For Immediate Release
January 17, 2025
Western Watersheds Project Statement on the Critical Importance of Protecting the Antiquities Act from Political Tampering
The Antiquities Act allows presidents to establish national monuments in areas that need greater protections for natural, cultural, and historic resources. Presidents of both parties have been using the Act since 1906 to establish some of our most treasured landscapes. Grand Canyon, Katmai, and Zion National Parks, for example, all started out as monuments under the Antiquities Act.
Polls consistently show support for conservation of public lands, even in Utah. A recent poll of Utah residents across the political spectrum shows broad approval of national monuments and the protections they bring to the landscape’s geology, paleontology, wildlife, plants, and the cultural and spiritual heritage of Indigenous people.
In 1950, Congress unwisely passed a prohibition on the presidential designation of National Monuments in Wyoming, reserving for itself the exclusive privilege of designating National Monuments in that state. Deserving lands in the Red Desert that would have been protected as National Monuments but for this legal preclusion have gone undesignated as a result, despite the support of the majority of westerners from all political party affiliations supporting the designation of more National Parks and Monuments. This injustice has deprived the American public of protected lands in the Red Desert, one of the West’s most spectacular and ecologically important landscapes.
We oppose the partisan efforts to gut the Antiquities Act and block presidents from designating new National Monuments to advance the public interest in giving permanent protection to spectacular and important public lands. These lands are the heritage of every American, and people want them protected. Voters oppose this anti-conservation bill. WWP stands with the vast majority of Americans in defending the Antiquities Act.
Contact:
Laura Welp, Southern Utah Director, Western Watersheds Project laura@westernwatersheds.org 435-899-0204
