Dark Skies Matter: Indigenous Perspectives

Concerns illuminated by the interviews conducted this summer by the 2023 Dark Skies student research team will be used to formulate these questions – questions we hope will be included in the 2023 Conservation in the West poll. Our summer 2022 visits to five of the region’s most popular national public parks and nearby areas supported our hunch that few BIPOC would be present reflecting the challenges reported by our polling partners, New Bridge Strategy and FM3, of reaching and thereby fully representing in the poll Indigenous peoples’, Blacks’, and Latinos’ attitudes toward federal public lands. We suspect that BIPOC are more likely to visit public lands other than national parks, (e.g., state parks, national monuments, US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands). Because of the reported difficulties (i.e., access and cost) with the current polling method, we have sent five Colorado College students into national public lands adjacent Native Lands to interview residents with questions asked in Phase I of this project along with the new Dark Skies oriented questions.
Report an issue - Last updated: 07/14/2023