TAKE ACTION

Take Action: What You Can Do

Easy Ideas You Can Do Today…To Protect Wilderness for Tomorrow

Attend a Meeting: Your opinion matters!! Federal agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and the National Park Service are looking for active feedback from YOU—their most relevant local users—on how they should manage a national monument, park, or recreation area in your part of the state. Your attendance and feedback is critical to how these agencies care for public lands. Sign up here to receive our electronic action alerts about meetings and public comment opportunities.

Write a Letter or Place a Call: If you can’t make it to a meeting in your neck of the woods, the next best thing to do is to send a letter or place a call to the managing agency or your elected official. Emphasize in your letter or call how you enjoy a particular park, monument, or recreation area; highlight uses or regimes, such as ORV use or logging, that you find unacceptable; clearly state why you prefer stronger protection measures. Visit our Legislative Watch section for agency and elected officials contact info!

Volunteer! With five new national monuments in Arizona, there are thousands of acres that need volunteer hands to help catalog monument features and create reports that will be used to advocate for wilderness designation in the monuments. If you like to spend time outdoors, this is the activity for you! Contact your AWC regional office for upcoming inventory trips and to get more information about this exciting volunteer opportunity.

Adopt a Wilderness: Those with a little more time on their hands can devote their energy to AWC’s Wilderness Adoption Program. With 4.5 million acres of wilderness in Arizona, we need dedicated individuals to monitor their favorite wilderness areas to make sure they are healthy and no degradation of resources has occurred. Some projects may entail trail maintenance, road barrier construction, or fence removal. Contact your nearest AWC regional office for wilderness adoption opportunities today!

Contribute to our Newsletter: Feeling creative? Have an interesting story to share about a wilderness area in your neck of the woods? Know a longtime wilderness advocate that you think should get a pat on the back? These stories and any other ideas are welcome additions to AWC’s electronic newsletter. Contact us (email or 520-326-4300) with your ideas.

Give a Presentation: Take your wilderness passion public! If you feel comfortable speaking to your peers about the importance of wilderness, contact your nearest AWC regional office for the latest news about your favorite wilderness area. Or invite an AWC staff member to come show slides and speak to your school group, office brown bag lunch, or local community event about our wilderness work and volunteer opportunities.

Start Community Group: One of the best ways to kindle wilderness advocacy is to bring the issues “closer to home.” By creating access in your community to wilderness resources and fostering an ongoing dialogue, your neighbors and coworkers will feel more connected to wilderness issues and be willing to take action on those topics they find personally compelling. Why not start up a monthly group in your community that educates your friends and neighbors about a nearby wilderness, mobilizes volunteers to help monitor that wilderness, and participates in fun field events like inventories and restoration activities?

Bring your Family to the Wilderness: Why not plan a fun weekend trip with your friends or family that takes you into a national monument, park, or wilderness area for a day or overnight? Hike, bird/wildlife watch, picnic, fish, or camp—and enjoy what the outdoors offers in natural quiet, beauty, and relaxation. Visit the BLM’s Arizona pages for wilderness and monuments near you, hiking tips, safety information, and other guidelines.