Earth Matters / Ski Szymanski on Public Lands

This week’s program features host Dr Kim McCreery, regional director and staff scientist of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, with her guest Walter “Ski” Szymanski, a former labor organizer and local community activist with a range of interests.

They discuss the resurrected Sagebrush Rebellion – a political movement to peel away federal public lands for exploitation by extractive industries at the state level.  ALEC – The American Legislative Exchange Council is a major player in this new effort to privatize and exploit our national forests.

Elected state legislators and some of the most powerful corporations are working together behind closed doors to draft legislation introduced in state houses all over country.   They discuss current efforts In New Mexico  to demand state control of public lands, the implications of such transfers, and who’s behind this attempted land grab as well as other anti-environmental legislation promoted by ALEC – one of America’s “most influential corporate-funded political forces.”

They also discuss current efforts to end the barbaric practice of trapping wild animals for fur and profit at the state level in the current legislative session.  Szymanski has succeeded in his efforts to bring an ordinance before the Town of Silver City banning trapping within the city limits that has since become a model which several more New Mexico cities and towns have adopted.

Visit these sites for more information…

• PR Watch and
  ALEC Exposed to learn more about ALEC
• American Legislative Exchange Council
  Currently being challenged via the IRS for masquerading as a 501c3 while performing the functions of corporate lobbyists
• American Lands Council
  Allies in the corporate effort to usurp and exploit public lands
• Trap Free New Mexico
  Seeks to enact a ban on traps on public lands for the sake of public safety and New Mexico’s native wildlife

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Earth Matters / Ski Szymanski on Public Lands