Daily Archives: February 10, 2021

In his first book, City of Refuge: Slavery and Petit Marronage in the Great Dismal Swamp, 1763-1856, Nevius documents the story of marronage (escape from slavery), the slavery-based economy, and the construction of internal improvements in the Great Dismal Swamp.

The vast wetland of the swamp, which spans nearly 2,000 miles, is a stretch of marshland between Norfolk, Virginia, and Elizabeth City, North Carolina. White locals often called the area uninhabitable, and enslavers would send Black Americans to harvest timber from the swamp. Before long, small communities of self-emancipated slaves began to live and work in the Swamp and other remote regions, forming and reforming colonies, said Nevius, and leading to the development of resource-based economies that made the Black resistance communities possible.

Nevius traveled to the Great Dismal Swamp and spent a month researching his book, which he started working on nearly a decade ago as a masters student at North Carolina Central University.

He found his book topic while sitting in a Latin American history course at Central, where they were discussing Black resistance in the Latin American context. He said he found that historians had been studying and writing about marronage, a form of Black resistance in which enslaved Africans would escape into different regions throughout the Caribbean. Eventually, the numbers of these formerly enslaved Africans would grow into communities where they would be able to defend their land. But, Nevius said, he was curious as to why there wasnt as much scholarship about marronage in American history.

History as a profession is notoriously slow, said Nevius. I knew that it was part of the expectation when I chose to pursue it. It just takes a really long time to read what we have to read, to conduct the primary research we have to and be fortunate enough to travel to the places we need to go. And actually have the time to reflect upon that work.

He added, Thats really a process that I believe very deeply in. And even in this world, we need it.

And while some school districts in America are just now beginning to change their history lessons to include the reality of Black resistance, Nevius said there needs to be a concerted effort to emphasize context and historical change over time.

New histories and new lesson plans highlight the ways that slavery shaped our early nation, generating a legacy that carried into the 20th century, said Nevius.

School districts, Nevius explained, have long followed what administrators, school committees and boards decide about which subjects count or have value.

For too long, histories of Black culture have counted for little more than limited discussion during Black History months, as opposed to being central to the way that we approach the history of the United States, said Nevius.

Not teaching how the true history of Black resistance has shaped American policy, politics and policing has led to competing views of American history, Nevius said, and is tied to the political polarization the U.S. sees itself in today.

The history of vigilance and control of Black bodies, rooted in a fear of Black culture as unknown, is in some ways still manifest in antiquated approaches to policing today, said Nevius. But here, too, change is on the horizon.

Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @alexagagosz.

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Documenting the true history of Black resistance - The Boston Globe

As we begin 2021, businesses face a complex matrix of challenges from rising geo-economic tensions to the urgency of the climate crisis. With less than 10 years to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Decade to Deliver is underway, and leaders must act for impact now.

Transitioning to a holistic circular economic model is critical to reducing environmental degradation and prioritizing biodiversity and nature, while also delivering on future competitiveness. In a circular economy, waste is designed out, and products are instead looped back into the production system at end of use. Consequently, growth is decoupled from the consumption of scarce resources, and materials are kept within productive use for as long as possible.

The circular economy presents a unique market opportunity upwards of $4.5 trillion by 2030. Accelerating this transition relies on the uptake of innovative new business models and disruptive technological innovation. Alongside prioritization of new business models, which now account for roughly 30% of M&A investment according to Accenture analysis, adopting new digital, physical and biological technologies can drive new opportunities and deliver on organizations triple bottom line.

Forging a path to a truly circular economy requires collaboration across the ecosystem. Today, multinational organizations with increasingly complex supply chains and processes can struggle to maintain a pulse on ever-advancing circular innovation, while at times can also lack the capabilities required to embrace new modes of operation in the transition to circular business. By contrast, entrepreneurs have the disruptive solutions to solve these challenges, but may lack the capital, resources or enabling networks to replicate and scale their solutions at pace.

How can we solve this mismatch across the ecosystem? Through successfully connecting multinational actors with disruptive players, stakeholders across the value chain are empowered to fully embrace innovation, to prioritize targeted business models for impact, and respond effectively to new global challenges. The Circulars Accelerator evolved from the highly successful Circulars Awards program is led by Accenture in partnership with Anglo American, Ecolab and Schneider Electric and hosted digitally on the World Economic Forums platform for SDG innovation, UpLink.

The program will connect leading global organizations prioritizing circular innovation with disruptors seeking to scale circular solutions. Through a mutually beneficial program of mentorship, collaborative innovation and strategic alliances, the Accelerators mission is to expedite the global circular transition, creating value and impact for early- to growth-stage innovators and established partners alike, while strengthening the circular ecosystem through action-focused partnership.

The Circulars Accelerator attracted over 200 exciting, unique and diverse entrants in its first call for applications. Following a highly competitive, multi-stage selection process, 17 outstanding start-ups have been selected for participation in the programme. Start-ups are categorized against one of three solution types required for circular transformation, which together collectively span the full value chain and respond to particular circular challenges: Innovating Products and Production, Transforming Consumption and Recovering Value. Examples from each are spotlighted below.

The Innovating Products and Production cluster captures innovators working to design and deliver pioneering products, packaging and manufacturing solutions, harnessing new design approaches and material and ingredient innovation. One such innovator changing the state of play is Malaysia-based innovator, StixFresh, whose patented technology extends the shelf life of fresh produce by up to 14 days. StixFreshs 100% plant-based stickers, the size of a 50-cent coin, biologically reconstruct the self-defence compounds of select fresh fruits, creating a natural barrier to slow down decay reactions caused by bacterial or fungal activity. It is estimated that one third of all food produced globally goes to waste, making reducing food waste the number one solution to fighting the climate crisis.

A step further along the value chain, Transforming Consumption addresses the reality that we currently consume 1.75 times more resources each year than the Earth can naturally regenerate, and we are on course to more than double resource use by 2050. Here, innovators are working to conceptualize new models of circular consumption, including product-as-a-service, product-use extension (e.g. repairs, secondary marketplaces), and sharing platforms. Algramo is a Chilean start-up whose omni-channel, cross-brand platform technology enables brands and retailers to sell goods to consumer using smart reusable packaging for the lowest possible prices. Algramos packaging distribution system incorporates Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies to enable innovations such as their patented Packaging as a Wallet technology and IoT-connected vending machines. It is estimated that converting 20% of plastic packaging into reuse models presents a $10 billion opportunity, making rethinking packaging both a significant business priority in addition to having environmental imperative.

The Recovering Value cluster prioritizes solutions which close the loop on our existing and no longer fit for purpose take, make, waste linear system. This group of successful innovators have established novel ways to enable product reuse and the recovery of embedded value from waste or end-of-use products. Mint Innovation, an exciting New Zealand-based urban mining company, are developing low-cost, scalable processes for recovering valuable metals from e-waste streams. It is estimated by the UN that over $10 billion of precious metals get disposed of as e-waste annually. Mint Innovations clean processes use hydrometallurgy and biotechnology to minimize this waste stream, and enable a full circular economy in precious metals. Having recently secured $20 million in funding, Mint Innovation plan to commission biorefineries in the UK and Australia; these plants will have the capacity to process up to 3,500 tons of e-waste each year.

Stay in the loop with the impactful circular journeys of Cohort 21 by following The Circulars social media or join the new Circulars Community on UpLink the World Economic Forums digital platform for crowdsourced innovation towards the UN SDGs where you can join the movement by getting involved in challenges, opportunities and dialogues to drive applied innovation at speed and scale.

Join us to welcome the cohort of 2021 and to officially launch The Circulars Accelerator at 14:00 CET on 11 February 2021. You can watch the event here.

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The circular economy can save the planet if we start innovating now - World Economic Forum

Last January 28, I had the opportunity, on the invitation of the Foundation for National Interest (FNI) and the UP Institute for Maritime Affairs and Law of the Sea (IMALOS), to participate as a panelist in the fifth Kwentong Mandaragat webinar series which focused on the Philippine Blue Economy: Opportunities and Challenges for Sustainable Marine Economic Development. The webinar centered on optimizing the benefits and opportunities offered by the archipelagic configuration of the country and at the same time identify measures to address the increasing threats to the sustainability of the marine ecosystem.

The problems affecting our maritime domain are varied as they are complex and which continue to escalate due to neglect by and apathy of those who are bestowed the task of protecting the maritime space and by those who either carry out their trade at sea or who exploit the countrys marine resources and bounty. Illegal, unregulated, and unreported fishing or IUU which include the use of unsustainable fishing methods, discharge of harmful and noxious substances into the marine environment, marine litter, and other practices continue to exact severe damage to the seas and marine resources.

Still, it is reassuring some care to save and revive the health of the archipelagos waters; and for them there is no backtracking, only going forward in trying to nurse back an ailing marine environment. The FNI and the UP-IMALOS brought together subject matter experts who shared their respective agencies/organizations initiatives, plans, and programs aimed at promoting the blue economy concept, as an essential approach to an archipelago like the Philippines.

Once again, the widely-held perception about this archipelagos remarkable bias towards terrestrial-based national planning was articulated by the panelists. Could this explain why there are not many who go into marine-related professions? Alternatively, would the dearth of practitioners and experts on marine-related undertaking contributory to the diminishing advocacies towards sea-based national development planning?

Expanding the maritime human resource beyond seafaring

As a maritime nation, the Philippines may have overlooked, maybe unintentionally, one of its most important assets its maritime human resource. Who are they? Where are they? If we concede that the Philippines is a maritime nation then it follows that every Filipino should be considered as potentially belonging to the countrys maritime human resource.

The concept that seafarers are the only maritime professionals in this archipelago is misleading. Numerous marine-related professions, jobs, and livelihood are available, although seafaring appears to be most appealing to the young population. Not even naval architecture could come close to attracting an equal number of academic enrollees.

There is no need to publicize the seafaring career because attracting young students to join the merchant marine profession is prompted by following the footsteps of a seafarer in the family, sometimes even by neighbors who had it good as a shipboard crew. The dream of becoming a seafarer is rooted in the mind of the young due to their wide exposure to the many seafarers this country has produced.

How do we get the young Filipino attracted to marine-related careers other than in the merchant marine profession? There are close to a hundred maritime higher education institutions offering merchant marine education as compared to the few higher education academies with marine-science or oceanography or fisheries programs, mostly by State universities and government-run schools. The low enrolment rate for the non-seafaring programs hinders privately-operated schools from offering the same.

Maybe it is about time agencies tasked with the function of overseeing the marine-based economy including those with a specific mandate of developing a maritime human resource to seriously consider changing mindsets fixed on seafaring by launching a sustained program of informing the population of the opportunities offered by this maritime nation, of the critical need to fill marine-based jobs and undertaking.

For the Philippines to be truly a maritime nation requires developing Filipinos who think maritime!

Originally posted here:

Building on the blue economy The Manila Times - The Manila Times

We have a complicated relationship with resources and materials.We continue to extract, to create, use andoverwhelminglywaste.

This not only creates a mammoth amount of human-made items in our natural world, but it leaks greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Billions of tonnes of them.

Its not all bad news though: this article considers how we can break free of our toxic relationship and reevaluate the values that have exacerbated our warming climate. Here, the findings of the Circularity Gap Report 2021 show us what is possible and within reach.

Roadmap

The circular economy provides the ingredients for an astonishingly rich transformation of how we produce, design and consume. With circularity, we are envisioning an economy that is low-carbon and regenerative by design.

Current national emissions-reducing pledgesNationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)overwhelmingly focus on the energy transition and moving to non-fossil sources.

Although undoubtedly important, this narrow focus will not bring us to where we need to be: limiting global temperatures to well below 2-degrees, and ideally 1.5-degrees.

Even if all NDCs are implemented, the rise in temperatures is still forecast to hit 3.2-degrees this century.

Our Circularity Gap Report outlines 21 circular economy strategies that prioritise using materials less and for longer. If implemented, the circular roadmap can keep temperatures to well below 2-degrees by 2032.

Industries

It can also close the globe's current circularity gap of 91.4 percent the mass of materials that are not cycled into the economy by a further 8.4 percent.

And we are optimistic that change can happen. Our report gives world leaders a roadmap of circular strategies that can be integrated into current and upcoming climate pledges.

As governments design post covid stimulus packages, they are making decisions on how to spend capital to build back better and help set new goals for resilience and preparedness. These decisions will shape our future climate.

Climate mitigation efforts are centered around industries with high and verifiable historical GHG emissions: namely, energy tied to electricity, heat, construction, transportation and manufacturing.

Often Efforts result in making existing assets or incumbent industries more efficientrather than exploring truly sustainable or transformable alternatives.

Consumption

The circular economy can sytemically transform our society. Its core tenets design out waste and pollution, keep products and materials in use for longer and regenerate natural systems. But how exactly does narrowing the circularity gap close the Emissions Gap?

Of the 59.1 billion tonnes of emissions we release every year, 70 percentof these can be traced back to resource extraction, processing and use. Only 30 percentgo toward energy needs (heating and cooling our homes, fuelling passenger transport from A to B).

This means that to really make a dent in global emissions, we need to look toward material processes and how they feed into satisfying our lifestyles; from the food we eat and the cars we drive to the clothes we wear.

Circular economy strategies that transform how we produce, design and consume within our economies are powerful because they require fewer resources for the sameif not betteroutput for society, and with fewer GHGemissions.

Circular strategies at the intersection of materials and emissions hotspots in the economy can increase value-retention and cut excessive consumption, thereby slashing GHGs.

Mitigation

The Circularity Gap Report finds that circular strategies have the power to axe global emissions by a massive 39 percentand cut virgin resource extraction by 28 percent. Housing, nutrition and mobility are the areas in which the most impactful circular strategies largely fall.

In housing, more efficient use of buildings in reducing floor space had the largest impact. Smaller spaces need fewer finite resources to build, and requireless heating and energy.

In transport, supply chain efficiencies such as the circular design of vehicles leads the way in terms of impact, as vehicles that use recycled content or are more durable have longer lifetimes and mitigate the need for virgin resources.

And in nutrition, a healthy diet that includes more satiating, unprocessed and nutrient-dense, as well as plant-based, foods reduces the carbon and material footprint of how we feed ourselves. This diet ultimately requires less carbon-, water-, feed- and space-intensive calories: livestock, for example.

By now, hopefully, you are convinced that the climate mitigation agenda must look towards our relationship with resources and materials to make major gains in mitigationand that the circular strategies to address this are in reach.

Obsolescence

Although we need resources to sustain our livesin the same way some emissions will always be dispersedthere is a problem with our reliance on and inefficiency with virgin resources.

Our 2020 Circularity Gap Reportshowedthat our annual material use exceeds 100 billion tonnes of materials every year. Its basically tripled over the last five decades and is forecast to amount to between 170 and 184 billion tonnes by 2050. This is a lot of stuff.

Many scholars have commented on the post-second World War value-shift where having more 'stuff' be it a car, a house or the newest kitchen blender began to be increasingly equitable with success, especially in the West. This consumption heavy culture has been taking its toll on our planet.

This value-system, however, appears to have seeped into many of the cultures around the world; and its proving hard to shake.

In business, the idea of planned obsolescence that artificially shortens products life spans, became more and more common from the 1930s onwards.

Civilisations

For years we have cursed our phones short or unreliable standing, but until recently, this wasnt even considered a bad business practice. The linear economy and its take-make-waste habits are deeply ingrained in the global economy.

But history warns us that taking our natural resources for granted can spell disaster. Many civilisations have died out for this very reason. According to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jared Diamond in Collapse, multiple failed civilisationsfrom the Anasazi of North America to Vikings of Greenlandall share a history of fundamental use and abuse of the natural world. They also share the trait of ignoring the early warning signs.

Early warning signals are not always obvious. We know this: global heating hasn't occurred in a structured way. Global temperatures have fluctuated and rises have been incremental.

We tend not to notice the signs until the issue is so prominent it feels as if it suddenly arrived on our doorstep; an unwelcome guest. This may be especially true in the global West, which is largely responsible for the emissions that feed into climate breakdown, but don't yet bear the brunt of its impacts.

Diamond suggests that to succeed, civilisations need long-term planningespecially in making anticipatory decisions before crisis proportions are reached.

Journey

Now, in 2021, the political climate leading up to the COP26 foreshadows promising change.

The EU parliament has voted in favour of increasing the targets of Member States, aiming for a 60 percentreduction in emissions by 2030; the Biden Presidency rejoined the Paris Agreement; a host of nations have pledged for zero-carbon futures.

Countries around the world have an excellent opportunity to formulate more defined blueprints, supported by circular strategies, towards closing the emissions and circularity gaps. Perhaps we can start to be optimistic that our 21st-century civilisation is learning from the warnings of our past.

One thing that the Circularity Gap Report makes clear is that this journey will look different depending on where you live around the world. Governments must adapt their approach when striving for long-term, circular change and we have categorised countries within three broad groups: Build, Grow and Shift.

Build: Some countries have more biomass-orientated economies and emit fewer GHG emissions, but may also struggle to deliver solid healthcare or education.

Referred to as the Build profile in our report, countries such as those in Sub-Saharan Africa and Pakistan are included.

Their priority areas to slash emissions and increase circularity would include reforming agricultural practices away from monocropping and deforestation; applying circular thinking across the much-needed construction; ensuring infrastructure for distributed and accessible mobility in growing cities and combining informal and formal waste management infrastructure.

Grow: In the Grow profile are countries that are manufacturing and export hubs, which host a growing middle-class. Latin American and larger Asian countries, like China, are included in this profile.

Given their national contexts, priorities for the circular transition include prioritising sustainable agriculture, especially in products set for export; mainstreaming resource-efficient and low-carbon construction materials; satiating the growing appetite for energy with renewable sources where possible and establishing infrastructure for effective material cycling, including construction and demolition waste.

Shift: Lastly, our report considers Shift countries: these are high-income and high-emitters.

Solution

For countries in this profile, like much of Europe and the US, priorities include taking responsibility for and reducing consumption by integrating circular strategies across construction, mobility, nutrition and consumer goods by transitioning from ownership to sharing models; making the most of goodsfrom buildings to vehiclesbefore, during and after their functional lifetimes and optimising how waste is valorised in the already mature waste management systems.

As calls for action intensify, the solutions are here. Now, this is the year of truth. With 2020 struck by covid-19, lockdowns around the globe not only contributed to a sharp decline in emissions, but also accelerated decommissioning of fossil assets. Despite this progress being unintended and arguably temporary, it can teach us valuable lessons to translate into structural changeand now, the world seems to be listening.

Our report gives world leaders a roadmap of circular strategies that can be integrated into current and upcoming climate pledges. It also informs governments on how to spend capital to build back better. We must not fall back on business-as-usual which could leave us vulnerable, divided and susceptible to the mistakes of history. Destructive and instructive as the pandemic proved, it is ultimately climate breakdown that will be the biggest global health-threat of the century.

In a time of building back better, the circular economy has never been more relevant. Circular strategies can, and must, form a massive part of the solution to this global crisis.

This Author

Laxmi Haighcompletedher MSc in 2017 andhas worked as a writer, editor and journalist. She now works at Circle Economy and was one of the lead authors of the Circularity Gap Report 2021, launched on January 26th.Read the 2021 Circularity Gap Report here.

Original post:

The circularity gap and climate emissions - The Ecologist

The Bureau of Land Management is tasked with overseeing the nations public lands for a variety of uses.

This story was originally published by CPR News and is republished here by permission.

When youre located in a place that has no public lands at all, you just dont understand it, said Robin Brown, executive director of the Grand Junction Economic Partnership.

Its just one of the reasons shes glad that, after years of talking about moving, the Bureau of Land Management headquarters relocated its headquarters from Washington, D.C. to the Western Slope of Colorado, a place with lots of public lands.

On top of that, Brown celebrates the fact that its been a boon to the local economy, bringing jobs and theyre high wage jobs. and the cachet that comes with being the home of the BLM headquarters also doesnt hurt, either.

But more than a year after the move became official, others hold a dimmer view of its results.

The move caused a lot of damage to the agency, said Scott Braden, director of the Colorado Wildlands Project, a group working to conserve BLM-managed public lands in Colorado.

He also previously served on a BLM Resource Advisory Council.

I feel like it hasnt been a fully functional headquarters, Braden said.

The Department of the Interior released numbers at the end of January showing that of the 328 D.C.-based BLM headquarter employees whose jobs were moved to offices in the West,only 41 stayed with the agency. The rest just over 87% retired or found employment elsewhere. With vacancies at the top of the agency and the pandemic shifting many people to remote work just as the Grand Junction office was opening, its unclear how many staff are currently located in Grand Junction.

Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Center for Western Priorities, described the move in blunt terms.

This headquarters move has just been a total failure, Weiss said.

Some people would argue thattrimming governmentis not necessarily a bad thing, and supporters of the move have argued that BLM employees unwilling to relocate closer to the lands they managewerent a good fit for the agency anyway. But for Weiss, the numbers confirmed his worst fears about the Trump administrations real motivation.

The headquarters move was not a move. It was simply an evisceration of the agency.

The headquarters move was not a move. It was simply an evisceration of the agency, Weiss said.

Some Democrats in Congress raised other concerns. They said there was a lack of transparency over simple questions like how many people were actually planning to move or even a detailed cost-benefit analysis to accompany the justification. The lack of information created a weak foundationfor large congressional supportfor the move.

The Bureau of Land Managements Grand Junction, Colorado, office is housed in this office building on Horizon Drive.

Nick Bowlin/High Country News

So, what to do about a move as messy as the BLM? Thats the question now facing the Biden administration.

Its much more complex than asking where a person should work. And everyone with a stake in the BLM has ideas. Weiss thinks the place to start is with a clear assessment of how hollowed out the agency really is.

Once we know what the damage is, then you can start to make a plan for how to rebuild the agency, he explained.

That means looking atwhy people left and it just wasnt the move. Most employees knew that was anoption for years before it became a reality. Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner first brought up the possibility of moving an agency like the BLM out west in June 2016, during a hearing with then-director Neil Kornze.

There were other reasons people were looking for the exits.

There hasnt been a confirmed director of the agency since the end of the Obama administration. President Donald Trump didnt nominate someone to fill that role until his final year in office, when he nominated then-acting director William Perry Pendley, a controversial figure who at one point called for the sale of public lands, and whosenomination was pulled.

The Trump administration also took a different view of career staff than the previous administration. Numerous accounts of the White House described the president dismissing their opinions and suggesteda deep-seated distrust of career civil servants.

It's been incredibly hard to see our civil servants so degraded over the past four years, said Christy Goldfuss, with the Center for American Progress.

She also co-wrote a roadmap of climate recommendations,Climate 21, for the new administration, which includes moving BLM headquarters back to D.C.

Goldfuss said there was a dramatic sea change in the agencys focus from the Obama administration to the Trump administration.

I dont think we're ever going to see the kind of shift that weve seen in the past four years, she said.

The BLMs mandate is wide-ranging its responsible for balancing multiple uses on 245 million acres of surface public lands and 700 million acres of subsurface minerals in the western U.S., everything from hiking and hunting to grazing and energy. While Obama put the focus onclimate and renewables, the Trump administrationaimed to maximize energy production, oil and gas in particular.

Steve Ellis, who worked for the agency for 38 years, rising to become deputy director of operations under the Obama administration, said President Joe Biden must think through where the BLM needs to go.

Dont look in the rearview mirror, but look forward, Ellis said. Focus on the future. Solidify what you want the BLM to be and then organize around that.

Ellis, who has and continues to be an outspoken critic of the move, thinks Grand Junction could still play a role in the bureaus future. And hes not alone.

I think that its difficult to rescue a decision that I believe was made in bad faith by the last administration, but Im optimistic, Braden said. Im optimistic that the BLM can find a way forward that maintains a headquarters in Grand Junction.

But Braden is quick to add it would have to share that title with a central office in Washington, D.C. Most people think the best Grand Junction can hope for is to get demoted to western headquarters or hub.

Whatever you call it, Nada Culver, vice president for public lands for the National Audubon Society, said the BLM as its currently structured isnt really working.

Right now, its not able to function because there isnt a headquarters in D.C. and there isnt a real headquarters in Grand Junction. You know, I think everyone can agree on that, she said.

Culver adds the Biden administration should avoid repeats of past mistakes, like having some immediate edict that says now you shall all have to move, even if that move is a return to D.C.

Signs for Rep. Lauren Boebert could be found all across Colorado's 3rd Congressional District, which includes Grand Junction, in the lead-up to the 2020 elections.

Caitlyn Kim/CPR News

Theres a saying in Washington: If youre not at the table, youre on the menu. As much as people like to criticize the D.C. bubble, its a bubble for a reason.

Government operations are centralized there, and Ellis argues you want the decision-makers where the decisions are being made, especially with regards to their agency. They need a chance to form relationships, friendships with leaders across government.

I could never have developed those relationships on Zoom, on conference calls or an occasional fly in from the West, Ellis said.

Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, who represents the district, takes a different view.

It only makes sense to have the people managing hundreds of millions of acres of land located near that land and accessible to those communities, she said during a tele-town hall recently.

But Braden points out the move didnt stop D.C. from overruling one of the biggest recent decisions BLM made about lands in Colorado. After years of community input and work with BLM field directors on theUncompahgre Resources Management Plan, it was changed by the Interior Department in D.C. to better align with the Trump administrations focus on energy dominance.

That was, sort of, in contradiction from a lot of the messaging we were hearing that (this) moves D.C. leadership and decision-making closer to the community served, he said.

Coloradohas filed suit against the BLMover the plan.

Braden and others also counter that the bureau could better serve communities by empowering its state directors or field managers.

Still, Boebertwrote a letterto the Biden administration, one that other House Republicans including Colorado Reps. Ken Buck and Doug Lamborn signed onto, touting easier access to leaders, better decision-making and lower costs if the headquarters stays in Grand Junction.

Weiss doesn't expect it to have much impact.

Lauren Boebert has zero sway with the Biden administration, he said.

It's not just that she's a Republican and a freshman, but her actions from her combative tweets to her objection to the election certification dont set her up as someone the administration will likely be eager to negotiate with.

And that's certainly not a good starting point when it comes to BLM headquarters, Weiss said.

This trail system is located in the Book Cliffs of Colorado, less than 25 miles from the current BLM headquarters.

Instead, just as Gardner was the focal point of negotiations with the Trump administration on the move, many expect it will be on Colorado's Democrats to make the case now for Grand Junction.

Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper sent ajoint letterto Biden arguing the problem with the Grand Junction office is mainly that not enough positions are located there. Most people, including Brown, were expecting hundreds of headquarters staff to move to Grand Junction, far more than the 41 currently allocated there.

We continue to support a full BLM headquarters in Grand Junction. We believe that such an effort must be more than symbolic and must include the staff and resources to improve management and protect our public land, they wrote.

Gov. Jared Polis sent hisown letter, too, saying hes extremely supportive of the Bureau of Land Management keeping and expanding their national headquarters in our great state.

I think the only thing that will save the BLM headquarters in Grand Junction is a true bipartisan effort from the entire Colorado delegation, a coordinated effort, Robin Brown said.

That might be easier said than done given the current personalities and the lack of a coordinated bipartisan delegation letter, although the letters from Boebert and the senators both urged the president to work across the aisle on the issue.

Brown has organized a round table with the senators, the governor and 20 municipalities today to work on a game plan for their lobbying effort and come up with deliverables to make the headquarters a truly viable one.

She admits shes disappointed by the partisan tinge the move has taken on, but she sees it as a microcosm of whats happening across every issue and decision being made at the federal level. She is hoping the Interior Secretary-designate, Deb Haaland, who has been critical of the move, will come out to Grand Junction in person.

The Interior Department said in a statement that its new leadership will work with BLM career staff to understand the ramifications of the headquarters move and determine if any adjustments need to be made.

Caitlyn Kim is the public affairs reporter for CPR News, based in Washington, D.C.EmailHigh Country Newsat[emailprotected]or submit aletter to the editor.

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Should BLM be closer to Western communities or Congress? - High Country News