The Cedar Mesa Wilderness Bill seems to be dwindling in government bureaucracy. A new group is forming called Friends of Cedar Mesa, consisting of residents of Blanding, Bluff and Monticello as well as citizens from the Navajo Nation, in order to maintain activism around the wilderness designation of 450,000 acres of high plateau in Southeastern Utah. Cedar Mesa is seen as “one of the richest repositories of pre-Columbian ancestral history” according to Patty Henetz of the Salt Lake City Tribune.
A Senate Committee unanimously approved the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks Wilderness Act, which would protect 350,000 acres in Do-a Ana County, New Mexico. The bill, which the Obama administration claims to support, contains a 2 mile buffer zone around the wilderness area, but grants Border Patrol the right to conduct operations within the boundary.
From atop the Mendocino National Forest all the way down to Lake Berryessa, a 436,077 acre conservation area is being proposed in California. Called the Berryessa Snow Mountain conservation area, the proposed land would include parcels from Glenn, Colusa, Lake, Yolo, Napa, Mendocino and Solano counties.