From the Wilderness Society
President Trump has ordered "review" of numerous national monuments and the century-old law that protected them, a stunning move to reduce protection for iconic American landscapes.
Amid a new flurry of executive orders, including a measure to expand offshore drilling, Trump has directed Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to examine more than 20 national monuments designated since the beginning of 1996, presumably with an eye toward shrinking their boundaries and reducing protection.
"In signing this order, Trump is effectively saying that nothing is off the table, including the sacrifice of some of our most sacred parks and historic sites to pay back his fossil fuel-backed allies in Congress." [full quote]
This means that dozens of areas encompassing mighty sequoia forests, historic military sites, rare fossil beds and ancient Ancestral Puebloan ruins, among many others, are now under attack by the White House
Among the monuments likely to be under review:
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (Utah): Per a report published by the Utah Geological Association, "Nowhere else in the world are the rocks and geologic features so well exposed, so brilliantly colored, and so excitingly displayed."
Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument (Oregon): The first monument whose protection was motivated specifically by the need to preserve biodiversity
Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument: Protects teeming communities of marine life including habitat for whales, sea turtles and tropical fish
Browns Canyon National Monument (Colorado): An outdoor recreation hotspot that is well known for its whitewater rafting, fishing and hiking.
Rio Grande del Norte National Monument (New Mexico): protects some of the most ecologically significant lands in northern New Mexico, including habitat for elk, bald eagle, peregrine falcon and great horned owl.
Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument (Maine): includes vital habitat and migration corridors for moose, bear, lynx and Atlantic salmon as well as beloved outdoor recreation spots.
Bears Ears National Monument (Utah): Perhaps nowhere in the world are so many well-preserved cultural resources—from ancient ruins to petroglyphs—found within such a striking and relatively undeveloped landscape.
Trump shows his true colors on conservation
Trump appears to be acceding to the demands of extreme members of Congress who oppose protections for our parks and public lands. This anti-public lands fringe want to make it much harder to use the Antiquities Act to protect national monuments, and even seeks to tear down existing monuments—notably Utah's Bears Ears, considered a textbook case for monument designation, whose wealth of ancient ruins, petroglyphs and other cultural sites was damaged by looting, vandalism and even grave-robbing before President Obama moved to protect it in 2016.
Signed into law by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, the Antiquities Act authorizes presidents to protect important archaeological, historic and scientific resources on public lands. It has been used on a bipartisan basis by almost every president, a method supported by some 90 percent of voters that forms the backbone of our National Park System. Trump's executive order symbolizes a profound break with America's conservation legacy.
Carrizo Plain National Monument (California). Credit: Bob Wick (BLM).
"Trump once claimed to follow the example of Teddy Roosevelt, but he has long since shown his true colors as an anti-conservationist," said Dan Hartinger, deputy director of parks and public lands defense at The Wilderness Society. "In signing this order, Trump is effectively saying that nothing is off the table, including the sacrifice of some of our most sacred parks and historic sites to pay back his fossil fuel-backed allies in Congress."
"Introducing this uncertainty and encouraging the removal of protections for these places not only robs the American people of our history but it also hurts local communities today that rely on these monuments for economic benefits, jobs, tourism and quality of life," added Hartinger.
"Public lands takeover" by another name
Trump previously went on the record as wanting to keep public lands in public hands, seeming to repudiate the ascendant "land takeover" fringe in state legislatures and the halls of Congress. His choice to head the Department of the Interior, Ryan Zinke, has been an outspoken defender of keeping public lands in public hands.
But behind closed doors, Trump expressed support for the "land takeover" movement. And in his new executive order, we see what can only be considered an oblique strike at the idea of national public lands that belong to all Americans. Once public lands protections are reversed or weakened, it could open these places up for development.
Polling consistently shows that people love monuments, parks and other shared places—an affection that the most recent release of National Park Service visitor data resoundingly underscores—and Trump's action runs totally counter both to that tradition and his pretensions to represent the interests of ordinary Americans.
Bears Ears National Monument (Utah). Credit: Mason Cummings (TWS).
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