Sean Davis

After more than a decade in a military uniform to include deployments to Iraq, Haiti and in support of Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, I was soul-wrecked and nearly lost to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. My body was critically injured from combat in Iraq and I struggled to find meaning in the horrific conditions I witnessed in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane in New Orleans and a violent revolution in Haiti. I returned to Oregon with a Purple Heart and war wounds, both seen and unseen.

In short, I needed to heal. As so many veterans and civilians before me, I took my pen and my past to Mother Nature. It was there that I started to reconnect with my stories, with myself. It was there I was able to find my voice, and in doing so, find healing.

I haven’t stopped — writing, healing, and doing both in the great outdoors.

Recently I visited Owyhee Canyonlands with another combat veteran — a long drive to be sure, but certainly worth the time. There we hiked the Juniper Gulch and Leslie Gulch. We reconnected and re-energized. We unwound and healed.

The incredible power of the outdoors for veterans like myself is why I am excited to support the growing movement to designate the Owyhee Canyonlands as a national monument.

Exposing more than 65 million years of geological history, the Owyhee Canyonlands are the greatest conservation opportunity in the West. A national monument designation would protect 1.1 million acres of vital watershed, diverse habitats and countless and irreplaceable cultural artifacts and sites. While protection efforts have been championed by Oregon’s U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden and U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley, congressional proposals have stalled. President Joe Biden, however, has the power to act now.

Through the use of the 1906 Antiquities Act, the Biden administration has the authority to designate critical spaces such as these canyonlands as national monuments, offering federal protections against a growing threat of development.

Millions of years in the making, this one-of-a-kind natural treasure — and haven of ecological diversity and cultural significance — now faces looming threats that could change it forever. Unless we move quickly to protect it. While remoteness has long protected the canyonlands, the threats of industrial development, roadbuilding and climate change are aggressively clawing at the Owyhee’s edges.

Oregon has one of the fastest rates of development in the West and with one of the fastest-growing urban population areas located right at the Owyhee’s border, there are new and growing stresses on the canyonlands’ ecosystem.

As a soldier, I swore to defend my country and the wondrous places like Owyhee Canyonlands. As a firefighter, I fought to protect such areas from the devastating effects of wildland fires. As a writer, I tell the stories of these places and the people who live, work and heal in them.

My story isn’t unique, but as a writer I know that so often the best stories are those that sound eerily familiar — the ones that everyone can relate to. My story of nature as a place of healing and inspiration is heard time and time again throughout the veteran community. It’s one that has been told across generations — and if we preserve and conserve the land as we are entrusted to, it’s a story that our children and grandchildren will someday write.