by jocelyn | Dec 3, 2017 | Uncategorized
As President Trump prepares to travel to Utah Monday where he reportedly will announce significant reductions to two of its national monuments, 146 scientists, researchers, and academic organizations from 19 states have released a letter to the administration citing the importance of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to scientific research and discovery.
Calling the more than two decades-old monument “an important living laboratory,” the scientists state that its current boundaries are “consistent with scientific resources specifically identified in the 1996 presidential proclamation in which 1.7 million acres of Federal land was set aside” and later expanded.
News reports say the president will reduce the monument by nearly half.
“I am gravely concerned that the forthcoming decision by the Trump administration will compromise the integrity of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and will set a negative precedent for decisions involving other national monuments,” said Arnold Miller, President of the Paleontological Society and Senior Associate Dean and Professor of Geology at the University of Cincinnati. “Grand Staircase-Escalante contains a trove of scientifically-valuable fossils and strata from boundary to boundary, and the excising of portions of this national monument for mining or other commercial activities will tragically compromise its integrity.”
Arguing that the monument’s geological, paleontological, archeological, cultural, and biological resources “are best studied at a large spatial scale,” the scientists’ letter notes that Grand Staircase-Escalante “hosts one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur fossils in the world,” that only 6 percent has been surveyed, and that “the potential for future discovery is tremendous.”
Mike Scott, PhD, research riparian ecologist in Fort Collins, CO said, “The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument contains within its boundaries a uniquely rich biological landscape, which has contributed leading-edge insights into rangeland health and management. Fragmenting the monument will threaten existing ecological resources and stifle ecological inquiry.”
“The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument contains a remarkable record of unique vertebrates that spans more than 20 million years. This record includes terrestrial vertebrates from intervals of time from which no specimens have been recovered anywhere else in the world,” said Jeff Eaton, a Grand Staircase researcher in Escalante, UT, and member of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP).
Joe Sertich, Grand Staircase researcher at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and SVP member said, “New discoveries, like those being made regularly in the rocks preserved within Grand Staircase-Escalante, have the potential to alter our understanding of the processes of evolution and the responses of life to a changing planet.”
The scientists are concerned with more than preserving the fossils within Grand Staircase. “The Monument is biologically diverse and contains a significant percentage of Utah’s rare and endemic plant species and is the richest bee landscape reported to date,” their letter states. They also point to its cultural landscapes that span some 14,000 years. “What is special is the wholeness of the archeological record on the monument and our ability to study it in its natural setting,” the letter reads.
“Grand Staircase is a unique and irreplaceable resource for research on the paleontology of the Late Cretaceous,” said F. Robin O’Keefe, SVP member and Grand Staircase researcher at Marshall University, Huntington, WV. “We have only scratched the surface; loss of the monument would be a scientific tragedy.”
by jocelyn | Nov 16, 2017 | Uncategorized
CONTACT:
Suzanne Catlett, [email protected]; 801-836-1280
Nearly 600 businesses and chambers of commerce say their future is uncertain with attacks on national monuments
Escalante, Utah (November 16, 2017) – Just days before Small Business Saturday, nearly 600 rural businesses, aquariums, and chambers of commerce sent a letter to Gary Cohn, Director of the National Economic Council, urging the Trump administration to help protect their bottom lines by maintaining boundaries and safeguards for America’s national monuments.
The letter comes after the recent news that President Donald J. Trump plans to shrink the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah. The letter from chambers of commerce, aquariums, and businesses across the country expresses “serious concerns” over the unprecedented assault on America’s public lands and waters.
The chambers of commerce represent businesses including “mom and pop” shops across the country that would be negatively impacted should protections for nearby national monuments be weakened or removed. This letter comes after 360 outdoor recreation businesses sent a separate letter to President Trump highlighting the economic benefits of national monuments to livelihoods and local communities. Together, the signers represent a broad spectrum of businesses that rely on national monuments for their bottom line.
The chambers of commerce, aquariums, and business owners are concerned that protections might be reduced not just for the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah, but for those named in a leaked report from Interior Secretary Zinke: Gold Butte (NV), Cascade-Siskiyou (OR), Río Grande del Norte and Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks (NM), Katahdin Woods and Waters (ME), Northeast Canyons and Seamounts off the coast of New England, and the Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
“As head of a chamber representing 49 businesses, I can tell you that since the protection of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, our local tourism industry in Escalante has grown and is thriving,” said Suzanne Catlett, Board President of the Escalante & Boulder Chamber of Commerce. “Thanks to our national monuments, people want to live here, and new home construction is at an all-time high. We have no doubt that Bears Ears National Monument will bring the same economic opportunities to the area. There is no doubt that shrinking these national monuments would harm our local businesses.”
“Our local businesses supported national monument designation for Gold Butte because we knew it would provide a much-needed economic boost for our Southern Nevada community,” said Peter Guzman, President of the Latin Chamber of Commerce. “From casinos to grocery stores, local businesses understand what Gold Butte is worth, and it has helped Nevada’s star shine brighter. We urge President Donald Trump to stand with local business leaders and leave our national monument the way it is today.”
Cindy Bernard, past president of the Ashland, Oregon Chamber of Commerce said, “Residents and local businesses within and adjacent to the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument have come to enjoy the high quality of life afforded by the monument. Shrinking Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument would take away the asset that we have come to rely upon. As a community, we have felt the positive impact created by recognizing this unique resource, which is why we supported the expansion. Clearly monument designation has helped put us on the map. Why would the president knowingly harm our small businesses?”
Zack Klyver, Head Naturalist for Bar Harbor Whale Watch Company added, “I have taken over a half million passengers to see the northwest Atlantic Ocean’s whales, dolphins, and seabirds like Atlantic puffins. Whale-watching generates over $125 million in New England. Our industry can only thrive when we’re able to see these animals in the wild consistently. The Northeast Canyons and Seamounts marine monument provides a refuge for whales, in a sea that is increasingly industrialized. The vast majority of Americans want healthy, abundant oceans – opening up our monuments to commercial activities would mean the opposite.”
The letter from business leaders notes, “decisions regarding where to locate a business are not taken lightly. For many of us, the decision to locate and invest in our communities was based on the promise that national monuments are permanently protected.”
“The Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument has brought hope to our region at a time when it is desperately needed. The monument has brought businesses and communities together with a sense of optimism that we haven’t seen in some time. Good things are happening. The monument is bringing national attention to the Katahdin region. We urge President Trump to stand with local businesses and leave our national monument intact,” added Gail Fanjoy, past president of the Katahdin Area Chamber of Commerce in Millinocket, Maine.
Carrie Hamblen, CEO/President of the Las Cruces Green Chamber of Commerce said, “New Mexico businesses have benefitted directly from increased visitation to Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks and Río Grande del Norte National Monuments. In Doña Ana County, we just hosted our second annual, month-long ‘Monuments to Main Street’ celebration that featured tours and other events at Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks. People love it and are coming to southern New Mexico specifically because of our monument.”
“New Mexico broke record tourism numbers again in 2016, with the state’s public lands, like our national monuments, being one of the largest draws. Visitation to Río Grande del Norte has increased by 45 percent compared to before the monument’s designation. Local businesses including rafting companies, hotels, and restaurants are directly benefitting from this. Simply put, removing or altering protections would undermine our bottom line,” added Glenn Schiffbauer, Executive Director of the Santa Fe Green Chamber of Commerce.
“The State of Hawai‘i has long recognized the important connection between protecting its natural resources as a means to ensuring a sustainable economy and way of life for its people while honoring its unique history and culture. At the Maui Ocean Center, we are proud to be a part of a community that advocates for the continued preservation and conservation of its natural and national environmental treasures including the Pacific Remote Islands, Rose Atoll, and Papahanaumokukea National Monuments,” said Tapani Vuori, General Manager of the Maui Ocean Center and President of Maui Ocean Center Marine Institute. “We strongly encourage the Trump administration to maintain the protections established for these precious spaces and uphold its national responsibility to honor the legacy of its people and lands for future generations.”
The letter closes:
“We the undersigned 572 businesses, aquariums, and chambers of commerce urge you to stand up for our national monuments by helping to end the job-killing efforts to roll back our national monuments or the Antiquities Act which first made these beneficial protections possible.”
The hundreds of businesses, aquariums, and chambers of commerce that signed the letter represent a vital component of the American public who support the country’s national monuments. During the national monument review, roughly three million comments were submitted; with an overwhelming 99 percent in support of keeping national monument protections in place.
by mfa-admin | Aug 29, 2017 | Uncategorized
This Spring, my partner and I – along with tens of thousands of Americans – were stunned to watch President Donald Trump sign an Executive Order that could jeopardize one of America’s greatest assets: our national monuments. From Bears Ears to the Statue of Liberty, our national monuments preserve our natural and cultural treasures.
So we decided to take a leap and help defend our national monuments! Over the course of the next few months, we will be visiting threatened national monuments throughout the West.
We want you to come along for the ride. We hope to meet many of the people who worked together to conserve our national heritage along the way. And we hope that you join us in defending our national monuments by making your voices heard here.
A Monumental Road Trip: Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument!
“America’s Public Lands Embody Our Common Ground: Heritage, Freedom and Hope for the Future.”
Designated in 1996, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in southern Utah is a serious powerhouse of amazing vistas, cool landscapes, adventure, science and history. Its designation established it as a monument for scientific research, and the monument continues to wow visitors, provide grand solitude and be a place of novel scientific discovery.
There are over 20,000 archaeological sites in the area. In addition, there are dinosaurs! Twenty-one new dinosaurs have been discovered since 2000. (Sorry, no dinosaur pictures …)
Grand Staircase-Escalante is also home to the Escalante River, one of the last free-flowing rivers in the West. The river felt like the life blood of the monument and has created fantastic washes, canyons and slot canyons that are a joy to explore. While we were there, we traveled to the famous Hole in the Wall Road (it travels from just north of Escalante to Lake Powell) and hiked to Golden Cathedral. It’s a stunning sandstone dome at the end of a narrow canyon with a waterfall that pours through a hole in the ceiling. The hike takes you across high plateau, traverses down a wide canyon to the Escalante river, and then up narrow Neon Canyon. Sitting there looking up at the dome, you can feel the history of the place.
Since President Clinton established the monument in 1996, there has been a continual grumble that the monument has hampered economic growth in the county by closing the area to oil, gas and mineral development. Not surprisingly, the current motivation behind the push to remove or shrink the monument is pressure from the fossil fuel industry.
The reality on the ground was much different. We found that the communities around Grand-Staircase Escalante to be excellent examples of the economic benefit designation of a monument can provide to local communities. Both Boulder and Escalante, Utah, seemed invigorated by the monument. Local businesses have sprouted up clearly as a result of tourist traffic through the area. The Magnolia Street Food bus was parked outside of the visitor’s center and served up killer tacos using local and seasonal ingredients. In addition, one of the best restaurants in America is in Boulder, Utah – Hell’s Backbone Grill & Farm. Blake Spalding, co-owner of Hell’s Backbone, spoke at the This Land is Our Land March in Salt Lake City, UT and extolled the benefits that the monument has brought to the community. We found a similar story in Escalante with cute restaurants, a great natural foods market and tour guide companies. Both communities felt alive and thriving. Nate Waggoner from Escalante Outfitters was recently interviewed on Go West, Young Podcast. He provides a solid local perspective for the economic growth the monument has provided for the local communities. Later, we visited Kanab and saw numerous businesses geared toward the monument there as well.
As the BLM has emphasized about the monument’s archaeological sites, “it is the wholeness of the sites” that makes the monument so valuable. In Red, Passion and Patience in the Desert, Terry Tempest Williams also extolled the monument for its importance as an ecological bridge between National Parks, a bridge between ecological islands. Williams poignantly describes Grand Staircase-Escalante as the “crucial missing puzzle piece that prevents ecological fragmentation.”
Crucially, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument rejoins Bryce National Park to Dixie National Forest and the Box-Death Hollow Wilderness Area, which then weaves Capitol Reef National Park into Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.
I don’t know if it was the river, the spirit of the surrounding communities, the canyons or the red desert, but Grand Staircase-Escalante stole our hearts, and it’s a place to which we will return.
As we travel onto our next national monument, I urge you to please help preserve this incredible national monument. Visit here to take action!
by mfa-admin | Aug 28, 2017 | Uncategorized
This Spring, my partner and I – along with tens of thousands of Americans – were stunned to watch President Donald Trump sign an Executive Order that could jeopardize one of America’s greatest assets: our national monuments. From Bears Ears to the Statue of Liberty, our national monuments preserve our natural and cultural treasures.
So we decided to take a leap and help defend our national monuments! Over the course of the next few months, we will be visiting threatened national monuments throughout the West.
We want you to come along for the ride. We hope to meet many of the people who worked together to conserve our national heritage along the way. And we hope that you join us in defending our national monuments by making your voices heard here.
A Monumental Road Trip: Vermilion Cliffs National Monument!
Protected in 2000, the monument houses a geologic wonderland of erosional formations—sheer cliffs, slot canyons, vibrantly colored yellow-red-orange-purple sandstone dunes, rock outcroppings, and mesas. It’s a remote and seemingly unspoiled area, and home to many sensitive species of plants and animals. The monument is also home to over twenty species of raptors and after being reintroduced in 1996 by the Peregrine Fund, California Condors!
Perhaps the most famous feature of Vermilion Cliffs is “The Wave”. The area is so popular that the BLM hands out permits for just 20 individuals to visit each day. There are 10 permits handed out in an online lottery and 10 permits handed out in-person the day before at the BLM field office in Kanab. We decided to try our luck and showed up bright and early at the put our name in for a permit. The day we showed up, there were 96 other people vying for “Wave” permits. It was a fully international crowd and despite the tension, was quite festive. They literally pick numbers like a lottery or bingo. Somehow our number was picked and we scored a permit to visit “The Wave” the next day! Even if we hadn’t though, we would have had no shortage of jaw-dropping wildness to experience; as the BLM ranger said, “you have already won the lottery just by being there.”
We woke up before sunrise to start our hike, both to beat the heat and to experience the morning colors and rhythms of the desert. When we got to the trail-head, Yoko, a Japanese woman from Tokyo was already there. We invited her to join us and we headed off across the desert in the barely-there morning light.
“The Wave” is incredible. Lines of color etched into rock, swirling and pulsating, creating a rhythm of color and texture. We spent over an hour clambering around on the rock, looking at the phenomenon from every perspective.
With the Wave securely etched in our consciousness, we decided to explore further and hiked to “The Second Wave” and then to the “Swirls.” From the Swirls, we followed a canyon back to the entry point for “The Wave.” The canyon was extremely narrow in spots, and Sam kindly gave rides to Yoko and me through puddles. We headed back to “The Wave” for one final viewing. More people had arrived in the interim and it was their turn to sit in awe of sandscape.
While we were hiking “The Wave” we meet people from Japan, Canada, France, Puerto Rico (that group had been trying for three years to get a permit!), Denmark and New Hampshire, and this doesn’t account for the other 88 people that showed up for the daily permit lottery; most of whom seemed to be from overseas. That’s a jaw-dropping number of international people in a remote section of Utah and Arizona, and they are there because of our amazing, unique and irreplaceable public lands.
Vermilion Cliffs’ fate remains up in the air as pro-mining groups continue to pressure the administration to reduce or remove protections to open up mineral development. This short-term gain for a few would be at the expense of the long-term gain (beauty, wildness, solitude, ecology, history) for us all.
As we travel onto our next national monument, I urge you to please help preserve this incredible national monument. Visit here to take action!
by mfa-admin | Aug 28, 2017 | Uncategorized
This Spring, my partner and I – along with tens of thousands of Americans – were stunned to watch President Donald Trump sign an Executive Order that could jeopardize one of America’s greatest assets: our national monuments. From Bears Ears to the Statue of Liberty, our national monuments preserve our natural and cultural heritage.
So we decided to take a leap and help defend our national monuments! Over the course of the next few months, we will be visiting threatened national monuments throughout the West.
We want you to come along for the ride. We hope to meet many of the people who worked together to conserve our national heritage along the way. And we hope that you join us in defending our national monuments by making your voices heard here.
A Monumental Road Trip: Bears Ears National Monument!
Whose Ears? Bears Ears! Whose Land? Our Land!
We were finally headed to Utah, the epicenter of the public land privatization movement and home to two of the hot-spots of the Administration’s monument “review.”
Our first stop in Utah was Salt Lake City (SLC) to attend the, “This Land is Our Land,” march during the Outdoor Retailer Show. Like any good Portlander, we will drive hundreds of miles for a good rally. This would be the last Outdoor Retailer held in SLC, as the show is moving to Denver in response to the continued push by Utah elected officials to sell-off public lands and their opposition to the designation of Bears Ears as a national monument.
On our first morning in SLC, we got up bright and early to attend Conservation Alliance’s breakfast. Conservation Alliance is a membership organization comprised of outdoor recreation businesses. The membership dues are passed on to advocacy groups working to protect the places that we rely on for outdoor recreation. Conservation Alliance has been hugely successful in galvanizing the outdoor industry to support public lands advocacy, including working to protect many of the monuments that are now under threat.
Conservation Alliance hosted a great breakfast with a talk by photographer Joe Riis to a packed house. Check out his forthcoming book Migrations written about large migrations into Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park.
Shout out to the Patagonia SLC Outlet store for providing sign-making supplies for the march.
In the afternoon, we marched for public lands! People were there to celebrate the public lands that we all depend on and enjoy. It was fantastic to see the Utah State Capital Building overrun with supporters from a wide-range of backgrounds that all connect with public lands in different ways. There were hunters, cyclists, climbers, tribal members, wilderness lovers, business leaders, politicians, hikers, Democrats, Republicans and more all unified around the support of public lands.
After the march, we packed up and headed to Bears Ears. We were going to meet Southwest Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) for a volunteer weekend. SUWA has been a strong, steady and successful voice for the conservation of public lands (and wilderness areas in particular) in Utah.
The volunteer trip was focused on constructing fence to protect aspen. The La Sal Mountains have beautiful old aspen groves; but unfortunately, new aspen only grow when the old ones are disturbed (historically by fire). Fire suppression and over-management has resulted in a lack of new aspen growth. Aspen that do attempt to come up are quickly eaten by cattle and ungulates. We fenced three areas in the afternoon and then had a great potluck learning about our fellow volunteers, discussing Bears Ears, and hearing more about SUWA’s and the Forest Service’s work.
The next day we did some work on Hammond Canyon trail.
After Hammond trail, we finally drove to the namesake of the monument, the Bears Ears buttes. We quickly learned why they advise not driving after rain: the mud is fiercely slick and our caravan became stuck. We turned around and decided to try again another day.
The next night we camped at Muley Point, an amazing overlook that has sweeping views down into the Goosenecks and out to Monument Valley in Arizona.
Bears Ears is beautiful; without a doubt, but more importantly, it is and feels like sacred land. The designation was an effort spearheaded by five Tribes to protect cultural sites, and after even a short visit, the deep history of the place was obvious. From Lyle Balenquah’s essay, Spirit of Place: Preserving the Cultural Landscape of the Bears Ears, in Jacqueline Keeler’s Edge of Morning, native voices speak for themselves:
The Bears Ears Monument is about more than just preservation for preservation’s sake, more than drawing a line on a map to protect a fragile ecosystem from the development of the fossil fuel industry. It’s also about more than protection of archaeological sites from wanton vandalism or preservation of these sites solely for scientific purposes. It’s about the protection of Indigenous cultures so that we retain our ability to pass on our traditional knowledge to future generations. Protection of this landscape allows us to share with the outside world that we are more than historical footnotes, to show that our connections to ancestral lands traverse distance and time. [. . .]
Bears Ears has become the lightning rod for the public lands debate, and unsurprisingly; after a perfunctory visit, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended that the monument be reduced in size. The designation of Bears Ears represents not just the protection of important lands but is also milestone in tribal/federal relations. A reduction of the monument would not just be an affront to the conservation of public lands, but also to the Tribes who proposed the monument and whose important cultural and spiritual lands were protected through the designation. Stand With Bears Ears!
As we travel onto our next national monument, I urge you to please help preserve this incredible place. Visit here to take action!
by mfa-admin | Aug 27, 2017 | Uncategorized
This Spring, my partner and I – along with tens of thousands of Americans – were stunned to watch President Donald Trump sign an Executive Order that could jeopardize one of America’s greatest assets: our national monuments. From Bears Ears to the Statue of Liberty, our national monuments preserve our natural and cultural treasures.
So we decided to take a leap and help defend our national monuments! Over the course of the next few months, we will be visiting threatened national monuments throughout the West.
We want you to come along for the ride. We hope to meet many of the people who worked together to conserve our national heritage along the way. And we hope that you join us in defending our national monuments by making your voices heard here.
A Monumental Road Trip: Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument!
This monument in Arizona is vast and magnificently diverse. It includes deep canyons, 30 degrees hotter than the forest, to 8,000’ Mount Trumball with beautiful Ponderosa Pine. It’s also remote and undeveloped. There are no paved roads into the monument and it would be simple to find complete solitude. The remoteness, vastness and huge landscape-level-protection is what makes this monument so, well, monumental.
Our exploration of Grand Canyon-Parashant began in Nevada, where we contemplated a western entrance to explore Pakoon Springs. A couple we meet in Gold Butte told us a feral alligator lived in Pakoon Springs for almost a decade surviving on rabbits. However, it was the roads from Gold Butte and not the giant carnivorous lizard that kept us from exploring the western side of Grand Canyon-Parashant.
We ended up arriving from the north via the Kaibab Paiute reservation. There were plenty of warnings about the roads into the monument in this area as well, but after driving it we say “Pfft, they haven’t been to Gold Butte!” The roads in this section were far better and softer and we breezed forty miles down Antelope Valley Road for an evening visit to peer into the Grand Canyon itself. Toroweap (technically in the National Park), or as Sam likes to call it, “No Leap,” was a remarkably sheer overlook into Grand Canyon itself. Butterflies, shaky legs, and woozy stomach all show up to meet those carefully half-stepping to the ledge to look 3000’ down to the muddy Colorado River.
We camped near Nampaweap, (aka Two Foot Canyon), a mild rock and forested canyon that was the gap between two foothills and a path from the high country to the low Grand Canyon. At night the moonlight sliced perfectly through the canyon.
In the morning, we walked to the petroglyphs. Like Mt. Irish in Basin and Range National Monument, it was a regular art district with petroglyphs all over the place. There was a mountain goat or sheep that was quite striking and on the next rock over a life-sized but small human hand. It was impossible to not feel a connection with the hand.
From the petroglyphs, we headed to the tall peaks of the monument for a view. Most of what we had seen so far was sagebrush rangeland, and Nampaweap was juniper and pine forest, but heading towards Mt. Trumbull and Mt. Logan, we entered a beautiful taller forest of oak, grass, and Ponderosa Yellow Belly pines. We passed a pair of windblown Ponderosas so big that they could have made small canoes. They were perhaps four feet across and must have come down in the same windstorm. We hiked up to a high point and got some great views of the canyons snaking across the landscape. We found two turkey, two bluebird, and one goshawk feather on the way.
Parashant felt like a really unique and special place that I could enjoy visiting for a lifetime. Department of Interior Secretary Zinke announced that this Monument has been excused from attempts at revision. I’m glad to know that Grand Canyon-Parashant will continue to be preserved for others to enjoy for their lifetimes as well.
As we travel onto our next public lands adventure, I urge you to please help preserve all our incredible national monuments. Visit here to take action!
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