An Attack On One Is An Attack On All

President Trump this week significantly reduced Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah, a move likely intended to benefit oil, gas and coal mining companies.  If Trump's unprecedented attack is left unchallenged, it not only opens these beautiful wildlands in Utah to potential drilling and mining, it puts every single acre of America's national monuments at risk.  The Antiquities Act allows the President to establish national monuments that protect natural and historical wonders. But undoing or modifying a national monument takes an act of Congress.

Valley of the Gods will no longer be protected after Trump cut Bears Ears National Monument.  Photo by Tim Peterson, LightHawk.

Through his attack on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, Trump is ignoring the law and establishing a precedent that anybody in the Oval office can erase our natural and cultural heritage and hand it to private interests.  If Trump can do this to Bears Ears, then he or any of his successors can undo Mojave Trails, Giant Sequoia, Muir Woods, Vermillion Cliffs, or any other national monument that we cherish.

In fact, we know Trump plans to roll back protections from more national monuments.  Today, Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke announced that Gold Butte National Monument is also on the chopping block.  National monuments protect places and artifacts for all of us to enjoy and learn from, and we have an obligation to protect these treasures for future generations. We need to fight to keep it that way.  Call your representatives in Congress and tell them to defend our national monuments.  Support groups that are challenging Trump in court.  And mark your calendar for Election Day - November 6, 2018.

President Trump now plans to remove protections from Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada.  These desert wildlands belong to the public.  Not to corporate interests.

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