see this next level. You know, we've sort of spent 18 months creating the coalition and getting on the same page about a lot of things, and now we're really getting into the weeds on some of the more specific strategies, which is fun to see and fun to see how a coalition truly engages in DC with such a do. Your point bill, like, range of and diversity of perspectives. Yeah,


Bill Hodge  35:04
it's so exciting for me. I mean, there used to be a regular gathering in DC called Wilderness week around the week of September 3, and that went away. And, you know, before anybody, you know, a couple things I just want to touch on. I'll get this to get this to a question or not, but I'll just say, you know, having worked for one of the national organizations, twice, The Wilderness Society, and I've heard critiques of the Wilderness Society, I've been somebody who's provided a critique of the Wilderness Society before. I will say, for those who've gone, oh, they don't even focus on wilderness anymore. I'm like, Well, no, they're, they're always focused on wild lands. Sometimes wilderness is the right tool. Sometimes other tools, like the public lands rule for BLM is a tool. The effort at the old growth amendment for the Forest Service is an effort at protecting intact wild lands, functioning ecosystems. And yet, there's a range right, like I've been frustrated too, as you all and other people have sort of tried to foster the Honest dialog we need to have. I, you know, I watched a, you know, a webinar that a group of indigenous scholars put together about the Wilderness Act, and watched the chat room devolve from people who were just so panicked about the Wilderness Act being watered down. I get the panic. I understand that community. I'm passionate for the Wilderness Preservation System that we have. It's my it's my reason for existence. Is the water system that we have and the care for the wilderness system we have. But we if you're that fragile, that you can at least have people help you galvanize why it matters. And that's what I think, I think I love seeing it as, coming together with the National waters coalition, is that, yeah, we're having to have honest and hard conversations, but that just helps galvanize us. And to your point, when we're galvanized, we'll do a better job of making sure DC is engaged in why wilderness is important and broader than wilderness, the wildland protection idea, whether a place you know, the other thing that's gone on, in my mind, is the reason wilderness has gotten kind of harder, is we've come down from the peaks, right? You talk about the waters and where are the peaks? Like a lot of the early wilderness were peaks, and we've made our way down to where we're starting to abut communities with wilderness designations. That's why it's harder, because we have to engage with the communities in an honest and long term way, and not not just show up draw lines on a map. I'm sort of stealing Andrew thunder on this stump speech. It's his stump speech. But like, we got to quit showing up, drawing lines on a map and disappearing. But also love that the coalition's having these honest conversations about what the future looks like,


Ingrid Lyons  37:29
part of what's like explicit about the coalition that I think is kind of what you're getting at too, is that it is, it is very intentionally trying to prevent the silos of wilderness and wilderness adjacent work and sort of coalition building that has happened historically and so that will make it inherently more difficult, but yes, we'll reap greater rewards to have you know folks who are are all in coordination. I mean, I think that makes a tremendous difference. Sorry. Anders, go ahead. What can


Bill Hodge  37:59
folks do to engage with your specific legislation you're working on with, save the Boundary Waters. What's, what are some calls to action, specifically bringing it back to your organization and the work you do from the National Coalition, what are, what are sort of the asks you're making of your community and that you can make of the national community, because, again, the Boundary Waters is a national treasure. What are the sort of things people can do to get do to get engaged? Yeah,


Ingrid Lyons  38:24
absolutely. I mean, save the boundarywaters.org. Is our website right now. Our primary focus is kind of similarly to the public land sell off reconciliation seems to be just a throw all the nasty spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks kind of moment. And unfortunately, that also includes a bill that would strip some protections for the Boundary Waters watershed. So just a titch of context. In 2023 then Secretary of the Interior, Deb Haaland, put in place a 20 year mineral withdrawal, or a 20 year mining ban on copper in the headwaters of the Boundary Waters, which was, that's really what we had been working for for a very long time. We wanted to get a mineral withdrawal in place and then pursue permanent protection via legislation. There's a bill that is slated to be part of the house Natural Resources markup on May 6, that would revoke the 20 year mineral withdrawal, give the federal mineral leases back to Twin metals Minnesota, which is the company that seeks to mine copper in the headwaters. They're actually owned by a Chilean mining conglomerate called Antifa Gaston. So they get their leases back, there would be a ban on judicial review of those leases, and there would be a forced review of the company's mine plan of operations in a truncated timeline, although now, because they're talking about 28 days for environmental impact statements, it doesn't sound so truncated. It's actually 18 months. What. Just truncated in sort of, you know, the broader context of things, but sounds like a lot of time compared to their most recent proposals. So we are working on preventing that legislation from moving forward. So we're asking people to reach out to their representatives across the country to really renationalize this issue. We've been saying that this is America's most visited wilderness, America's favorite wilderness, and it's most threatened. And so reach out to your representative. Reach out to your senator. They can both oppose this legislation, HR, 978, but they can also sign on to Senator Smith's bill, the Boundary Waters Protection Act, and then also representative mccollum's Bill, which does the same thing, which is essentially take all that acreage that was subject to the 20 year mineral withdrawal and withdraw it from the Federal mining program permanently. So that's really the permanent act of Congress that we were aiming for at the end of the day, that's at the end of the rainbow. So please, please do get involved. Reach out to your electeds. Reach out to us. We're always excited to hear people's ideas. To connect with people across the country. We're having a donor event in Colorado. We've had one you know, DC and Seattle. And so we try to really nationalize our presence as possible, even though we're very Minnesota based. So get organized. Get vocal. Share this with your friends. Maybe you've had the same paddling group since 1967 and everyone's stoked on the Boundary Waters, but has no idea that it's kind of undergoing some pretty existential crisis right now. So, yeah, just, just share, spread the word. 1967


Anders Reynolds  41:48
How old do you think I am?


41:50
Ancient Anders, ancient.


Anders Reynolds  41:53
You know, I that's a great call to action Ingrid. Thank you for making it. I i started this episode very jealous of bill, but after listening to you think for an hour and hearing more about the landscape you get to engage in, I think I'm more jealous of Ingrid at this point. So, oh,


Ingrid Lyons  42:08
it can be a layered dip of jealousy for one another's


Speaker 1  42:13
Yeah. Anders send them layers of jealousy. Yeah,


Ingrid Lyons  42:17
I do want an Okefenokee tour from you, and I will give you guys a boundary waters tour.


Anders Reynolds  42:24
Oh, deal. I'm all in.


Bill Hodge  42:27
I love it. I love it again. The great, great conversation I got to have Saturday, you know, with with Kim Bednarek and the folks with Okefenokee Swamp Park and the work they're doing to protect the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and wilderness. It was kind of funny. This is like completing two weeks of canoe for me, because I started out, I started I started out on the buffalo National River, famous for canoe trips. Was in the swamp over the weekend, famous for canoe trips. And now having this conversation with you, talking about one of the premier destinations in the world, for those who like to flatwater paddle and love their canoes. So we will certainly make sure we flag that bill


Anders Reynolds  43:07
before we sign off. I do want to give a quick shout out to Amanda Newman, the coalition coordinator for the National Wilderness coalition. She is doing a great job alongside Ingrid and alongside the other organizations that make up the steering committee right now, that's green Latinos wilderness workshop, Colorado wildlands project, native women's wilderness and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. So thanks to Amanda, thanks to the steering committee, and thanks to Ingrid for making this whole thing work. Hey,


Ingrid Lyons  43:36
yeah, it was my distinct pleasure. Yeah, I'll second that that praise to Amanda. You know, coalition coordination is no easy task, and she makes it look just so smooth, and she's really great and really helpful. So three cheers to Amanda. Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate the time, and I appreciate your interest in the good old Boundary Waters, Canoe Area wilderness. Well, Ingrid, thanks


Bill Hodge  44:03
for being here. It's just been great having you. We've been excited to talk to Ingrid Lyons today. As you can tell, she's an amazing voice for the place and her role running save the Boundary Waters, but also she's been an amazing voice of pulling together this new National Wilderness coalition. So huge. Thanks to you Ingrid people need to check out the work of Save the Boundary Waters and the work of the National waters coalition. And Thanks for, thanks for joining us. And we'll we'll see on down the canoe trail, how about that? Oh,


Ingrid Lyons  44:30
yeah, on the portage trail, perhaps perfect.


Voiceover  44:37
The wild idea is a production of wild idea media and hosted by Bill Hodge and Anders Reynolds. Production and editing by Brent Russell at podlad Digital, support by Holly wilkorzewski At day pack digital. Our theme music Spring Hill Jack is from railroad Earth and was composed by John ski hand. Our executive producer and ringleader is Laura Hodge. You can find the wild idea where. Wherever you listen to or download your favorite podcast, if you have a minute, please take a minute to give us a rating, and if you really like us, we hope you'll subscribe. Learn more about us at the wild idea.com you.


Transcribed by https://otter.ai