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President Biden didn't have to issue new monument proclamations to restore Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, but he did.
Public lands reporter Jonathan Thompson took the time to read the lengthy new proclamations to determine how they differ from Obama's, and he has some insights into what the documents may mean for the future of both monuments.
To start, the new proclamations go into great detail describing many areas inside the monuments. "This isn’t about loquacious authors and lax editors, however," Thompson writes. Instead, it's most likely a strategic legal move to make it harder to downsize the monuments in the future. That tracks with reporting our new communications associate, Kate Groetzinger, did as a reporter for KUER last spring.
Thompson notes that both proclamations call for new management plans, which will likely be a good thing for the monuments' protection, as a committee stacked with monument opponents has been working on the Bears Ears management plan for the past two years and the Grand Staircase plan has long been seen as problematic by land managers and conservationists.
And, perhaps most significantly, Thompson writes that Biden’s language around cows "cracks the door to a grazing phaseout." It says any allotments voluntarily relinquished by ranchers will be retired from grazing, and it bans range treatments for grazing purposes unless the Interior Secretary "specifically" finds that treatments further the goals laid out in the proclamations.
While each of these changes on their own may not sound huge, the combination of the three will likely go a long way toward protecting these fragile and important landscapes.
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I hope to accomplish a way forward for my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren to be able to breathe, to eat and to drink, and to leave a legacy that says at this crucial moment in time, the Indigenous people, including their grandma, great-grandma and mama, was there to raise a voice of reason.”
