Outdoor Retailer Show Will Have "Countdown Clock" Protesting Bears Ears Shrinkage

As the lucrative Outdoor Retailer show swings into gear Thursday in Denver, a group of outdoor industry leaders and conservation organizations plans to project a “countdown clock” on the McNichols Civic Center to protest President Trump’s decision to reduce the size of two national monuments in southern Utah. The clock shows the time remaining before mining and energy interests will be able to dig and drill in the lands removed from monument status. The Outdoor Retailer show moved this year to Colorado from its longtime home in Utah because of differences with that state’s leaders over public-lands management. In a statement, Patagonia vice president of environmental activism Lisa Pike Sheehy said in less than two weeks, “the extractive industry will gain privileged access” to the two monuments, while ordinary citizens could see these lands made off limits.