Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of guest commentaries online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.
At a rally this summer in St. Cloud, Donald Trump promised that if elected, he’d reverse the Biden/Harris administration’s historic 20-year Boundary Waters protections in the first 10 minutes in office, promising to open up the iconic landscape to industrial mining pollution. That would be a disaster.
Minnesota’s canoe country is an intact 1.1 million acres of boreal forest, lakes, rivers and wetlands that are home to loons, eagles, wolves and lynx. It is America’s largest wilderness area east of the Rockies and a rare, unpolluted, interconnected watery ecosystem where paddlers are known to dip their cups into the middle of lakes and drink directly from the waters.
Today, we enjoy the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) because generations of people have fought to protect it, in part by electing champions who ensured that the landscape would remain intact and ecologically healthy. The list of elected officials who have stood strong for the Boundary Waters is long, but the threats the wilderness faces today mandate that we must once again vote for Boundary Waters champions.
Let’s start at the top: Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is a Boundary Waters champion, having worked diligently within the Biden administration to champion and enact the most protective measures for the BWCAW in 45 years. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, her running mate, has also been a strong supporter.
On the other hand, Republican nominee Trump is a grave threat to America’s natural landscapes. During his earlier term as president, Trump deliberately dismantled years of progress made toward protecting the Boundary Waters:
