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SALT LAKE CITY — This year's rally promoting multi-use of Utah's public lands is changing parade routes — this time from the Utah State Fairpark to the Capitol — but the theme is the same: Take Back Utah.
Born out of grassroots resistance to the federal government's control of public land in Utah, Take Back Utah has staged annual rallies and parades featuring a lineup of conservative lawmakers advocating multi-use of government-owned lands.
This year's event is Saturday, with staging for the parade beginning at 6 a.m., and a rally that begins about 9:30 a.m.
Gov. Gary Herbert, Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, will be among the speakers, said co-founder Mike Swenson. A few speakers will kick things off at the fairpark, followed by a larger rally at the Capitol.
This is how things get done in our country. People gather peaceably and speak their minds. It is one of the beautiful things about America.
–- Mike Swenson, director, Utah Shared Access Alliance
"This is grassroots politics 101 at its best," said Swenson, who is executive director of the Utah Shared Access Alliance.
"This is how things get done in our country," he said. "People gather peaceably and speak their minds. It is one of the beautiful things about America."
Swenson and Sen. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, held a series of meetings in 2009, reaching out to like-minded individuals and groups that believe federally-owned lands have value beyond recreation — and should diversely support grazing, resource extraction and other uses in appropriate circumstances.
Out of those meetings grew Take Back Utah and the first rally and parade from downtown Salt Lake City to the state Capitol.
Swenson said he believes the rallying event reaffirms that beyond the calls for more wilderness by environmental groups is the sentiment that public lands need to be accessible to a wide variety of interests.
"It's critical for people to unite and get together. It is empowering when you see fellow citizens who think like you. Sometimes you can feel like you are all alone when there are huge forces out there trying to close public lands."
The "push back" against those environmental groups on Saturday is estimated to draw as many as 5,000 participants — 4-wheel groups, the Utah Cattlemen's Association, coal trucks, equestrians and others.
"Every year this thing is growing," Noel said. "We think we have the momentum to win a lot of these battles and take back some of these public lands and use them like they should be used."
Utah has been front and center in a bevy of regional and national public policy conflicts stemming the management of lands owned by the federal government.
It's critical for people to unite and get together. It is empowering when you see fellow citizens who think like you.
–- Mike Swenson, director, Utah Shared Access Alliance
Those issues range from revision of policies under the Obama administration related to oil and gas leasing to the possibility of designations of new national monuments. Bishop and other members of Utah's Republican delegation were among the most ardent critics of a wild lands policy put forth by Interior Secretary Ken Salazar.
Announced in December 2010, the policy has since been shelved but called for the Bureau of Land Management to survey the lands within its purview for wilderness qualities.
The state is also involved in litigation on multiple fronts regarding access to certain Civil War era-roads in which counties claim the rights to.
Email:aodonoghue@ksl.com
