05.22.17

Democrats Release First in a Series of Features on National Monuments Threatened by Trump’s Interior Department Executive Order

Washington, D.C. – Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee today released a fact sheet on Canyons of the Ancients National Monument, the first in a weekly series on the national monuments threatened by the Trump administration’s ongoing “review” stemming from an April 26 Executive Order. Democrats will release a new fact sheet each Monday throughout the review period, which is expected to end with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommending weakened protections for, or even full revocation of, multiple national monuments.

The review period began with Zinke’s trip to Utah earlier this month to conduct largely one-sided meetings with interests opposed to Bears Ears National Monument – a trip the Washington Post noted was conspicuously short on dialogue with local and regional Native American voices. As of today the Interior Department has received more than 50,000 public comments on the review process. Comments can be submitted at https://www.regulations.gov/docket?D=DOI-2017-0002.

Despite public remarks to the contrary, Zinke’s review will be focused on lessening environmental safeguards at national monuments across the country. Bears Ears and some other monuments on the administration’s target list contain mineral deposits that industry spokespeople have demanded greater access to, including Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, Canyons of the Ancients and others.

As today’s Democratic fact sheet – released to mark Colorado’s first-ever celebration of Public Lands Day on Sat., May 20 – indicates, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument is home to more than 6,000 known Native American archaeological sites, including dwellings, kivas and rock art, with as many as 20,000 suspected sites yet to be discovered. The site is thought to contain the densest concentration of Native American historical artifacts in the nation.

“The monument is a huge part of the overall story of the Ancestral Puebloans, and we rely heavily on its importance to our tourism economy,” said Kelly Kirkpatrick, head of the Mesa Verde County Visitor Bureau. Indeed, Canyons of the Ancients has been a significant boon to the local economy under protected status.

Fast Facts (see more at the fact sheet at http://bit.ly/2qP1mkl)

-          Fully 83 percent of Coloradans support existing monument designations (Colorado College Conservation in the West Poll, 2017).

-          In Colorado, the outdoor recreation economy supports 125,000 jobs and contributes $994 million in state and local tax revenue (Outdoor Industry Association, 2017).

-          From the time it was designated in 2000 as a national monument to 2008, population in the Canyons of the Ancients region grew by 5 percent and jobs grew by 10 percent, mirroring the pace of growth in similar western counties with national monuments or other protected lands.

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