onX Wants To Make It Easier To Make Your Voice Heard On Public Land Issues

"Stop touching my land," and send!

Photo by: Justin W. Coffey, WESTx1000

By: Jonathon Klein

Aug 6, at 8:45am ET

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In case you've missed it, our public lands are under attack. The current U.S. administration has been hellbent on selling off, leasing, or downright giving our public land away in search of mineral deposits, oil and natural gas, and housing developments, among other reasons, and sold to billionaires and foreign companies, or in the false name of security.

The American people, however, have continually countered these attacks, telling the powers-that-be that we don't want these sell-offs, giveaways, or seizures by emailing, calling, or protesting these actions in person. It's why the land sell-off in the "Big Beautiful Bill" last summer failed so spectacularly. It's also why those who'd continue trying to get rid of public lands have turned to other, more opaque methods to enact their wants.

"If you make it harder to speak out, the less likely folks are to fight against us," is the basic premise.

Luckily for you, me, and every other public land user, our friends over at onX want to make it easier for us to make our voices heard, and for the federal government, along with state agencies, too, to be unable to ignore the will of the people with a new Public Comment website that lets all of us speak our minds and tell our elected officials, "Not. One. Acre."

Called the Public Land Comment Hub, onX's idea was to organize all the public comment period applications, i.e., the time when the public can comment on proposed changes to public lands, and make it easier for everyone to, well, comment on those proposed changes.

The landing page, which is hosted on onX's website, details all the current and live comment periods within the Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the National Park Service, and US Fish and Wildlife. According to the company, "The free resource helps hunters, anglers, off-roaders, hikers, backcountry skiers and other public land users discover plans and proposals that could impact the places where they recreate, understand what’s being considered, and connect directly to official agency portals to submit comments."

It added, "The Public Comment Hub aggregates active public comment periods and agency-wide proposals from the U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Users can explore decisions geographically, filter opportunities by agency, review summaries of proposed actions, see approaching deadlines, and follow links to the appropriate federal agency website."

At the time of writing, there are currently 62 open comment periods spread across the United States, and range from policy reviews, the Wild Bird Conservation Act, changes to current laws regarding marine mammals in Alaska, changes to the Endangered Species Act, oil and gas leasing that'd impact our public lands and ability to off-road, among others. And, honestly, this is welcome, as knowing when and where to make our voices heard on issues is one of the hardest things to parse out these days, as the federal bureaucracy has made it difficult to actually comment on these issues. And for good reason, they don't actually want to hear from us.

Speaking ahead of the release of the Public Land Comment Hub, onX's CEO, Laura Orvidas, said, "The people who spend time on public lands have firsthand knowledge of these places and a meaningful stake in the decisions that shape them. By bringing public comment opportunities and proposals from multiple federal agencies into a single resource, the Public Land Comment Hub helps people understand what is being considered and how they can participate in the official process. This is a natural extension of our commitment to creating tools that connect people more deeply with the places they care about."

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You can click here to visit the page and make your voice heard.

Good work, onX.