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Op-Ed – Grand Staircase Escalante Partners


Statement on President Trump’s Executive Order to Review National Monuments

by Grand Staircase Escalante Partners

The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is one of the most spectacular landscapes America has to offer. People from all over the world travel to experience this iconic corner of the American west. It is the epicenter for the most exciting and significant discoveries in modern paleontology and holds vast and diverse cultural resources. It is essential to the research of landscape-scale management on the Colorado Plateau in the era of climate change and we’ve only scratched the surface of the potential of this national treasure.

If a fair and thorough assessment of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument with input from all stakeholders is conducted, the only conclusion is that the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is the correct size to properly steward the resources set forth in the proclamation. This executive order is simply another play in the losing battle to sell off America’s public lands to special interests.

Grand Staircase Escalante Partners trusts that Secretary Zinke will follow in the footsteps of Teddy Roosevelt, who said, “We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation.”

Grand Staircase Escalante Partners is the official support organization for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

 

 

 

 

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