As someone who spent nearly 40 years managing our public lands, including as superintendent of Bryce Canyon National Park, I was dismayed by President Donald Trump’s false statement about access to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments — and more appalled by Deputy Interior Secretary Kate MacGregor validating him.
Claiming that national monument designations prevent people from hunting, fishing or enjoying public lands isn’t true. As a career land manager, I know firsthand that outdoor recreation and access thrive within national monuments. Utah’s own hunting regulations confirm that Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante remain open to hunters.
It’s similarly misleading to suggest that large-scale monument protections misuse the Antiquities Act. President Theodore Roosevelt designated over 800,000 acres for the Grand Canyon National Monument in 1908. Grand landscapes require grand protections.
You cannot restore access that was never lost. Stripping nearly 3 million acres from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante doesn’t open these lands to the public, they’re already ours. Instead, it strips protections for ancient tribal sites, fragile desert watersheds and wildlife habitats, leaving them vulnerable to irreversible mining and industrial development. The Interior Department owes the American people truth and sound science, not manufactured political excuses for the largest rollback of public land protections in our history.
Linda C. Mazzu,
Boise, Idaho