There is this idea that environmentalism is neutral. That wanting to protect the land is separate from politics and preserving wilderness is about loving nature, not about controlling people. But reading about the Sagebrush Rebellion and the Wise Use movement makes it clear that land has always been political, and that the fights over who controls it have always been about more than just trees and trails.
To start, the Sagebrush Rebellion was more than just a regional dispute over Western land use. It was an intentional rejection of federal involvement that aligned perfectly with the rise of conservative politics in the 1980s. When Western states like Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming passed legislation attempting to claim federal lands, it wasn’t about local stewardship, it was about power (Turner, 132). They framed it as a battle for “states’ rights,” but beneath that was a push to dismantle environmental protections that limited development by mining, logging, and oil industries. As Turner writes, “the sagebrush rebels presumed that the states could manage the land… giving priority to free enterprise and dispensing with the federal government red tape” (Turner, 132). This wasn’t a return to freedom but a rebranding of exploitation.
What made this even more dangerous was the way the Wise Use movement that followed took all of those same ideas and repackaged them in “people-friendly” language. They claimed to care about “balance” and “multiple use.” They said they stood for the rights of everyday Westerners. But this movement, just like the one before it, was funded and shaped by industries. They even called for legislation to approve national systems for grazing, logging, and mining; these systems would benefit corporations, not communities (Turner, 139). The environmental movement was framed as the enemy—not because it was wrong, but because it slowed down profit. And so these activists painted themselves as the victims, while working to gut the very protections that had been put in place to preserve public land for everyone.
The battles over public lands didn’t just reshape land management, they helped shape the New Right itself. They gave it a language rooted in individual liberty, state sovereignty, and anti-government views. Reagan’s appointment of James Watt to the Department of the Interior only made this clearer. Watt proudly declared that the new administration had a “bias for private enterprise” and that he would always “err on the side of public use versus preservation” (Turner, 134). He positioned himself against “old-time liberals” who believed in the government’s role in protecting public resources. Watt didn’t see federal protections as safeguards, he saw them as obstacles. And just like that, environmentalism was recast as elitist, urban, and radical. And what was lost in all of this? The fact that the wilderness wasn’t just scenery, it was home. It had meaning. And it wasn’t empty. Indigenous people had been displaced long before these rebellions began, and yet no one mentions that history when they talk about “rights” to the land. These movements claimed to defend a way of life. But whose life? And who was left out of that vision? It makes sense that protecting the land became controversial once it meant telling industries “no.” It is also not surprising that people called for “freedom” once the land was no longer just theirs to use. But what is frustrating is how easily these movements convinced others that they were the underdogs. That environmentalists were the threat, and not the billion-dollar companies funding their opposition. The intentions of the Sagebrush Rebellion and the Wise Use movement being environmentalist was a fallacy. Instead, they helped turn environmental protection into a culture war. And so much of what we still see today—climate denial, deregulation, the vilification of activists—has roots in these movements.
Will Wright 