Block, Bridge, Build

A conservation strategy for the foreseeable future

May 29, 2025

In chaotic times, it’s tempting to funnel our anxieties into a good old quarrel over strategy. Fight or “play dead”? Hold out or compromise? Defend laws and regulations or Abundance our way to prosperity? The more binary choices we create for our allies and potential allies, the more stymied we collectively become.

Of all the possible paths out of our current stuckness, the one I like best—and the one that seems most applicable to conservation—is a three-pronged strategy called “Block, Bridge, Build.” In the conservation context, blocking might mean defending threatened regulations or stopping imminent habitat destruction. Building might mean reintroducing species, restoring migratory corridors, or developing innovative policies. Bridging, crucially, crosses political, cultural and other divides to expand the conservation coalition.

Proposed by Julia Roig of the Horizons Project, this strategy combines the “Block and Build” framework adopted by many anti-Trump groups and the “Bridging and Belonging” approach developed by john a. powell and his colleagues at the Othering and Belonging Institute.

Roig acknowledges that multi-pronged strategies are difficult to sustain, especially in emergencies—stress creates the urge to fight or flee, and uncertainty makes simplicity especially appealing. The prongs she proposes can also come into conflict; determined efforts to block destructive actions can widen political divides, while prioritizing dialogue or long-term change can draw critical attention away from immediate harms. But as she argues, neither blocking, bridging, nor building is enough on its own, and each can powerfully complement the others.

Earlier this month, I wrote a guest essay in the New York Times about an amendment to the Republican budget package that would have made more than 500,000 acres of public lands in Nevada and Utah available for sale. This was, for many conservationists, a true emergency, and calls to block the amendment were immediate.

During the scramble to block, a bridge emerged: one of the loudest opponents to the amendment in Congress was Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana, who served as Secretary of the Interior during Trump’s first term. I don’t agree with Zinke on much, but when he told the press that “God isn’t making more land,” I had to acknowledge that—on this issue at least—we were on the same side. On the same day that a House committee approved the amendment, Zinke and Democratic Rep. Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico launched a Public Lands Caucus to oppose land sales and advance “pragmatic solutions to protect and manage public lands.”

On May 22, fifteen days after the amendment was added to the budget package, Zinke and his fellow caucus members succeeded in removing it. Staffing and budget cuts and regulatory rollbacks still pose serious systemic threats to public lands, and the Public Lands Caucus may or may not join the efforts to block these threats. But their opposition to land sales and their nominal but explicit support for conservation represents an all-too-rare bridge, and conservationists should work to strengthen it at the national, state, and local levels. Bridges not only make blocking easier, but can make it possible to build—even as the emergencies continue.

Conservation at Work

Josh Jackson and Roberto Johnson of the Forgotten Lands Project did us all the favor of traveling to some of the public lands targeted by the (now dead) amendment. Check out their writing and photos.
Speaking of the threats to public lands, check out the ongoing coverage of them at High Country News. Recent highlights—or lowlights—include Sarah Trent on the planned elimination of the irreplaceable Ecosystems Mission Area of the USGS; Annie Rosenthal on how Biden’s Bureau of Land Management left its employees vulnerable to Trump; Christine Peterson on the Trump administration’s attempts to cut at the heart of the West; and Jonathan P. Thompson on 60 days of DOGE chaos. (Current and recent federal employees are eligible for free digital subscriptions.)
Three recent publications offer thoughtful analyses of common but frequently misunderstood conservation terms. Think you know what domestication means? How about reciprocity, or human-bear conflict? See if your definitions align with these attempts to standardize.
Biologists can tell us what we need to conserve; social scientists can tell us how to get conservation done. This article in Conservation Biology lays out what the next generation of conservation social scientists needs to succeed. (Spoiler: soft skills are paramount, but no one gets to skip statistics.)
On a related note, the Essentials of Conservation Social Science course, an excellent overview for conservation practitioners of all kinds, will be offered on June 4 on a pay-what-you-can basis. Sign up here.
Finally, if you find your idealism running low, spend a few minutes with Gerrard Winstanley, the chief theorist of the Diggers. (I recommend listening to the Billy Bragg song, too—it’s a timely earworm.)