This feature was first published in the 2008 Wilderness Magazine. To receive the annual magazine and quarterly newsletters from The Wilderness Society, become a member today!

Freelance writer Anne McMahon of Santa Margarita, California, is a former newspaper reporter who also has worked for U.S. Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) and The Nature Conservancy.

People around the world are familiar with the natural wonder of the Grand Canyon and its artistic carver, the Colorado River. Of much lesser fame is the area directly north of the canyon within the watershed of the river known as the Arizona Strip, which is federal public land managed mostly by the Bureau of Land Management.

In the waning days of the Bush administration it seems every new day brings with it another new midnight regulation. The final day of 2008 was no different. On Dec. 31 in Portland, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) issued Records of Decision moving forward with the Western Oregon Plan Revision, also known as WOPR. This occurred in spite of the 264 filed protests and the request of Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski to delay the adoption of the plan, not to mention the 80,000 letters generated by The Wilderness Society’s Wild Alert community.

An attempt to halt the Bush Administration’s eleventh-hour plundering of Utah’s iconic redrock canyon country has resulted in a last minute reprieve from oil and gas leasing for places like Nine Mile and Desolation Canyon, as well as other beloved public lands in Utah.

The lands contain vast numbers of historic sites, intricate fragile rock formations and countless remote canyons that symbolize the wildness of the West.

Will the Bureau of Land Management listen to more than 1 million Americans  and halt its plan to lease some of the Utah canyon country’s most pristine and spectacular wildlands?

The BLM ignored conservation groups in the fall when they protested the agency’s plans to open much of the canyon country to energy development as part of new management plans that govern public land in eastern Utah.