Lately, when I sit down with a cup of coffee and my laptop first thing in the morning, I’m struck by a palpable sense of the uncharted nature of these times. It’s similar to a feeling of renewal, but things are not returning to how they used to be. We’re stepping through an entrance — a gateway. We’ve been tried and tested, and we came out on the other side.
Between the COVID-19 pandemic and a level of chaos bordering on the surreal in Washington D.C., distinguishing last year from an apocalyptic science fiction movie was not always easy. While the virus has touched the lives of many of us across the Colorado Plateau, Native communities have been disproportionately affected, another consequence of the legacy of economic and environmental racism that has limited access to healthcare, running water, and other key infrastructure. At the Trust, we necessarily adjusted our foci and did what we could to support the physical and economic health of the communities in which we work. But with a new administration, a new Congress, and vaccines for COVID-19, we’re feeling optimistic about the future. It teems with possibility.
While the political careers of President Biden and Vice President Harris to present did not focus on environmental justice or conservation, early executive orders and political appointments show a deep commitment to these values. They have heard the people, including Greta Thunberg, George Floyd, and the Tohono O’odham women leading protests at the border wall. The appointments of Rep. Deb Haaland as secretary of the interior and Brenda Mallory as head of the Council on Environmental Quality, and new commitments like adding a staff position dedicated to environmental justice at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission are early signifiers of what’s to come. The era of a targeted (and scattershot) onslaught against environmental protections by the Trump administration that often forced us into a reactive stance is over, and the new White House is devoted to new ways of thinking.
Cedar Mesa, Valley of the Gods. BOB WICK, BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT
On his first day in office, President Biden issued an executive order beginning a 60-day review of the boundaries and conditions of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments to determine “whether restoration of the monument boundaries and conditions that existed as of January 20, 2017, would be appropriate.” While we and our partners of course want a prompt restoration of the monument boundaries, this move represents enormous progress in the right direction.
The 60 days create a space for the administration to get it right, through essential conversations between the White House and tribal leaders regarding the right boundaries and priorities for Bears Ears. Those discussions between sovereign governments are a necessary prerequisite to securing the most permanent land designation possible, and a federal-intertribal collaborative management framework that solidifies Indigenous involvement in decision-making on ancestral lands in the region.
At the Trust, we’re advocating for the most complete and permanent restorations of both monuments, working in support of tribal nations and alongside our nonprofit partners, through conversations and written communication with officials in the administration, in court, and in the media. Once restored, not only will lands be protected, but we hope the durability of land designations will be affirmed. With those lines back on the map, we will turn our attention to advocating for the most culturally and ecologically sound management of those landscapes.
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. BLAKE MCCORD
At Grand Staircase-Escalante, we’re emphasizing restoration of the monument’s original science-centered vision and permanent closure of livestock grazing across the 27,000 acres that were closed prior to the Trump administration’s actions. As conservationists, we hold grazing permits to run a few cattle on the monument, keeping the number of animals as low as possible to protect the soil from trampling and keep native plants intact. Because of that role, we have a unique interest in and perspective on improving grazing management there. In the coming years, we will make our case that all options for reducing grazing are on the table especially in light of climate change and associated drought. Also, we’re going to remind folks at the federal Bureau of Land Management, which manages the monument, that pinyon and juniper forests belong out there and shouldn’t be clear-cut or even selectively thinned without attention to cultural resources and pinyon jay habitat.
Once the boundaries and collaborative management framework are in place at Bears Ears, we’ll support the tribes of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and the federal government by providing on-the-ground expertise to help inform the best decisions about how to protect the area’s natural wonders and living cultural resources, from petroglyphs to native plants to bighorn sheep to desert springs.
The Bears Ears federal-intertribal collaborative-management model has applicability beyond this landscape. It’s kindling to fuel the fire of the hearth around which tribes, the federal government, conservationists, and others can come together to warm ourselves in a public-lands future that prioritizes justice and honors the deep cultural ties that connect Native peoples to their ancestral lands. The Trust will advocate that the federal government devote itself to working with tribal nations toward an expansion of federal-intertribal collaborative management and Indigenous involvement in decision-making on ancestral lands that are now public lands across the Colorado Plateau, including the Grand Canyon region.
Grand Canyon. RICK GOLDWASSER
In other inspiring signs from the new administration and new Congress, a permanent legislative ban on new uranium mining claims on 1 million acres of public lands around the Grand Canyon is imminent. After years of working closely with elected officials, the Havasupai Tribe, and other nonprofits to craft and advocate for this ban, we believe we are on the cusp. On February 26, 2021, the Protecting America’s Wilderness and Public Lands Act, a legislative package that included the ban, passed the House of Representatives with bipartisan support. A Grand Canyon mining ban bill, the Grand Canyon Protection Act, has already been introduced in the Senate. When the time is right, our energy director, Amber Reimondo, will head back to Capitol Hill and remind our representatives in Congress which way the scale tips when the Grand Canyon is on one side and low-quality uranium ore is on the other. With a little luck, the ban will not only pass the Senate and be signed into law by the president, but lead Congress to reconsider the 1872 mining law that encourages people to view public lands as a resource to plunder for private profit.
Climate change is inextricably woven into the economic, cultural, and ecological future of the plateau, and we expect to make gains in the next few years to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through federal regulation. Already, President Biden reestablished the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases. In our region, that body’s work could help discourage polluting projects like the proposed Enefit oil shale development in Utah. Meanwhile, our staff attorney Michael Toll will keep fighting it in court.
Beyond the progress that has already come into view, enormous opportunities for our work on the Colorado Plateau lie ahead. The Biden administration has committed to lofty conservation goals, including protecting 30 percent of the country’s lands and oceans by 2030, and reversing regulatory rollbacks of bedrock environmental laws like the National Environmental Policy Act. We will hold the federal government accountable to those commitments and employ these laws to safeguard against projects that could deplete precious groundwater at the Grand Canyon, like the Stilo mega-resort development proposed for Tusayan, near the gateway to the national park.
Little Colorado River. ADAM HAYDOCK
To recover from a pandemic with deep economic repercussions, the new administration and Congress will likely be forced to measure conservation actions in economic terms. Legislative and regulatory safeguards for the environment often present long-term economic benefits, and it’s our job to put it in those terms for civil servants and elected officials in Washington, D.C. For example, we’ll stand behind the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, Hualapai Tribe, U.S. Department of the Interior, and others in continuing to oppose developments like the proposed dams on the Little Colorado River. These dams would harm cultural resources and threaten critical habitat for the endangered humpback chub, and Sarana Riggs, our Grand Canyon manager, won’t be backing down. At the same time, because job opportunities are needed in the region, we’ll collaborate with the Navajo Nation and the National Park Service in pursuing long-term regenerative economic opportunities for Native-owned ecotourism businesses at the Grand Canyon, where recreational visitation rises as reliably as the sun.
With stability returned to the Capitol, conservation progress accelerates. The Trump era brought regulatory rollbacks in direct opposition to our mission to safeguard the wonders of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado Plateau, while supporting the rights of its Native peoples. After 2020, it’s hard not to feel a bit hesitant about the apparent opportunity before us, as if the world is a table that might crumble to the floor as soon as we sit down. But this table is solid, and we’re charting a course with our allies upon it. The opportunities are real, and we cannot hesitate. Maybe one of the legs of the table needs a shim or two to make it level, but it’s ready to hold a full meal for all of us to share. I have just the thing for it: fresh coffee. Here we go. Let’s level this thing out and get rollin.’
As conservation director for the Grand Canyon Trust, Travis Bruner oversees advocacy work across the organization.
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