Event Details

Sigurd Olson Lecture Series

Speakers:  Nobby Riedy and Matt Keller

This talk will focus on wildlands in California and the use of the Antiquities Act as an effective land preservation tool.

California is the most biologically diverse state in the United States. It is also the most heavily populated state with about 39,000,000 residents. It has 75 cities with over 100,000 people each. More than 100 indigenous tribes are federally recognized. If it were a country, California would have the fifth largest economy in the world measured by GDP.

California has nearly 50 million acres of public domain lands; about one-quarter of the state, or 25 million acres, is permanently protected from development and extraction.

Federal wilderness areas and national parks account for much of the protected land. In addition, there are 18 national monuments in California protected under the Antiquities Act. Eight new national monuments, covering well over one million acres, have been proposed.

This 2024 Sigurd Olson Lecture will explain the use of the Antiquities Act as a land preservation tool using the history of national monuments in California. National monuments have a nearly one-hundred-year history in the state and have been essential in the establishment of the statewide network of protected landscapes.

Nobby Riedy has worked on conservation of public lands for nearly 40 years. He worked for The Wilderness Society in Washington, D.C. and in California. Afterward, he cofounded WildSpaces, a California lands-focused philanthropy to support the conservation of natural landscapes and biodiversity, and the benefits they provide to people. WildSpaces has over 100 grantees in California engaged in statewide, regional, and local campaigns to protect the natural world.

Matt Keller is the Campaigns Director at the Protection Campaign, a project of Resources Legacy Fund.  In this role, he serves as a funder and strategic advisor to grassroots organizations and tribal nations working to protect important landscapes.  Prior this, he spent nearly two decades at The Wilderness Society and The Wilderness Society Action Fund, leading advocacy campaigns to protect public lands across the nation, holding elected officials accountable, and supporting conservation friendly candidates for public office. Matt led the national monument’s campaign during the Obama Administration, which resulted in the permanent protection of nearly 5.5 million acres of public land.

This talk is in collaboration with the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters.