The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance is a left-of-center environmentalist organization founded in the 1980s to oppose any sort of commercialization or energy production in the “desert wildlands” of Utah, collectively known as “America’s redrock wilderness.” While it is a Utah-based group, the group also operates a Washington, D.C. office and conducts federal congressional and regulatory advocacy as well as legal advocacy, frequently suing government agencies such as the Bureau of Land Management over its oil leasing policies.

The group opposes any sort of commercialization in the existing Red Rock wilderness including “oil and gas development, unnecessary road construction, [and] rampant off-road vehicle use.” It has been the primary organization behind the America’s Red Rocks Wilderness Act, which has been introduced in every Congress since the late 1980s and would permanently prevent use of the area with the goal of keeping significant oil and gas resources from being utilized. ^{1 2 3}

Background

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance was founded in 1983 and describes itself as the only organization dedicated to permanently preventing any commercial development or energy extraction of land in the red rock wilderness of southern Utah. The group supports “administrative and legislative initiatives to permanently protect the Colorado Plateau wild places within the National Park and National Wilderness Preservation System, or by other protective designations where appropriate.” ⁴

A 2023 newsletter article from the organization celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the SUWA detailed the beginnings of the organization and its early fights with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). The organization called Reagan administration Interior Secretary James Watt the “embodiment of anti-environmental extremism.” The group has continually clashed with and sued the BLM during both Republican and Democratic presidential administrations. The group worked with state and federal activists to craft the America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, a Democratic-led bill that was first introduced in 1989 and has been introduced in every subsequent Congress. ⁵

Many of the efforts of the organization since its founding have been focused on nationalizing the issue of preserving the Utah wilderness, and the group established a Washington, D.C. office in 1990. ⁶

Activities

In addition to the continual advocacy to pass the America’s Red Rocks Wilderness Act bill, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance has also advocated for the establishment of a variety of “national monuments” that prevent large swaths of land along with specific geographic features from being commercialized or otherwise tampered with. The group expresses decidedly left-of-center to far-left climate and social views and strongly opposed efforts from the Trump administration to reduce the size of monuments such as the Bear Ears National Monument and the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. ^{7 8}

The organization is also opposed to any usage of fossil fuels and opposes the extraction of such fuels in or anywhere near public lands, which encompass the majority of several western states. The group has sued to block any drilling permits applied for to the Bureau of Land Management and has continued to challenge many of the oil and gas policies of the Biden Administration. ⁹

The group is also decidedly left-of-center on social issues, calling Black Lives Matter “the other BLM, the principled one” as a slight to the Bureau of Land Management. ¹⁰

Leadership

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance’s board of directors includes Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss; Kerry Schumann, president of the Wisconsin Conservation Voters; and Sharon Buchino, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. ^{11 12 13 14}

1. “About.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://suwa.org/about-suwa/
2. “America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://suwa.org/issues/arrwa/
3. “SUWA 2022 Annual Report.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://suwa.org/suwa-2022-annual-report/
4. “About.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://suwa.org/about-suwa/
5. “Redrock Wilderness: Newsletter of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Summer 2023. Accessed October 22, 2023. http://suwa.org/wp-content/uploads/Summer2023_WEB.pdf
6. “Redrock Wilderness: Newsletter of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Summer 2023. Accessed October 22, 2023. http://suwa.org/wp-content/uploads/Summer2023_WEB.pdf
7. “Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://suwa.org/issues/grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument/
8. “Bear Ears National Monument.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://suwa.org/issues/bears-ears-americas-first-truly-native-american-national-monument/
9. “Dirty Fuels.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://suwa.org/issues/dirty-fuels/
10. “Redrock Wilderness: Newsletter of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Summer 2020. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://suwa.org/wp-content/uploads/Summer2020_WEB.pdf
11. “SUWA Board of Directors.” Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://suwa.org/about-suwa-2/suwa-board-of-directors/
12. “Sharon Buccino.” Natural Resources Defense Council. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://www.nrdc.org/bio/sharon-buccino
13. “Kerry Schumann.” Wisconsin Conservation Voters. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://conservationvoters.org/team-members/kerry-schumann
14. “Hansjorg Wyss.” Forbes. Accessed October 22, 2023. https://www.forbes.com/profile/hansjoerg-wyss/?sh=793e353466c0