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PHOTOGRAPHS BY AARON HUEY, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
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By Laura Parker, Senior Reporter, ENVIRONMENT
Some years ago, I spent 10 days driving through Utah’s spectacular red rock country talking to locals about the state’s long feud with Washington over control of its public lands. President Bill Clinton’s creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996, nearly 1.9 million acres in size, had so infuriated conservative officials that Clinton dared not set foot in the state. Instead, he announced this news from the rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona 150 miles away. That staging was explained as one of convenience for the national media than the more remote Escalante canyons and plateaus.
I didn’t have much trouble getting to the town of Escalante that lies in the shadow of its namesake. When I visited, the mood had moved from opposition to support of protecting this geologic wonder. Why? In a word, tourism. The Staircase, as it has come to be called, brought in new businesses and millions in tourist dollars.
That insight from my trip may come into play in the coming weeks. Both the Grand Staircase and Bears Ears (pictured above), a 1.35 million-acre treasure trove of breathtaking geologic formations and Native American artifacts established in 2016, were reduced in size in 2017. Former President Donald Trump cut the Staircase by nearly half; Bears Ears by 85 percent. It was the largest boundary reduction of protected lands in American history; conservationists sued to overturn the reduction. (Pictured below, Navajo activist Kenneth Maryboy, in a blanket, leads members of Hopi, Zuni, Ute, and other tribes in a sunrise prayer.)
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