Idaho wilds was on Obama to-do list
In a weekend editorial, Opinion Editor Marty Trillhaase of the Lewiston Tribune comments:
As Barack Obama closes in on the end of his presidency, people are beginning to notice that he is not merely his generation's version of Teddy Roosevelt, the first conservation president.
Obama has eclipsed TR.
Roosevelt is famed for establishing 18 national monuments, five national parks and 150 national forests. He preserved 230 million acres.
As the New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert noted this week, Obama already has declared 27 national monuments, including adding almost 300 million acres to the Paphanaumokuakea Marine National Monument northwest of Hawaii.
Obama, presidential historian Douglas Brinkley recently wrote in the New York Times, has "emerged as a 21st-century Theodore Roosevelt for his protection of public lands and marine reserves."
And you can bet Idaho's Boulder-White Cloud range would have been No. 28 on the president's list of national monuments. More here.
Question: Did you realize that President Barack Obama was such a conservation-minded president?
