The Wilderness Society just emailed me this list of what’s at risk — SO FAR.
It will probably get much longer.
We now have a partial list of national monuments where President Trump's ax will fall first. According to news reports, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke has recommended significantly altering Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, Katahdin Woods & Waters in Maine, Cascade-Siskiyou in Oregon, Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks and Rio Grande del Norte in New Mexico, Gold Butte in Nevada and marine monuments in both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
We have to make sure Trump doesn't get away with this: contact your senators and make sure they won't stand for gutting our natural wonders.
Acting on these recommendations would represent a shocking assault on and public lands and set a terrible precedent. It's just one step on the path to selling out our shared wildlands for oil and gas drilling, mining and other development.
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Especially if you live in Utah, Maine, Oregon, New Mexico, Nevada or on the West or East Coasts, please contact your Senators NOW.
Don’t let this malign administration sell out America the Beautiful to the lowest bidder. These monuments and parks belong to the AMERICAN PEOPLE, not these corporate cronies, and these unique and beautiful places are to be held in trust for all the generations to come.
Here’s what I’m emailing my Senators:
Dear Senator:
I spent many summer vacations with my family visiting our national parks and monuments. My memories of those wonderful trips remain vivid and cherished. They contributed a great deal to my pride in being an American.
Preserving the special beauty of our country is one of the greatest ideas that the U.S.A. ever came up with, and it has sparked national preservation movements in many other countries. The world is indebted to thinkers like John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt and so many other Americans who have nurtured and continued to expand our National Parks and Monuments. If ever there was an example of American exceptionalism, this is it.
National monuments, public lands, and waters are also a critical part of our nation's economy, especially for rural and Western communities. Our state and its neighbors benefit from the tourism, outdoor recreation, and quality of life associated with healthy and protected public lands.
I strongly support protecting our public lands, and the American public overwhelmingly opposes attacks on national parks, monuments, public lands, and waters. In particular, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah, Katahdin Woods & Waters in Maine, Cascade-Siskiyou in Oregon, Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks and Rio Grande del Norte in New Mexico, Gold Butte in Nevada and our own vulnerable marine monuments in the Pacific Ocean. These monuments are appropriately classified, and provide significant economic benefits associated with outdoor recreation, travel, and tourism.
Our national monuments and parks should remain protected for future generations to enjoy – they are a gift that belongs to ALL Americans, and which we hold in trust for our children and grandchildren, and their children's children. An attempt to attack one monument by rolling back protections would be an attack on them all.
The Department of the Interior would be hard-pressed to shrink, eliminate, or alter national monuments without undermining the very cultural and natural resources they protect, but that is exactly what Interior Secretary Zinke is proposing to do. I am firmly opposed to any effort to revoke or diminish protections for any of our national monuments, and I urge you to fight any and all efforts to change the status of our precious natural wonders.
Drilling and mining are inherently destructive, and what has been destroyed can never be restored. Some things must be held sacred, placed above temporary commercial gain, or our children will live in a barren land that was once called 'America the Beautiful.'
Thank you for considering my views.