Public lands are vital for biodiversity as well as for public recreation. You typically very rarely hear a politician talking about them though, at least it’s probably 30 down on the list of talking points (for democrats obviously).

Right leaning politicians typically sell off these lands and democrats do the inverse. (1) Why is the public so unaware of such programs that have a large effect on the wellbeing of everyone? (2) I mean I generally have an idea to why, as probably most everyone else does, but what could actually be done to inform people?

The responsibility to inform the public lies with the politicians and the news outlets. To be fair, they mostly do announce and report these decisions. I don’t think the problem is with unawareness. Sure, there are people who say “Let’s get rid of these things”, but my experience is they are in the minority (Canadian here).

I think the big problem is complacency. People just don’t do anything about it. Sometimes I wish we had more of the French culture and their willingness to riot the way they do. We should be holding our politicians to a higher standard and making them more accountable for their actions, not making excuses for them.

I work in this sector. I think part of the reason is that it sometimes behooves these programs to be a bit under the radar. If the average conservative found out that the government was spending their tax dollars on touchy feely environmental nature stuff they would have a huge fit about wanting to cut government spending. They are ironically the party of small government. Sometimes the best course of action is to quietly support hunting, fishing, and farming, so that the useful conservatives understand the value of the program without alerting the average faux-libertarian and MAGA idiot that someone is using their taxes to make the land a better place to live in for their children.