Ever wondered how you can do more for public lands but you aren’t sure where to start? Outdoor Alliance’s Outdoor Allies series explores how other outdoor adventurers got their start in advocacy work and their advice for how you can harness your passion for the outdoors into advocacy for the land and water you love. Josh Jackson is a writer, photographer, guide, and leading voice for public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Through the Forgotten Lands Project, Josh employs immersive storytelling and striking visual narratives to inspire appreciation and engagement with our least understood, least protected, and largely unknown landscapes.

What do you like to do outside and how did you first get connected with the outdoors?

Camping was my first gateway to wild places, and my love for its simplicity hasn’t changed much since. I still love wrangling up a tent, sleeping on the ground, building a fire, and, perhaps best of all, that first morning cup of coffee after a night of sporadic sleep. Camping is one of those sublime pursuits that keeps me grounded on this pale-blue-dot we call home.

What led to your work advocating for the outdoors?

I am a writer and photographer by profession, and the author of The Enduring Wild—the first mainstream book dedicated to Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands. In response to the many threats these landscapes face, I founded the Forgotten Lands Project in 2020 with the mission of inspiring appreciation, engagement, and protection of BLM lands. These are our nation’s least known, least understood, and most vulnerable public lands—the scrappy underdogs that need a good story. Through immersive storytelling and collective advocacy, we aim to help more people see, experience, and value the beauty and significance of these places. If we hope to preserve and expand protections for BLM lands into the future, we will need a broader coalition of people who build meaningful connections with them today.

BLM managed Bodie Hills, photo by Josh Jackson

What are the big advocacy issues that you’ve worked on recently?

The biggest advocacy issue I’ve been working on is the growing push—led most visibly by Utah Senator Mike Lee—to sell off millions of acres of BLM land to the highest bidder. Framed as a fix for the housing crisis, the proposal lacked meaningful detail about who could purchase these lands, where they would come from, or how they would be used. To counter this threat, the public raised awareness through targeted social media campaigns, organized protests, and contributed photography from the very landscapes that were on the chopping block to show people what was truly at stake. While this land-sale scheme was ultimately stripped from the reconciliation package and the “Big Beautiful Bill,” we know Senator Lee and others will continue to revive it in new forms, and staying vigilant is critical.

What would you tell someone who is looking to get more involved in protecting the places they love/outdoor advocacy, but doesn’t know where to start?

I can’t possibly say enough about the tribal communities and conservation organizations and the important efforts they lead; they are the beating heart of engagement with BLM lands. All across the western US, these groups are on the ground working tirelessly to educate and engage their communities. They help protect access, enhance recreation, facilitate restoration projects, and engage in the tedious work around policy and resource management planning that helps shift the imbalance between protected and unprotected BLM lands. I would encourage everyone to find their nearest conservation nonprofit.

What makes BLM lands distinct from National Parks in terms of accessibility and use?

When visiting our beloved National Parks can sometimes feel like entering a museum— complete with parking lots, gift shops, and long lines—nature there can feel as if it’s behind a velvet rope. That “fortress” model of conservation has its place, and I’m grateful for it, but it often limits us to observation: we visit, admire, and then depart. BLM lands are different. They are open landscapes woven into daily life—no entrance fees, no reservation systems, often right on the doorsteps of rural communities, making them essential for local recreation and connection to open space. They are also homelands, places where Indigenous peoples have lived, worked, and stewarded since long before BLM was created, reminding us that reciprocity and care are not new ideas but deep traditions that continue today. That immediacy and flexibility—you can pull over, take a walk, camp, or hunt with relative freedom is part of what makes them distinct. Just as important, though, they invite a relationship of reciprocity: the freedom to recreate comes with an obligation to steward and care for these places in return.

Why is the diversity of recreation on BLM lands so important to protect?

My friend Andrew Fulks coined the term “equal opportunity recreationist,” which captures why BLM lands are so vital. Everyone’s path to the outdoors is uniquely their own, and acknowledging those varied avenues of connection is crucial as we face an uncertain future for landscapes and wildlife. On BLM lands, a family can picnic along a wild and scenic river, climbers can rope up on a sandstone wall, and OHV users can explore vast backroads — all within the same system. Protecting that spectrum of recreation means protecting one of the last places in America where different ways of experiencing land can coexist, and where people from very different backgrounds can find common ground. That includes honoring Indigenous peoples, whose long-standing relationships with these lands remind us that recreation is just one layer of connection alongside subsistence, ceremony, and cultural continuity. That broad coalition of nature advocates is exactly what we need as we confront the realities of climate change, biodiversity loss, and the ongoing imbalance between extraction and conservation.

They have just announced plans to rescind the Public Lands Rule for BLM managed lands. Can you tell us why that rule is important, and why the outdoor recreation community should continue to advocate for it?

For decades, BLM lands were managed primarily as a resource bank—places to lease, extract, and develop. Recreation and conservation came second. The Public Lands Rule aimed to change that by putting conservation and restoration on equal footing with extraction. That shift affirms that these lands are not just for industry, but for the people who fish, hike, camp, climb, hunt, and gather in them—and for the species that depend on them. For everyday users, it means their voices and values now have a seat at the table in how these lands are managed. Public lands are more than resources to be consumed; they are living landscapes that sustain both human and more-than-human communities.

Lightning round (one or two word answers)

Most used piece of gear: A 0 degree sleeping bag I purchased in 2012 after getting caught in a blizzard on the Pacific Crest Trail (with a 20 degree bag)

A place you want to go: The BLM managed Owyhee Canyonlands

Another advocate you admire: Obi Kaufmann: Author, Painter, Naturalist

Favorite close to home spot: Sand to Snow National Monument

Check out Josh’s book, ‘The Enduring Wild.’ Josh takes us on a road trip spanning thousands of miles, crisscrossing the Golden State to seek out the fifteen million acres of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Outdoor Allies : Josh Jackson