For Immediate Release: 7/14/2026
Contact:
Laura Welp, Southern Utah Director, Western Watersheds Project laura@westernwatersheds.org 435-899-0204
WWP Statement On Trump Slashing Boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments
On Monday, July 13th, President Donald Trump again suddenly and drastically reduced the boundaries of the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments to a remnant of their former size. This latest attack removes protections on lands restored by President Biden just 5 years ago, after Trump’s first boundary reductions. Grand Staircase-Escalante is now about 10% of what it once was. Bears Ears has been slashed to 9% of its original extent.
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in particular was established to protect whole ecosystems. As the climate changes and the environment that supports us is subject to new challenges, research on healthy, functioning biological processes is critical to our future. This requires intact landscapes with as many large, protected ecosystems as possible. Far from being a “land grab”, the former boundary was the smallest unit of land necessary to protect these landscape values. The remnant monument protects only a fraction of that.
The severe boundary reduction on Bears Ears is particularly a slap in the face to the tribal nations that came together to collaborate on protecting their ancestral sacred sites and landscapes. They were managing these lands centuries before Europeans came into the country. They are continuing to lift up a common voice speaking for conservation and protection of ancient lifeways. But Trump is sending a message, not just to them but also to other tribes in other states, that their wisdom is not valued.
Laura Welp, Southern Utah Director, said that “The excuses Republicans use to justify getting rid of these monuments all depend on hyperbole and hysteria to make it seem like no one will ever be able to mine, use OHVs, graze, recreate, or drill ever again where these monuments exist. None of this is true. Existing drilling and mining permits are grandfathered in. OHV use is ensured in travel management plans. Recreation opportunities have improved. And the hysterical contention that grazing was or will be in any way affected by monument designation is especially ridiculous.” Industry propaganda insists that Grand Staircase-Escalante, Bears Ears, and the Antiquities Act as a whole is the end of the ranching way of life as we know it. A handful of areas had been protected from livestock on Grand Staircase-Escalante, though most were released by willing sellers and the others were too marginal to support grazing operations. No ranchers have been affected at all on Bears Ears as a result of monument designation. “We have been visiting grazing allotments on these monuments for decades and can attest that livestock continues to be as badly mismanaged as ever. Ranchers and their political allies can rest assured that nothing has changed” said Welp.
Constant management changes also increase stress on BLM staff. The political instability makes it impossible to plan ahead, wasting time and taxpayer money. For example, Grand Staircase-Escalante has delayed conducting land health evaluations on allotments because no one knows which allotments are in and which are out of the monument. That means grazing continues even if it’s doing damage. This disruption comes on top of the recently reduced staff and budgets and the deliberate, nationwide destruction of the Bureau of Land Management as a whole.
Who is really benefitting from this? Politicians and their elite donors who stand to make money from degrading our National Monuments. Utah Senator Mike Lee and Representative Celeste Malloy make no secret of their blatant hostility toward these monuments and the Antiquities Act employed to create them, despite the majority of their own constituents who support their protection. Economic research shows that towns around these monuments benefit enormously from their establishment, but somehow only extractive industries are counted as local jobs. Time and again polls have shown strong support for conservation of our most cherished landscapes. But President Trump and his administration cannot fathom a world where everyone isn’t fighting to grab every dollar no matter the ultimate cost to plants, wildlife, sacred spaces, and the American public.
Laura Welp is the Southern Utah Director and Vegetation Specialist for Western Watersheds Project. She has lived and worked in southern Utah since 2001, when she was a botanist at the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument for four years.
