Policy Corner: Public Lands and Elections

May 11, 2026


At Tuleyome, we support Public Lands Advocacy, Conservation, Stewardship and Education. Our commitment to these three pillars of action means that we must encourage our supporters to vote and to invest the time to learn how candidates for public office view public lands and public access to those lands. 


Public lands are a central part of our national heritage and have been so since the very founding of the Republic. The first shots of the American Revolution were fired on public land (the Lexington Common) in 1775. The practice of managing lands for the common welfare is itself tens of thousands of years old and is central to the traditions of indigenous people across all of the Americas. The relatively novel notion of private ownership of land has become prevalent in our society, but that in no way should blind us to the centrality of public land to the health and welfare of all.


And yet there are those who would turn every scrap of public land over to private ownership for exploitation if they could. Efforts to privatize public lands or give Federal lands to states, where political pressure to privatize is stronger, have taken on a new urgency. They represent a significant threat to the public’s right to enjoy public lands. These efforts represent an existential threat to nature, wildlife and the land itself, as exploitation of the national legacy for private gain becomes the dominant ideology of certain elements in our society. 


Fortunately, as citizens, we have the opportunity to educate ourselves about who supports public lands and the public’s right to benefit from public lands. If you want to be a public lands voter, here are the three questions you need to ask everyone who is asking you for your vote:

  1. Do you support keeping public lands in federal public ownership, and will you oppose efforts to transfer them to state or private control?
  2. What specific actions will you take to improve public access for hunting, fishing, and outdoor recreation?
  3. What is your plan to ensure that public lands are managed for a balance of conservation, restoration, recreation and responsible energy development?


Public lands, which include our national forests, lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and Bureau of Reclamation, as well as the national park system, are managed for all Americans. Proposals to sell or transfer these reduce public access and jeopardize wildlife habitat. 


Ask for a clear commitment to keeping land access public rather than transferring it to state-level management. Ask what your representatives will do to eliminate private land bottlenecks. Ask for concrete plans to improve trails, access points, and habitat connectivity.


Public lands are at the center of the climate crisis debate and many voters prefer conservation and renewable energy over increased oil and gas drilling. We support a balanced approach that prioritizes habitat protection and sustainable use, rather than maximizing extraction. This is the kind of long-term legacy that we owe to the people whose land we appropriated. It’s a legacy we owe to the generations of Americans before us who fought to establish the rule of law and the values of republican government. Public lands are the embodiment of the notion that we are a nation of equal citizens, indivisible, and not servants to the economic interests that extract private profit from public resources while socializing private losses on public accounts.


If you want to be a public lands voter, take the time to educate yourself by visiting https://www.tuleyome.org/ and then ask those who want your vote the hard questions about where they stand on public lands. 


Then, Vote! 


Register to Vote here: https://registertovote.ca.gov/


The last day to register to vote for the June 2, 2026, Primary Election is May 18, 2026.


Find your district and voters guide here: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections 


Voting by mail in California is safe and secure and really easy to do. You can track the status of your ballot here: https://california.ballottrax.net/voter/ 


Craig Perrin

Tuleyome Volunteer Board Member

RECENT ARTICLES

Policy Corner: Protect our Wildest Areas

August 7, 2026
Our wildest areas are under threat. In June, the Administration moved to weaken protections for our wildest public lands - those designated as wilderness, Wilderness Study Areas, Lands with Wilderness Characteristics, and recommended Wilderness. What do these areas represent? Millions of acres of untrammeled backcountry. The Department of the Interior, US Forest Service and National Park Service initiated the first step in unraveling these protections. They’ve called for a “review” of eight policies, opening the door to weaken protections and paving the way for short-term extractive industries, commercial development, and resource fragmentation at the expense of long-term conservation management of some of our wildest remaining public lands. Nearly 200 million acres of wildlands across the west could be impacted by this review, including approximately 120 million acres of Wilderness Study Areas and wilderness quality lands, and 75 million acres of designated wilderness areas. This includes the nearly 94,000 acres in Cache Creek, Cedar Roughs and Snow Mountain Wilderness areas in Berryessa Snow Mountain Nation Monument right here in our own region. These policies guide how federal agencies identify, manage, and steward designated Wilderness Areas, Wilderness Study Areas, and lands with wilderness characteristics. Together, they influence the management of millions of acres of federal public lands and translate statutory requirements into day-to-day management decisions. Continuing to protect wilderness qualities is consistent with protecting recreation. In many cases, wilderness-quality land provides the best opportunities for backcountry recreation; a CA outdoor industry responsible for 545,448 direct jobs valued at $38.1 billion. The total value-added worth of CA outdoor recreation is $81.5 billion, 2.2% of our gross domestic product. The Department of the Interior’s actions present a false choice between stewarding wilderness lands and providing opportunities for recreation. Let’s tell the Administration that we oppose these rollbacks and are committed to protecting our wild places. Sign on to the Wi lderness Review- National Sign-on Letter opposing five different actions across the three agencies by August 12th. Together, we can show this administration that we care about protecting these special places today and into the future. Sandra Schubert Executive Director

Donor Spotlight - Sarah Davis

August 7, 2026
I first heard about Tuleyome when I retired early from UC Davis eight years ago. I was looking for local organizations for volunteer opportunities. I discovered Tuleyome and got connected with Bill Grabert and Nate Lillge. I helped them lead hikes and school programs, then took the CA Naturalist course through Tuleyome. My capstone project was to lead a backpacking trip into the Cache Creek wilderness, which I did just as COVID was descending on us. I was, and still am, impressed at how such a small local non-profit has both ensured preservation of important wild areas and invested heavily in outreach to local schools. Working with kids from Lake County in the Redbud area was eye-opening and extremely gratifying. Some of them had literally never been on a hike in spite of growing up so close to all that spectacular wild land! I donate to Tuleyome to help them keep up the great work!!! I’ve spent countless days hiking in and enjoying the Cache Creek area; what a gem of a local resource! And, only last spring was I able to get up to Snow Mountain…so glad it’s preserved and accessible for camping and hiking. Wow! A wilderness area near my home - that’s amazing. I’m incredibly grateful for Tuleyome’s hard work that resulted in preservation of these important wild places, and I look forward to seeing what’s next.

Monumental Questions - What Makes California Newts Special?

By Kristie Ehrhardt • August 7, 2026
Driving around the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument one rainy day revealed a network of dirt roads that were slick as snnn… well, you probably know. The wet weather made driving less than optimal for the Subaru we were in but for our amphibian friends, the low-riding California newt, the warm, misty conditions were sublime. California Newts ( Taricha torosa ) are endemic to California, which means that they are extra special because they are only found here. They occur below 6,000 feet along the Coast Ranges from Mendocino County south to San Diego County. They are also found in the foothills and western slopes of the Sierra Nevada in the San Joaquin Valley with a few isolated populations in southern San Diego County. They utilize both wetland habitat including natural and artificial pools and ponds, reservoirs, creeks and streams for breeding during winter and spring, and upland areas such as chaparral and woodland habitats where they spend summer and fall. California Newts have stubby little toes attached to short, stocky legs. Adults range from about two and three quarters inches to about three and a half inches long, not including the tail. Their bellies and undersides of their neck and chin are bright golden yellow to orange with a reddish-brown to slate gray back. California Newts reproduce from late fall to early summer depending on rainfall amounts and habitat conditions. Adults migrate from their upland refugia to their preferred wetland to breed. Eggs are attached to submerged vegetation or under rocks and females can lay up to six masses of nearly 50 eggs a day. The eggs hatch in two to six weeks depending on water conditions and temperature. Larvae are aquatic and have gills and fins. After several months the larvae begin to exit the pond and set about metamorphosing into adults and do not return to the pond again until they are ready to breed. Larvae eat small aquatic invertebrates and organic matter; adults eat insects, slugs, snails and worms as well as other amphibian eggs and larvae. Adult California Newts are highly toxic. Like other members of the genus Taricha , adults have glands on their skin that secrete the potent neurotoxin tetrodotoxin - the same toxin that is found in harlequin frogs and pufferfish. Side note, this makes them poisonous rather than venomous (like rattlesnakes). Tetrodotoxin is hundreds of times more toxic than cyanide and potent enough to kill most vertebrates. The toxin affects sodium channels and makes it so neurons are unable to fire which results in lethal muscle paralysis. One of the only predators of adult California Newts are garter snakes. Garter snakes are one of the very few organisms that have evolved to develop a resistance to the tetrodotoxin produced by the newts. Garter snakes can ingest the toxic newts with limited effects which has created an evolutionary arms race (coevolution). As the garter snakes develop stronger immunity to the toxins only the most poisonous news survive which in turn results in future generations of news with even stronger toxins. This leads to a population of garter snakes that have developed a resistance to the stronger toxin levels and and on it goes. Loads of them were bumbling along the edges of the wet dirt road that rainy day. We made several stops to relocate those that were attempting to cross but seemed to stall out in the middle, always placing them facing the direction they were aimed. I don’t know if they were heading out to their natal ponds to mingle and breed, or on their way back to nap in their upland refugia but they were definitely enjoying the day. The California Newt is currently a California Species of Special Concern due to habitat loss and invasive non-native species introduction which makes seeing so many of these little stumpy legged tetrapods enjoying the Monument even even more groovy!