Date: Thursday, July 30, 2026
Contact: Anna Peterson: [email protected]
Today, over 330 Indigenous entities, faith groups, veterans, businesses, outdoor recreation companies, and scientific and conservation organizations sent a letter to the Trump administration, Congress, and the Department of the Interior strongly opposing any rollbacks or reductions to national monument protections, including the evisceration, by over 90 percent, of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments.
The letter states, “Our national parks and monuments are among our country’s most precious places. These cherished spaces protect Tribal and Indigenous homelands, outdoor access, drinking water, and wildlife habitats. They sustain rural economies and support family businesses. They belong to all Americans…The below listed Tribal and Indigenous entities, organizations, faith groups, veterans, businesses, scientists, and local communities STRONGLY OPPOSE rollbacks, reductions, and reduced protections of any kind to our national monuments.”
Patagonia CEO Ryan Gellert said, “The proclamations all but eliminating Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments is another attempt to liquidate lands that Tribal Nations and the American public hold dear. The Trump administration’s actions are part of an escalating whole-of-government attack on environmental regulation, climate action, public lands and nature. Patagonia stands with those who have stewarded the area for time immemorial and the 300 organizations and businesses voicing their opposition to these illegal actions.”
Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Former President Catherine Badgley said, “These places, designated as national monuments, are archives of Earth history. They inform us — through study, through being present within them — of how Earth’s ecosystems operated in the past under different geographic and climatic conditions. These places have a lot to teach us and those lessons will be sorely compromised if these areas are open to mining, grazing, and other forms of exploitation. As we try to understand and cope with the environmental crises that we face today, such places are important references and baselines of earlier worlds.”
Davina Smith-Idjesa, Four Corners Tribal Program Manager with NPCA said, “For decades, Tribes, local communities and park advocates across the nation have supported protecting these lands for future generations. Indigenous communities and Tribal Nations have stewarded this land for thousands of years, and these monuments carry a living cultural identity. They hold traditional knowledge and sacred connections that are inseparable from the land itself. Dismantling protections ignores years of collaborative stewardship and the enduring relationship Tribal Nations continue to have with these landscapes. We are glad to join over 300 other organizations, faith communities, scientists, businesses, and tribal entities in opposing the evisceration of these monuments.”
Vet Voice Foundation CEO Janessa Goldbeck, U.S. Marine Corps veteran said, “President Trump’s renewed and unprecedented assault on America’s public lands targeting Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments, cheered on by extremists like Senator Mike Lee, is outrageous but entirely predictable. Veterans understand what it means to serve something larger than ourselves. Trump and Lee serve billionaires and extraction companies looking to profit from lands that belong to all of us.
These lands are not just places on a map. They support local jobs and small businesses, provide affordable access for families, hunters, anglers, and outdoor enthusiasts, and protect places sacred to Tribal Nations. For veterans and military families, they are places to heal, reconnect, and earn a living.
Veterans fought alongside Tribal Nations, local communities, small businesses and outdoor advocates to restore protections for Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears. We will fight this attack with the same resolve, mobilizing veterans and military families from Utah to Washington, D.C., to defend these irreplaceable lands. We were glad to join the effort with 300 other organizations, businesses, and Tribal entities in voicing our strong opposition to these actions.”
Latino Outdoors Policy Advocate Jazzari Taylor said, “Latino Outdoors stands with Tribal Nations and communities in supporting the continued protection of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. As a Latine-led organization that inspires and connects comunidades to the outdoors, centering cultura, familia, and heritage, we recognize the Antiquities Act as one of our nation’s most enduring tools for protecting places of cultural, historical, ecological, and scientific significance.
Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante are living cultural landscapes that reflect generations of Indigenous stewardship and continue to connect communities to nature, history, and one another. We support meaningful Tribal consultation and the continued protection of these monuments so their cultural heritage, natural resources, and enduring stories remain protected for generations to come. We join over 300 other organizations and businesses in opposing these attacks.”
Creation Justice Ministries Acting Executive Director Derrick Weston said, “As Christians, we believe caring for Creation is a moral responsibility. We are committed to taking an active role in the work of remembering, repenting, healing from, and never repeating historic racial injustices. National Monuments like Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante are not just economic assets – they are home to our Indigenous neighbors, hold significant cultural significance, and are among some of the most pristine places on earth. Protecting this sacred land has profound ecological, social and moral implications.
Christians across this country should be deeply grieved by and alarmed about the continuing attacks on our national monuments. For too long this nation has undervalued and ignored the Indigenous wisdom that has made caring for these ancestral lands a sacred obligation. The God-given responsibility to protect these sacred spaces belongs to all of us and it is past time for us to listen to the wisdom that our brothers and sisters have used to steward this land for centuries. We proudly join with over 300 other organizations and businesses in opposing these harmful attacks.”
Note that the letter will remain open if other organizations and businesses are interested in signing on.
Please see additional quotes and statements here.
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FULL LETTER:
President Trump
Department of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum
CC: Members of Congress
Our national parks and monuments are among our country’s most precious places. These cherished spaces protect Tribal and Indigenous homelands, outdoor access, drinking water, and wildlife habitats. They sustain rural economies and support family businesses. They belong to all Americans.
Public lands and waters have been stewarded by Indigenous peoples since time immemorial. The recent gutting of protections for over 90% of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments is a direct affront to Tribal sovereignty, government-to-government consultation, and the U.S. Government’s trust and treaty obligations to Tribes.
On Monday, July 13, President Trump – backed by the Utah delegation and Gov. Cox – betrayed the American people, with particular disregard for Tribal Nations. The Administration attempted to brutally roll back protections for about 90%, or 3 million acres, in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. This is a major escalation of the 2017 rollbacks, which attempted to eliminate about 2 million acres of protections. It is one of the largest rollbacks of public land protections in U.S. history.
In a particular act of cruelty from the administration and the Utah delegation, the proclamation for Bears Ears explicitly “terminated” the longstanding and ground-breaking Bears Ears Commission (BEC). The proclamation for Grand Staircase-Escalante essentially erases a landmark co-stewardship framework established between the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition and the Bureau of Land Management.
The administration has also illegally attempted to roll back protections for marine monuments in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The Interior Department is conducting a review of these places to potentially turn them over to industrial fishing companies.
The below listed Tribal and Indigenous entities, organizations, faith groups, businesses, scientists, and local communities STRONGLY OPPOSE rollbacks, reductions, and reduced protections of any kind to our national monuments.
National monuments have the unwavering support of the Tribal nations, Indigenous and local communities, and businesses that have worked for years to ensure their protection.
Many of our nation’s most treasured places, including the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty, were originally protected under the Antiquities Act, which sets aside national land for public use in the interest of all Americans. Since Congress passed the 1906 Antiquities Act, and Republican President Theodore Roosevelt signed it into law, it has been used by 18 presidents—an equal number from both parties—to preserve historical and natural treasures across the country. Many of our most iconic national parks, such as Zion, Joshua Tree, and Acadia, were initially set aside for public use as national monuments. Handing these places over to developers, reducing their size, and otherwise rolling back protections shuts down outdoor access, destroys wildlife habitat, and threatens drinking water for local communities across the country.
National monuments create jobs and help boost local outdoor recreation economies, which contributed 2.4 percent ($697 billion) of current-dollar gross domestic product (GDP) for the nation in 2024. In 2024, a record-setting 332 million people visited a national park unit. Removing conservation protections on our shared public lands and waters, and opening them to mining, drilling, logging, and industrial fishing reduces access for activities like camping, hiking, hunting, and general nature enjoyment. Monuments also protect critical wildlife habitat, including 1.2 million acres of big-game migration corridors.
Since the first day of his second term, President Trump has trumpeted his “energy dominance” agenda. Yet this is in fact a corporate giveaway. Every place handed over to oil, gas, logging, livestock, and mining special interests is a place where recreation and wildlife are lost.
Oil and gas drilling broke records under President Biden. The United States is the world’s largest oil producer and has produced more crude oil than any other nation in history for at least six years in a row. Eighty-one percent of national public land is already open to oil and gas leasing. That’s over 200 million acres – or twice the size of California.
Even speculative mining does irreparable harm to these landscapes by fracturing wildlife habitat with roads and heavy machinery. Large industrial mines like the ones on the boundaries of Ironwood Forest National Monument and Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni National Monument can, among other harms, permanently destroy a region’s drinking water and wildlife habitat.
For all those reasons and more, slashing protections of our country’s bi-partisanly supported national monuments is deeply unpopular. Ninety-one percent of Western voters say existing national monument designations should be kept in place and 85 percent of Western voters support creating new national parks, national monuments, and national wildlife refuges and Tribal protected areas to protect historic sites or areas of outdoor recreation. Among self-identified MAGA supporters, a majority favor protecting public lands. In Utah, voters – Republicans and Democrats – overwhelmingly support Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, with over 70 percent in favor of keeping them as national monuments. In Arizona, 80 percent of voters support the new Grand Canyon national monument, Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni. Additionally, a 2022 poll revealed that New Englanders largely favor the establishment of permanently protected areas in the ocean.
The overwhelming love for our national monuments continues to be upheld. An attempt to sell off our public lands in 2025 led by Utah Senator Mike Lee was an exceptional failure after vehement bipartisan opposition. Similarly, Tribal resolutions and actions; letters from faith communities, scientists, national and local organizations, and businesses; along with 600,000 actions flooded Congress in the spring of 2026 opposing the Utah delegation’s effort to fast-track an attack on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Management Plan using the Congressional Review Act (CRA). That effort also failed.
For the sake of all current and future generations of Americans, these places must not be handed over to foreign interests and corporations, cutting off public access, destroying wildlife habitat, and desecrating cultural sites. We object to the administration’s commercialization of our shared public lands and waters. In response to both secretive threats and overt attacks on our public lands and waters, we say simply that our national monuments are not for sale.
Sincerely,
(as of July 30, 2026)
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