Public Lands Day celebrated in east Las Vegas valley

By Ryan Tisminezky

(KLAS) — The fourth Saturday of September marks National Public Lands Day. In Nevada, events took place across the state including in the east Las Vegas valley where officials and environmentalists discussed the past, present, and future of Southern Nevada’s open spaces.

The topic of conversation was conservation. Officials like Congresswoman Dina Titus and Clark County Commissioner Tick Segerblom echoed the message of not just protecting land but ensuring it’s open to all.

“It should affect all our society. And we need to certainly be sure that indigenous people, minorities, women, underprivileged children all have access to public lands,” Titus said.

One group working to further that goal is “Latino Outdoors” which says their goal is to encourage the Latino community to go out and enjoy and protect the great outdoors. Dagmar Galvan, the group’s program coordinator, was in attendance.

“A lot of the areas get really pounded by a bunch of trash and everything. So I want everybody else to enjoy them, just like how pristine we want them to be here,” Galvan said.

The push for an east valley national monument was also a focus of Saturday’s discussion, which garnered support from all the officials who spoke at the event, including Commissioner Segerblom.

“We have the great unconformity. We have a lot of Indian ruins. So it’s going to be very fun the next few years to see if we can develop this,” Segerblom said.”

As 8 News Now reported earlier in 2024, the monument plan is still in its early stages with a focus on advocating for public support.