President Donald Trump today once again signed an executive order making cuts to two popular Utah national monuments, this time making even greater cuts than in 2017. This order is cut to size Bears Ears National Monument up 91% And Grand Staircase-Escalante over 90%A reduction of about 3 million acres.
Utah’s congressional delegation, including Senator Mike Lee, a vocal opponent of public lands, joined Trump at a signing ceremony, where the senator explained that national monuments should be “the smallest area that fits the items to be protected.”
The president said that on national monuments you “can’t go hunting, you can’t go fishing, you can’t do anything, you literally can’t even walk on it.”
However, hunting, fishing, camping, herding, driving, hiking, and many other recreational activities are permitted on national monuments.
Ryan Callaghan, president and CEO of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, says this decision to remove most of the monument designation is “short-sighted.” Callaghan says opening up the fragile desert to more roads could create additional immediate hunting and recreational access, but it also opens the door to increased invasive species, erosion, wildfires and development at a time when the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service are already overworked and underfunded.
“This is more blanket management from top to bottom that doesn’t address real on-the-ground needs,” he says. “Is the monument right? Probably not. Is the previous travel management plan or resource plan right? Probably not. But why are we just having a conversation about one or the other? If neither one is right, let’s make a plan that works.”
National monuments have long been a lightning rod for anti-public lands sentiment in parts of the West. These are seen by critics as an overreach of the government. However, for many others, the monuments show the area’s tribes how to manage their historic lands while preserving the unique landscapes that attract tourists from around the world. Both monuments provide some level of protection to important cultural and traditional tribal sites as well as stunning landscapes The dramatic sandstone sentinels of Bears Ears Valley of the Gods And Grand Staircase-Escalante Famous colorful hoaxes. The land also offers robust hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, climbing and other recreational opportunities.
Before the Trump administration’s order, Bears Ears National Monument held 1.36 million acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante held 1.87 million acres.
This is hardly the first time a national monument has made headlines over who controls the rich and diverse desert landscapes. President Clinton used the Antiquities Act to create the Grand Staircase-Escalante in 1996, and President Obama establishes Bears Ears National Monument 2016. After Biden restored the monuments to their original acreage in 2021, he directed the Forest Service and BLM to work with the Hopi Nation, Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Navajo Nation, and Zuni Pueblo to come up with a new management plan for Bears Ears. The five tribes have significant cliff habitats and cultural sites and have long supported and pressed for monument designation. The Biden administration drafted and signed a new management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante.
While a monument designation does not restrict hunting – the Utah Wildlife Division still manages the hunting of area wildlife, including deer, elk, bighorn sheep, black bear, mountain lion and turkey – it comes with management plans that limit some off-road vehicle travel along new mining claims. An original version of Biden’s draft management plan for Bears Ears banned recreational shooting, but the BLM and Forest Service eventually reversed course and allowed recreational shooting throughout the monument.
Unlike more restrictive land use designations such as wilderness areas, national monuments allow vehicle access on hundreds of miles of existing roads and two-tracks, says Steven Bloch, legal director of the National Monument. Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. The Grand Staircase alone has 900 miles of roads and trails. Monday’s announcement Did not come with updated management planWhich means that the current ones approved by the Biden administration are valid until new construction takes place.
Current management plans to ban new mining claims. Conservation groups hope the new plans will open the area to mining, although a 2021 report from the Utah Geological Survey shows “Low to medium energy mineral development potential” In both monuments. While the Grand Staircase-Escalante coal development offers high potential for coal Usage continues to decline in the US.
Bloch says the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and its partners plan to sue the Trump administration over these new orders, as they did in 2017.
According to John Ruppel, research professor of law at the University of Utah, conservation groups present a solid case. The Antiquities Act explicitly gives presidents the authority to create national monuments but does not explicitly give them the authority to reduce them.
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Monday’s move was the latest in a long-running effort by Senator Mike Lee to overturn public land protections and ultimately sell off those same lands. He and Utah Representative Celeste Malloy attempted Earlier this year there was a move to use the awkward Congressional Review Act to overturn the Grand Staircase-Escalante designation, but it died before it could reach a vote.
The bottom line, writes Barrett Kaiser of American Hunters & Anglers, “America’s public lands should never be subjected to an insane political tug-of-war that jeopardizes their existence, as well as the livelihoods of countless of us public landowners.”
