Friend — reports are circulating that Interior Secretary Deb Haaland has issued a confidential report recommending that President Biden restore protections to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments.

These reports also indicate she recommended restoring protections for the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. The plan would preserve about 5 million acres of federal land and water.

There is an urgent need to protect these sites. In the years since Trump gutted protections for the areas, remnants of Native American settlements have been vandalized. Graffiti has been scribbled over ancient rock art. They've been opened up to the threat of mining.

We're already seeing fierce resistance from right-wing lawmakers opposing these protections — Koch-funded extremist groups are fighting conservation efforts in swing states around the country. If their pressure campaigns go unanswered, there's a serious possibility these protections get torpedoed.

The best thing you can do right now is this: renew your LCV membership. Right now, all it takes is $5. Because this fight is so important, every contribution is being triple matched through the end of the month.

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This news from Deb Haaland is huge. Bears Ears represents critical sacred, cultural, and natural heritage for tribal communities within the region. Five tribes — the Navajo, the Hopi, the Ute Mountain Ute, the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, and the Pueblo of Zuni — have led the fight to protect these sacred spaces from Big Polluters.

But the fight isn't going to end here. Shortly after inauguration, President Biden issued an executive order calling for the conservation of 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. The plan has a real shot at making access to nature more equitable, so that all people in this country have access to green spaces, regardless of race or zip code.

That would mean doubling the amount of protected lands in the US — working with local communities to expand and create new national and state parks and other protected landscapes, and significantly expanding the ocean areas off-limits to drilling and other threats.

This could be the most significant conservation effort in US history, but not if we hit roadblocks now with Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts.

We're asking for your help, friend. If everyone reading this email pitched in — we'd blow through our membership target in minutes. So we're asking:

Please, renew your expired LCV membership today.

Thank you, thank you, thank you — for everything that you do for the environment, friend. We'll be in touch soon with next steps.

Adam, Brooke, Casey, ChiQuita, Jim, Mike, Brent, and Vinnie
LCV Rapid Response Team
League of Conservation Voters