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As tribal leaders and environmentalists today celebrate President Biden’s planned restoration of more than 2 million acres of public land into a pair of Utah monuments, activists stress the pomp and circumstance are the precursor of considerable work that remains to be done to consolidate these sites. .
Biden is expected to sign new proclamations this afternoon, which have yet to be released, restoring millions of acres to the national monuments of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears.
It will also reinstate commercial fishing restrictions at the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument in the Atlantic Ocean (Green wire, October 7).
The action will reverse cuts President Trump made in 2017 at the behest of GOP lawmakers who have long criticized the monuments as a form of federal overshoot by the Democratic presidents who established them.
It will also restore the protections of the marine monument that Trump removed in 2020, opening up the 5,000 square mile site about 130 miles off Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to commercial interests.
But ahead of the White House ceremony, Utah Diné Bikéyah Executive Director Woody Lee told E&E News of efforts to “preserve and protect” the sprawling Bears Ears monument, which includes natural wonders such as deep canyons and desert mesas, as well as preserved stone dwellings of ancient societies. – will remain in place.
“This is our life in a living classroom,” said Lee, who heads one of the tribal coalitions that advocated for the monument’s creation. “Our children and grandchildren need to learn and know about this. This is where they come from. It is of the utmost importance that we continue to preserve this.”
Under the new proclamation, the Bears Ears site will occupy 1.36 million acres, slightly larger than it was after President Obama created the site in 2016.
Trump’s proclamation reduced Bears Ears from 1.35 million acres to approximately 202,000 acres, dividing the site into two units. It also included a small addition of 11,200 acres that will be retained under the new proclamation.
Among the first steps for the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments will be the creation of new resource management plans.
Under the Trump administration, lands removed from monuments were opened up for drilling, mining and grazing (Green wire6 February 2020).
Steve Bloch, legal director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said it will be vital for the Biden administration to stress that it manages the land “at a much higher standard” than its predecessors.
“It’s a long time to come for one of the most remarkable tracts of public land in the United States,” said Bloch, referring to the Grand Staircase-Escalante site. “It’s hard to imagine a more remote and austere landscape in the country, and it has suffered over the past four years, and seeing it restored… is incredibly important.”
The Grand Staircase-Escalante monument is overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, while the Bears Ears site is shared between the BLM and the Forest Service.
Bloch added: “The public lands within the boundaries of the monument must be managed to preserve and protect the objects of the monument, which will range from sacred sites to paleontological resources to the ecosystem itself, and every decision that the Bureau of Land Management takes about this place needs to prioritize the protection of these resources, and this has been lost in the reshuffle. ”
Trump excised roughly half of the Grand Staircase-Escalante monument, cutting off his 1.9 million acre footprint. Biden will restore the monument to its limits as they existed on January 20, 2017, the day Trump took office.
Mitigation efforts will be required for damage to the Grand Staircase-Escalante area caused by mining claims for alabaster, motor vehicle use and vegetation removal, Bloch explained.
“We were lucky that there weren’t as many localized mining concessions as we feared, which further testifies to the highly speculative nature of the monument’s mineral resources, but a cleanup needs to be done,” he said. -t he said.
Kristen Brengel of the National Parks Conservation Association added that “cultural resource management” will be key to Bears Ears, to guard against the destruction of pottery and other artifacts at the site that was once home to many Native American tribes.
The Biden administration has also pledged to add additional BLM guards to the monument and add new signage and infrastructure to support an increase in visits to the area.
Brengel noted that interpretation is the key to “making sure that people understand that they are in a very sacred landscape, and to respect everything they see in the landscape and to leave it there so that ‘other people see it “.
She added: “The presence of forest guards to educate visitors is essential to ensure the protection of these places.”
The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, which played a key role in the creation of the monument in 2016, also stressed the importance of implementing “a new model of collaborative management” for the site.
Coalition leaders said details of the arrangement should be included in the president’s proclamation and will be developed in the new management plan.
“In this new model, traditional knowledge and place-based conservation strategies of tribal communities will play an important role in shaping efforts to conserve and plan for a resilient future for this landscape that is close to our hearts.” said the coalition in a statement.
In the meantime, Lee told E&E News that tribal organizations will also continue to push for their favorite 1.9 million acre Bears Ears monument (Green wire3 February
“We still plan to work in that direction,” Lee said, adding that if he had the chance to speak to Biden at today’s event, he plans to push for the expansion in person.
“This is the first time that a monument has been created from the voices of the grassroots, of the people,” added Lee, referring to the monument’s status as the first such site designated at the request of tribal nations. .
“A short-term victory”
As Native American organizations and environmental groups celebrate the impending overthrow, elected officials in Utah and Republicans in Congress have called a Democratic president’s move too far-reaching federal.
The Beehive State Congressional delegation, made up of all of the GOP, had urged the White House to postpone executive action in favor of a legislative solution.
But Utah Representative John Curtis (R), whose 3rd district includes the Bear Ears site, told E&E News those efforts, including his own bill, are now dead on arrival (Green wire, March 9).
“It kills. There is no motivation for the tribes to work with me now,” Curtis said, adding that he would continue to work on the proposal. “It’s unfortunate because it’s a short-term victory for them.”
GOP lawmakers have argued that unless there is legislation, the monument’s boundaries are likely to recede when a Republican returns to the White House.
Utah lawmakers have long criticized the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante sites as being too large, claiming the monuments violate the size provisions of the Antiquities Act.
Federal courts, however, have long sided with presidents over their designation as national monuments, including a 1997 challenge against President Clinton’s original designation of Grand Staircase-Escalante (Green wire16 March 2018).
Yet Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (right) and other state officials yesterday raised the specter of a retrial, highlighting comments from Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts earlier this year wondering if presidents abused the antiques law (Green wire, March 24).
But Ute Indian Tribe Affairs Committee chairman Shaun Chapoose, a member of the Bears Ears intertribal coalition, rejected Curtis’ argument that tribal leaders would withdraw from legislative efforts – saying lawmakers themselves have dragging your feet.
“The tribes were ready to work with Congress to get started. I don’t think it was ever taken off the table,” Chapoose said.
The Bears Ears Intertribal Coalition represents the Navajo Nation and the Zuni Pueblo, as well as the Hopi, Ute Mountain Ute and Ute Indian tribes.
Chapoose noted the lack of legislative proposals since 2017, except for a widely criticized bill Curtis introduced to codify Trump’s boundary changes.
“When it came to state delegation, they tried to consult and legislate when the news cycle needed it, but in between they were never found.
Oceans protection
Ocean conservation activists hailed Biden’s announcement that he would reinstate commercial fishing restrictions at the Northeast Canyons and Seamount Monument, and retain a sunset provision to end the red crab and American lobster fishing by September 2023.
“The area is vulnerable to fishing from the seabed to the surface. Investigations by scientists have shown that this is an area of biodiversity worth protecting,” said Gib Brogan, director of Oceana senior campaign.
Campaigners feared Biden would restart the clock for the red crab and American lobster fishery, Brogan added.
“Every time fishermen set their traps on these coral gardens, it poses an increased risk to these corals which can be thousands of years old,” he said.
Although the New England Fishery Management Council has put in place protections for deep-sea corals at more than 80% of monuments in 2020, Brogan said the monument provisions provide more permanent protection for the site.
But Saving Seafood executive director Bob Vanasse has criticized the Biden administration’s decision to allow recreational fishing in the area, even though members of his industry advocacy group are on lockdown.
“While the Biden-Harris administration has claimed that decisions will be based on science, not on who has the strongest lobby, this decision shows the opposite,” Vanasse said.
“To prohibit hard-working commercial fishermen from harvesting sustainably while allowing luxury yacht owners to fish the same species in one location is hypocritical and calls into question this administration’s commitment to working families rather than wealthy donors, “he added.
The Biden administration says the Atlantic monument includes important habitat for whales and other marine mammals, as well as dozens of deep-sea coral species.
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