Public Trust

In a time of growing polarization, there is one thing a majority of Americans still share and agree on: Our 640 million acres of public lands should be protected. These wild places are intrinsic to our national identity, offer a solution to mitigate the climate crisis, provide habitat to animals large and small, and offer the most magnificent landscapes in the world. Through the work of Montana-based investigative journalist Hal Herring, Public Trust focuses on three land-based conflicts - the slashing of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah; the potential permanent destruction of the Boundary Waters Wilderness in Minnesota; and the de facto sale of one of the last wild places in America, the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The film makes a clear case for protecting our public lands and how the extractive industries, driven by only greed and profit, are trying to rob us and future generations of our shared American experience and heritage. (Big Sky Documentary Film Festival)