Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended the White House reduce the size of four national monuments in the West, and change the management of those lands and six other monuments to allow “traditional uses,” such as grazing, logging, mining and commercial fishing, according to a leaked memo. Conservation and environmental groups denounced Zinke for ceding the future of invaluable federal lands to, as the Sierra Club said, “the goodwill of polluting industries.”
President Trump ordered Zinke to review 27 national monuments larger than 100,000 acres that were created in the past two decades. Zinke submitted his recommendations in late August, but the document was kept secret. He said the boundaries of a few of the monuments, in particular Bears Ears in Utah, should be changed or shrunk. The 19-page memo, first obtained by the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, did not spell out new boundaries.
For the 1.35-million-acre [2,100 square-mile] Bears Ears monument, for example, he said the boundaries “should be revised through the use of appropriate authority, including lawful exercise of the president’s discretion authorized by the [Antiquities] Act to continue to protect [sacred] objects” while allowing public access, infrastructure upgrades, traditional use, tribal cultural use and exercise of hunting and fishing rights.
“We will stand up for the nearly 3 million people who urged the administration to protect these monuments — in court, if necessary,” said Rhea Suh, head of the Natural Resources Defense Council. The executive director of the Sierra Club, Michael Brune, said, “Leaving the protection of Native American sacred sites, outdoor recreation destinations and natural wonders to the goodwill of polluting industries is a recipe for disaster.”
“Lands and waters designated as monuments are already owned by the federal government and are in the public domain,” said Marck Tercek of the Nature Conservancy, which opposes the changes suggested by Zinke. “Monument designations simply provide additional protection for these vital landscapes, bringing economic, environmental, social and other benefits to local communities.”
Ranchers say the national monuments amount to “executive land grabs,” a sentiment espoused by Trump when he ordered the review. Business leaders view the monuments as a throttle on growth of local industries and dismiss tourism as a fickle source of income.
The 1906 Antiquities Act empowers the president to designate national monuments on federal land to protect “historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures and other objects of historic or scientific interest.” The law says national monuments should be “the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected.” A 1938 attorney general’s opinion says presidents can create the monuments but not abolish them. There are more than 100 national monuments.
In the memo, Zinke says Trump has the authority to modify the proclamations that created the monuments. He recommended that Trump reduce the size of Bears Ears; Grand Staircase-Escalante, also in Utah; Cascade-Siskiyou in Oregon; and Gold Butte in Nevada. The boundaries of two marine monuments in the Pacific Ocean, Rose Atoll and Pacific Remote Islands, could be revised to allow commercial fishing. He also suggested commercial fishing be allowed within Northeast Canyons and Seamounts in the Atlantic Ocean. The memo suggests modifications to the Katahdin, Oregon Mountains-Desert Peaks and Rio Grande Del Norte monuments.
“There are many instances of the use of the Act for the proper stewardship of objects of cultural, historic or scientific interest. Some stakeholders have brought to (the Interior Department’s) attention new sites that merit protection…This would provide an opportunity to lay out a standard for public input and process for monument designations in the future,” wrote Zinke. He suggested Camp Nelson, a Civil War training site in Kentucky for black soldiers; the home of murdered civil rights leader Medger Evers in Jackson, Miss; and the 130,000-acre Badger Two Medicine area in northwestern Montana, considered sacred by the Blackfeet nation.
The administration’s plans for “shrinking and diminishing protections at America’s national monuments appears far more expansive than previously reported, targeting 10 of the nations more ecologically sensitive landscapes and marine preserves,” said the Los Angeles Times.