The project, conducted under the liberal thinktank Center for American Progress, explains that although forestry and agriculture account for the greatest area of land use, these activities are not expanding very quickly. The development of both residential and commercial buildings was responsible for the most natural area lost between 2001 and 2011. The popular mythos of the American West is that the frontier is long closed, the debates of Hetch Hetchy, perservationist views versus conservationist views, and even the Sagebrush Rebellion are closed chapters and the battle has been fought and decided. Recently, discussions of federal land in the West are headlined by the Bundy Ranch of 2014 and the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge occupation earlier this year. Although these events are commonly punchlines to jokes, a discussion of public lands and protecting natural areas must occur. And according to the Disappearing West project, this discussion needs to happen now with “the same urgency that moved earlier generations” and ought to lead to a determination that far, f ar more land in the West needs to be protected than the 12% under protection from development and resource extraction now.
The website has only recently gone live, and new features will be added in the near future. Check out DisappearingWest.org to explore the maps and access the GIS data in shapefile format.
