Over 6,800 voices for Yosemite: what you just did, and what comes next
When we launched our petition to keep Yosemite whole, we set a goal of 5,000 signatures. You blew past it.
More than 6,800 people have now added their names, and new signatures arrive every day. On September 23, we delivered your signatures to the people who can protect Yosemite: Interior Department leadership, California's congressional delegation, the State Legislature, and Governor Gavin Newsom.
Every one of those names came from someone who decided Yosemite was worth standing up for. Thank you.
Why this matters
A proposed land exchange would give a private developer road access through Yosemite National Park land. Interior Department leadership has said no final decision has been made.
That means the door is still open. Your signatures ask federal leaders to close it for good and keep Yosemite whole for everyone.
You're in good company
You aren't the only ones speaking up. More than half of California's state legislators, from both parties, have urged the Interior Department to reject the proposal. More than 150 members of Congress have done the same.
Protecting Yosemite isn't a partisan issue. It never has been. People who disagree on almost everything else agree on this: a national park belongs to all of us.
Where Yosemite's rivers flow
For us, Yosemite is personal. Its high country is where the Tuolumne and Merced rivers begin.
From there, those rivers carry drinking water to more than 3 million Californians, irrigate Central Valley farms, and sustain salmon runs downstream. What happens in Yosemite doesn't stay in Yosemite. It flows to kitchen taps in the Bay Area, to orchards near Modesto, and to the wildlife that depends on cold, clean water.
For more than 45 years, Yosemite Rivers Alliance has worked to protect and restore these rivers and the lands that feed them. Standing up for Yosemite is part of that same work.
What happens next
Delivering your signatures is a milestone, not a finish line. We'll keep watching for any decision on the proposal, and we'll let you know the moment there's news.
In the meantime, the most powerful thing you can do is bring someone else along.
If you haven't signed yet: Add your name at yosemiterivers.org/defend-the-wild.
If you already have: share the petition with one friend who loves Yosemite as much as you do. Every new name shows federal leaders how many people are paying attention.
Yosemite has been protected for public use since 1864. With you standing alongside us, we intend to keep it that way.
