An important lesson from the pandemic was that depending on other countries for critical commodities affecting our supply chain is a serious risk.

As I write this, major shipping companies have suspended operations through the Strait of Hormuz – a strategic passage for global trade. Key minerals and metals affected include aluminum, bauxite, zinc, lead, and lithium. This has the potential to affect material shortages, delays in availability, and higher costs due to limited supplies and increased freight and insurance rates.

While we will invariably want and need to import products and commodities, as a sovereign, secure, and powerful nation, we are always better off having our own domestic resources and materials.

Obtaining these and other critical materials are accessed through mining and then reclaiming and returning the land for countless chosen uses by the community.

Yet when the word “protection” is associated with land too often it is solely used, and narrowly defined, to mean “restriction” – that the “highest, greatest value” is only if the land remains “untouched.”

Throughout planetary and human history land has never remained “untouched.”

For millions of years land has meant both “protection” and “defense” – whether for mining, agriculture, homes, infrastructure, transportation, or political sovereignty.

Land is much more than the narrow meaning of protection through restriction. Land ensures the sustainable use of natural resources, maintaining ecosystems, restoring habitats, and engaging communities for all our benefit.

If anything, the recent past and today have reminded us how important using land for our protection and defense is to our nation, our economy, and our future.