Largest Rollback of Public Land Protections in US History

[Jimbuck]

President Trump Shrinks Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Largest Rollback of Public Land Protections in U.S. History

Two presidential proclamations erase almost 3 million acres of national monument land in Utah

ourpubliclandsandwaters.substack.com

 

[ActivelyDying]

Currently reading the wilderness warrior, TR is rolling in his grave.

 

[MTBackroads]

Largest reinstatement of public access that was removed by fiat in American history.
Every inch remains public land.

 

[EdP]

Every inch remains public land.

Exactly! Resource development is not only beneficial for the country as a whole but may also provide more access for hunting and recreation.

 

[ActivelyDying]

Please enlighten me as to how this is a positive thing from a conservation standpoint? Both of these monuments were already open to hunting and fishing. The shrinking of these boundaries while still remaining public (for now) opens them to resource extraction and development. The exact thing the antiquities act was put in place to protect. This isn't a Red vs. Blue thing, this land is for all Americans to recreate on and enjoy for generations and once harvested it will never be the same.

 

[akhunter3]

The very fact that Mike Lee was pushing for this means the land is unlikely to remain unexploited for very far into the near future

 

[idelkslayer]

The antiquities act was meant to protect cultural resources and is meant to be limited to the minimum amount of land required to protect those sites. It was not intended to protect large landscapes, that is what the wilderness act does.

I think there is a good argument to be made that the original designations overstepped and included too much surrounding land. If we want the land to also be protected it should go through the proper process in congress to receive wilderness designation.

Multiple use on public lands is generally a good thing. We should hold the agencies and industry accountable for doing resource extraction responsibly and cleaning up after themselves rather than trying to halt all production.

 

[ActivelyDying]

I think there is a good argument to be made that the original designations overstepped and included too much surrounding land. If we want the land to also be protected it should go through the proper process in congress to receive wilderness designation.

Multiple use on public lands is generally a good thing. We should hold the agencies and industry accountable for doing resource extraction responsibly and cleaning up after themselves rather than trying to halt all production.

And do you foresee these now surrounding, once protected lands being changed into wilderness designated areas just as fast as their antiquities protection was removed?

Who is going to hold the commercial agencies harvesting these lands accountable? Mike Lee sure isn’t.

 

[CJ19]

And do you foresee these now surrounding, once protected lands being changed into wilderness designated areas just as fast as their antiquities protection was removed?

Who is going to hold the commercial agencies harvesting these lands accountable? Mike Lee sure isn’t.

Why would mike lee have anything to do with it? What you are talking about would fall on the local, state, and federal regulatory agencies tasked with whatever activity that people seem to think is going to happen. I am not sure what people are expecting to happen.

 

[ActivelyDying]

Why would mike lee have anything to do with it? What you are talking about would fall on the local, state, and federal regulatory agencies tasks with whatever activity that people like is going to happen. I am not sure what people are expecting to happen.

I’m just pointing out that he has been a big proponent for the sell off and harvesting of our public lands, also he’s literally standing in the background during the signing of this. Why show up in support of this if he doesn’t have something to gain? There’s articles dating back to 17/18 with Lee pushing for this exact result.

What I’m expecting to happen is the exploitation of once protected lands. This would be a beautiful spot for a data center. I live in a state with tons of forestry management and have many friends that are loggers and arborists. I’m not advocating for stopping development and resource extraction everywhere however when I see an area which had previously been protected from the over consumption of humans where we could generationally recreate and enjoy now get potentially harvested and privatized in the future, I get fired up.

I’m not going to change any minds on this, interpret as you please. You do you boo.

 

[yfarm]

Please review the history of these monuments and how they were created before losing any more teeth. Clintons creation of Grand Staircase was characterized in 1996 as the most egregious example of executive overreach. These have never had congressional approval always executive orders, increase, decrease depending on who is in power. Under Obama and Biden motorized and non motorized access was limited from what had previously allowed under Clinton.

 

[Hnthrdr]

@ActivelyDying what do you like to hunt and where do you like to recreate?

 

[ActivelyDying]

@ActivelyDying what do you like to hunt and where do you like to recreate?

Muleys, Black Tail, Black Bear and Elk. I primarily hunt my home state of WA but have hunted a couple other western states. For WA I’m hunting primarily wilderness areas in the cascades. Have traveled and recreated in every state West of CO, as well as AK and HI whether that be for backpacking, MTB, moto or backcountry skiing.

 

[Blacktip]

Sounds like a W .

 

[Nealp11]

Well that’s just fantastic

 

[littlebigtine]

It’s naive to think this move is a win for sportsmen and women. This is a rollback of protections dressed up as a benefit to hunters, when it primarily clears the way for expanded grazing, development, and eventual mineral or energy claims. Tellingly, the BLM’s own prior analysis found that Bears Ears and Grand Staircase have little to offer in terms of oil and gas potential. If the resource case doesn’t hold up, then “energy security” isn’t the real motive here, it’s about opening up land use in general, and habitat pays the price either way.

It’s also worth noting that Utah wasn’t left holding the bag when Grand Staircase-Escalante was created in 1996. The state negotiated a land exchange that traded roughly 400,000 acres of state trust land caught inside the monument for federal land elsewhere, along with subsurface coal tracts and a $50 million cash payment. That deal has continued paying out for decades, including one parcel that alone generated over a million dollars a month in royalties for years. The “the state got shortchanged” narrative doesn’t hold up when the record shows Utah was compensated fairly, and in some ways came out ahead.

For the typical American, using these lands for grazing, energy, or development might mean some economic upside. But from where I stand, that habitat will never be the same, and the animals and ecology that depend on it don’t get a do over. This isn’t the first time either. Trump shrank these same monuments in 2017, cutting Grand Staircase in half and Bears Ears by 83 percent. That version was challenged and reversed. This time it’s far more aggressive with the new cuts reducing both monuments by roughly 3 million acres combined, about 90 percent of their original size.

The administration and its allies are framing this a win for multiple use and that these lands were not available to hunt and fish prior. But talk to anybody in UT and you know that these acres have always been available to sportsmen. Conservation groups are already flagging that these cuts touch more than 1.2 million acres of big game migration corridors, the exact terrain that keeps mule deer and elk populations connected and viable in the first place.

We already have a fragmented landscape that historically produced some of the most impressive game populations on the planet. The scale of these herds is so small and disconnected at this point that it doesn’t take much to push them over the edge, especially with supply shrinking and demand rising whereever you look. It’s time for hunters to prioritize our collective interest against the interests working directly against it.

Dont care if its an orange man selling crypto, blue woman trying to take our guns or an idiot saying that AI is intelligent. This is our decision and this is our legacy. My land, your land our land

 

[ActivelyDying]

It’s naive to think this move is a win for sportsmen and women. This is a rollback of protections dressed up as a benefit to hunters, when it primarily clears the way for expanded grazing, development, and eventual mineral or energy claims. Tellingly, the BLM’s own prior analysis found that Bears Ears and Grand Staircase have little to offer in terms of oil and gas potential. If the resource case doesn’t hold up, then “energy security” isn’t the real motive here, it’s about opening up land use in general, and habitat pays the price either way.

It’s also worth noting that Utah wasn’t left holding the bag when Grand Staircase-Escalante was created in 1996. The state negotiated a land exchange that traded roughly 400,000 acres of state trust land caught inside the monument for federal land elsewhere, along with subsurface coal tracts and a $50 million cash payment. That deal has continued paying out for decades, including one parcel that alone generated over a million dollars a month in royalties for years. The “the state got shortchanged” narrative doesn’t hold up when the record shows Utah was compensated fairly, and in some ways came out ahead.

For the typical American, using these lands for grazing, energy, or development might mean some economic upside. But from where I stand, that habitat will never be the same, and the animals and ecology that depend on it don’t get a do over. This isn’t the first time either. Trump shrank these same monuments in 2017, cutting Grand Staircase in half and Bears Ears by 83 percent. That version was challenged and reversed. This time it’s far more aggressive with the new cuts reducing both monuments by roughly 3 million acres combined, about 90 percent of their original size.

The administration and its allies are framing this a win for multiple use and that these lands were not available to hunt and fish prior. But talk to anybody in UT and you know that these acres have always been available to sportsmen. Conservation groups are already flagging that these cuts touch more than 1.2 million acres of big game migration corridors, the exact terrain that keeps mule deer and elk populations connected and viable in the first place.

We already have a fragmented landscape that historically produced some of the most impressive game populations on the planet. The scale of these herds is so small and disconnected at this point that it doesn’t take much to push them over the edge, especially with supply shrinking and demand rising whereever you look. It’s time for hunters to prioritize our collective interest against the interests working directly against it.

Dont care if its an orange man selling crypto, blue woman trying to take our guns or an idiot saying that AI is intelligent. This is our decision and this is our legacy. My land, your land our land

Well said