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About Us
The Coalition for Public Access (CPA) is a group of citizens who are adamantly opposed to any Wilderness Area designation in Esmeralda, Douglas, Lyon, and Mineral Counties, Nevada. The CPA was formed in February 2008 when some of our members discovered that the Nevada Wilderness Project (NWP) had proposed that 288,000 acres in Esmeralda, Lyon, and Mineral counties be designated as Wilderness Area. Since then, the CPA has learned that the figure has grown to 692,000 acres and now includes land in Douglas County, Nevada and Mono County, Ca. The CPA database now contains in excess of 1000 names of individuals all of whom stated they are opposed to Wilderness Area designations as proposed by the Nevada Wilderness Project.
Why does the CPA oppose Wilderness Area designations? CPA members use this land for both productive and leisure activities including: cattle and sheep grazing, woodcutting, mining, military training, researching historical sites, hunting, trapping, fishing, camping, hiking, biking, bird watching, horseback riding, sage grouse or endangered species preservation, land restoration, snowmobiling, grave site visitation, Native American interests, and for OHV purposes. Additionally, much of this land is currently being explored as to its suitability for solar, wind, and geo-thermal energy production. Should any of this land be designated as Wilderness Areas, all of these activities will be either severely restricted or completely prohibited. In addition, restricting and/or prohibiting these uses will have a dramatic negative impact on the economy of the area and the small business owners who rely on the users of these public lands as the main source of their income.
Our Mission: To work as hard as we can to block any Wilderness Area designation on the land circumscribed and proposed by the Nevada Wilderness Project by garnering the support of our local, state, and federal officials to oppose these Wilderness Area designations; to educate all the people we can as to the harm that will be caused to our communities, economy, environment, culture, way of life, and heritage that will result from this land being designated as a Wilderness Area.