May’s been a weird month for those who have worked in the conservation field for any length of time. Not only has it seen an unprecedented attack on America’s public lands by right-wing federal lawmakers who want to help the Trump administration use the country’s unique inventory of publicly owned acreage to fund tax cuts for the wealthiest among us, it’s seen some previously unexpected pushback from other Republicans who really don’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to their conservation record.

Earlier this month, Trump sycophants Mark Amodei and Celeste Maloy, Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Nevada and Utah, respectively, were able to push through a last-minute amendment to a federal spending bill that would allow the sale of hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands, with the receipts going to the feds to presumably pay for Trump’s wildly skewed tax cuts that largely benefit the richest among us.

Then, the morning after the sneaky amendment made its way into the spending bill, a group of bipartisan lawmakers announced the formation of the Public Lands Caucus. During the event announcing the new caucus, a handful of prominent Republicans openly supported the American public lands system and were very clear about the need to keep “public lands in public hands.”

Among those Republicans standing up against the effort to divest of America’s public lands bounty? How about Ryan Zinke, Interior Secretary during Trump’s first administration who bent over backwards for the energy and mining sectors, and all but gave industry the keys to the castle when it came to leasing and development of the nation’s shared national treasure. Zinke is joined by six other Republicans in the caucus, including U.S. Rep. Chuck Edwards of North Carolina who has a 6-percent rating with the League of Conservation Voters. This auspicious duo is joined by Rep. Jen Kiggans, a Republican from Virginia who scores a measly 13 percent on the LCV scale; Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Washington, 7 percent; and Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Arizona, 10 percent; and Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, 10 percent; and Rep. Troy Downing a Republican from Montana who has not served long enough in the House to record a score.

Simpson appears to be the best of the bunch, and that’s because he’s always championed public lands and has shown more courage on northwest salmon recovery than any Republican ever, and, frankly, any Democrat since Cecil Andrus.

We should forgive the conservation establishment from doing a righteous double-take and what was certainly a collective, “WTF?” moment when the caucus was established. But, it doesn’t stop there. Earlier in May, former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue — who was also Trump’s first Secretary of Agriculture and one of the loudest voices against the Waters of the U.S. Rule protecting the integrity of intermittent and headwater streams — came out and publicly supported the application for the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge to achieve UNESCO World Heritage Site status. This means Perdue, who’s now the chancellor of Georgia’s higher-education board, has done more for the East’s largest wilderness area than has Gov. Brian Kemp, who hasn’t lifted a finger to defend the swamp from an existential threat to mine heavy sands near its eastern border.

WTF, indeed.

And, not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but what should those in the conservation world really make of these striking moves from notoriously anti-environmental lawmakers and officials? Perhaps the best perspective is the most optimistic. Maybe, just maybe, after watching Trump deliver executive order after executive order to open the country’s last, best wild country to the whims of the drill bit and the mining shovel, and now just blatantly announcing the intent to just sell them outright, the bile is even too much for some Republicans to swallow. Or maybe, as the saying goes around the family dinner table as jaded parents caution their kids about their loving and generous grandmother, “That’s not the lady I grew up with. That’s some old lady who’s just trying to get into heaven.”

Regardless, the support for the last wild vestiges of America from traditionally luke-warm lawmakers and former Trump toadies is welcome. But they’ll have to forgive the rest of us who look at that football and really want to kick it, knowing full well that it’s just as likely, if not moreso, that Lucy will pull that ball back, and all of us Charlie Browns will go tumbling to the turf.

Time will tell, and actions will, of course, speak louder than jargony garbage at a news conference. But some of America’s most-treasured wild landscapes stand naked and unprotected before Trump’s second administration. And, as we’ve seen in recent years, the Democrats can't do much on their own. Let’s hope the Public Lands Caucus has more bite than bluster. More importantly, let’s hope that more Republicans find their backbone and stand up for everyday Americans who cherish their one, true birthright: our public lands.

An earlier version of this article included an error in the names of some of the listed lawmakers. These errors have since been corrected.