|
Local leaders across the West are encouraging President Joe Biden to solidify his legacy in conservation history by designating more national monuments. According to a recent E&E News article, there are at least nine proposed national monuments across the West that are ripe for designation.
In California, the proposed Sáttítla National Monument includes 200,000 acres in the northeast part of the state. The effort to protect Sáttítla is led by the Pit River Nation, which continues to use the area's resources for food, water, and spiritual connection. If designated, it would protect the Medicine Lake Highlands, a volcanically-formed landscape known to the Tribe as a "spiritual center." In the Southern part of the state, the proposed Chuckwalla and Kw'tsán National Monuments would together safeguard over a million acres. If designated, Kw'tsán National Monument would protect the homelands of the Fort Yuma Quechan Indian Tribe.
And in Colorado, the proposed Dolores Canyons National Monument would bring much-needed protections for 400,000 acres of land that is rapidly growing in popularity among recreationists.
“President Biden has a very strong record on conservation, and he has been supportive of many of these campaigns as they have progressed, as has Secretary Haaland,” said Kristen Brengel, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association. “It’s not necessarily quantity, it’s quality, and making sure places waiting to get protected, get protected.”
President Biden establishes Frances Perkins National Monument in Maine
Yesterday, President Biden designated Frances Perkins National Monument, honoring the nation’s first female Cabinet secretary and an architect of the New Deal. The monument, which protects 57 acres along the Damariscotta River in Newcastle, Maine, comes a decade after the site was first recognized as a national historic landmark.
|
We would all like to see the most optimal management of public lands. And I think that's really where we ought to focus our efforts, and really giving them the resources they need."
