[(Title)] We’re headed for a future where only the wealthy can enjoy nature.

As an archaeologist who studies the processes that have shaped the cultural and natural world, I immerse myself in the distant past.

作为一个研究影响文化和自然世界的过程的考古学家，我沉浸在遥远的过去。

Spending decades pondering the passage of millennia has led to an awareness of my own place in time, and recognition of the fact that time hurtles by whether we are aware of it or not.

经过数十年思索过数千年的经历，及时了解了我所处的位置，并认识到不管我们是否意识到时间正在耗尽。

We are constantly racing toward a future that will inexorably come. A hundred, two hundred, a thousand years will go racing by.

我们正不断地迈向未来，一百，二百，一千年就要迎面而来。

Our actions today will have a profound negative effect on the people who will come after us, including those a thousand years from now.We must thwart these misguided efforts.

我们今天的行动方式将对我们的后代产生深远的消极影响，包括一千年以后的人类，我们必须抛弃这些错误的努力。

I am concerned because the last large stretches of wild lands in this country, lands so rugged that they resisted exploitation by early waves of immigrants, and which now remain as some of the last examples of mostly natural landscapes, are threatened. And when they are lost, they will be lost forever, to the next millennials and a millennium of millennials hence.

我很担心，因为这个国家的最后一大片荒地正在受到威胁。那里的地貌如此崎岖，以至于他们在早期移民潮中幸存，并成为最后的一块原始自然景观。 当它们遭到破坏时，人类将永远地失去它们，包括千万年以后的人类。 

Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has indicated that he intends to introduce legislation that will transfer or lessen protection of much of the land in the American West, land now under federal care for the benefit of the public, the American people. Lee outlined his goals in a June 29 speech to the conservative Sutherland Institute.

参议员迈克·李（R-Utah）表示，他打算提出立法，以转移或减少对美国西部大部分土地的保护，这些土地现在由联邦政府管理，以造福公众，即美国人民。 李在6月29日致保守的萨瑟兰研究所的演讲中概述了他的目标。

He plans to introduce three bills — the first will  "combat the abuses"  of the Antiquities Act, an act used by many presidents to set aside and protect areas of archaeological, paleontological, and historic significance.

他计划提出三项法案，第一项《古物法》将“打击滥用”文物法，这项法案被许多总统用来搁置保护考古、古生物学和历史意义的领域。

The second bill is a new Homestead Act – to allow citizens to claim and obtain ownership of federal land. The third bill will allow the transfer of federal lands to the states.

第二项法案是新的《住房法》，允许公民拥有并获得联邦土地的所有权，第三项法案将允许联邦土地移交各州。

While my vision of the future is likely no more accurate than those of others, I know that the loss of these lands from public protection will subject them to damaging exploitation and likely wall them off from public visitation.

虽然我对未来的展望可能并不比其他人更准确，但我知道这些土地若得不到公共保护，将遭受破坏性的侵占，并很可能使他们远离公共探视。

And, I know that it is very unlikely that populations will decrease.

而且，我知道人口减少是不太可能的。

As populations grow, demand for parks and wild places will only increase, and the value of undeveloped, open lands, to all citizens, not just those of Utah or the American West, will increase dramatically.

随着人口的增长，对公园和野生森林的需求只会增加，未开发的开放土地对所有公民的价值将大幅增加，而不仅仅是犹他州或美国西部的公民。

Lee's own state, Utah, already faces immense difficulty in providing access to the incredible National Parks within its borders. Visitation pushes capacity in Zion and Arches, and demand grows each year.

李的自己的州，犹他州，已经面临巨大的困难，提供进入其境内令人难以置信的国家公园。 探视活动推动了锡安和拱门的产能，每年的需求都在增长。

Reducing public open space through sales, homesteading, and transfer to the states will only exacerbate the problem.

通过销售、宅基地和转让来减少公共开放空间，只会加剧这个问题。

In arguing for his bills, Lee invokes the image of European peasants being excluded from their traditional lands by wealthy landowners and royalty:

在为自己的法案变化时，李引用欧洲农民被富裕的土地所有者和皇室成员排除在传统土地之外的形象：

"In medieval England, kings and princes liked to hunt. So prized was 'royal game' like stags and boars that kings created so-called 'royal forests' — massive game preserves intended to protect wildlife and scenery for the exclusive entertainment of the nobility."

“在中世纪英格兰，国王和王子喜欢打猎。为了奖赏是就像捕猎和划船一样的'贵族游戏'，创造所谓的'皇家森林' - 大规模野生动物保护区，让贵族独享娱乐“。

And while his deeply flawed analogy likens the kings to our federal government, Lee does indeed paint an accurate picture of an outcome he clearly desires: Privately-held estates for the benefit of the wealthy, while public lands are reduced to tiny, overused, underfunded parks.

尽管他有着将联邦政府与国王对比的严重缺陷，但李确实准确地描绘了他明确希望实现的结果：为了富人的利益而拥有私人土地，而公共土地则缩小到微小程度，过度使用，资金不足。

A thousand years from now people will yearn for nature, beauty, open space, and public lands.

一千年以后，人们将渴望自然、美、开放空间和公共土地。

Let us not deny them these most important aspects of quality of life by falling for Lee's misguided quest to take lands from the people of the United States and give them to his wealthy backers.

我们不要否认他们这些生活质量的最重要方面，因为李先生错误地追求从美国人民手中夺取土地，并把他们交给他的富有的支持者。

本文作者凯文T.琼斯是美国犹他州的考古学家。