Patagonia's Stand Against Public-Land Cuts Overwhelms Website

(Bloomberg) -- The website of outdoor apparel retailer Patagonia struggled to handle traffic after the company condemned President Donald Trump’s move to remove federal protection from swaths of public land.

The full-page, pop-up banner on the homepage of closely held Patagonia reads: “The President Stole Your Land,” arguing the size reduction for the national monuments of Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase-Escalante is illegal. The company is urging customers to support environmental groups and target the administration with Twitter postings to voice displeasure.

“We are also proud to stand alongside over 350 businesses, conservation groups and Native American tribes that have come together on this issue to protect public lands,” the company said. “Climbers, hikers, hunters and anglers all agree that public lands are a critical part of our national heritage and these lands belong not just to us, but to future generations.”

Patagonia said on its site that it “played a part” in the establishment of several national monuments, including Bears Ears in Utah. A representative for the company didn’t immediately respond to request for comment on the site traffic.

Environmental groups including the Wilderness Society and the Sierra Club have filed a lawsuit against Trump to halt the administration’s move to shrink the protected park lands, saying the president overstepped his authority. The move would cut the 1.4-million-acre Bears Ears to about 220,000 acres, and the 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante national monument to about 1 million acres.

To contact the reporter on this story: Lindsey Rupp in New York at lrupp2@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Jonathan Roeder, Lisa Wolfson

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