Adam Sowards discussed This Land is Our Land: How the Public Lands System Evolved at the League of Women Voters of Moscow forum on February 15th.  The presentation covered the creation of the public domain and how policies evolved to sell it off and maintain some of it permanently. He also touched on the historical reasons for different types of public lands (e.g., national parks, national forests, etc.) and how the agencies’ missions have changed over time.

A lifelong Northwesterner, Adam Sowards is an environmental historian, writer, and professor at the University of Idaho where he also directs the Program in Pacific Northwest Studies. To date, he has published three books: Idaho’s Place: A New History of the Gem State (2014); The Environmental Justice: William O. Douglas and American Conservation (2009); and United States West Coast: An​ ​Environmental History (2007); and many scholarly articles and essays.