Hear It Again: The fraught political battle over national monuments

Earlier this week, tribal leaders in Arizona and elected officials urged President Biden to create a new national monument near Grand Canyon National Park.

The proposed Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument would encompass 1.1 million acres, including parts of the Kaibab National Forest to the south of the canyon, as well as areas to the northwest and northeast of the canyon.

The new monument would also establish permanent protections from large-scale uranium mining and other development. The name Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni combines the Havasupai translation of “where tribes roam” and the Hopi meaning of “our footprints.”

This is a renewed effort to designate this land as a national monument — it was originally proposed back in 2015. And it comes after last month’s designation of two new monuments in Nevada and Texas.

In Nevada, the Avi Kwa Ame National Monument — also known as Spirit Mountain — is considered sacred by a dozen tribes. The site covers more than 500,000 acres, and is the home to one of the largest Joshua tree forests in the country.

"It's a place of reverence, it's a place of spirituality, and it's a place of healing, and now it will be recognized for the significance it holds and be preserved forever," President Biden said.

In Texas, an old firing range that used to be part of Fort Bliss has become Caster Range National Monument. It's known for breathtaking waves of yellow and orange poppies in the spring.

"The people of El Paso have fought to protect this for 50 years," President Biden explained. "Their work has finally paid off."

Both of these new national monuments, along with the proposed monument in Arizona, are made possible by the Antiquities Act.

The National Park System oversees more than 400 sites across the United States. These sites range from national parks to national shorelines, historical sites, and recreation areas.

But the most fraught conflicts over our public lands often involve national monuments, which range from remote marine sanctuaries to millions of acres of red rock desert — all designated with a presidential signature.

The battles over how monuments are established and the political nature of those decisions are at the center of a new book by McKenzie Long titled "This Contested Land: The Storied Past and Uncertain Future of America's National Monuments."

Throughout a series of essays exploring 13 recent national monuments in the American West, Long looks at the ways national monuments are shaped by national political pressure, in addition to local stakeholders and interest groups, and how monuments live up to their original purpose as intended in the Antiquities Act of 1906.

"The original intention was to take land that was open for bid for settlement, and ... make it off limits for settlement," Long said. "The places could be declared national monuments in order to protect them from lootings."

The law was designed to protect vulnerable sites from exploitation and desecration, such as those containing Indigenous artifacts, she added.

But over the years since the act's passage, presidents have taken more liberties in designating public land, making larger monuments that can come in conflict with the states where they are located.

"For his very first monument, he designated Devil's Tower, which is more of an interesting example of geology rather than a cultural site," Long explained. "Presidents after him have also used that to designate places and protect different things such as habitat, or wildlife corridors, or biodiversity."

In Washington state, Long focuses on the Hanford Reach National Monument, a horseshoe-shaped boundary of steppes and shrublands circling the Hanford Nuclear Site.

"It just is so fascinating to me how there's these nuclear reactors there that are responsible for so much pollution, and also responsible for creating a bomb that created so much destruction," Long said. "But at the same time, the land around the reactors then became a sanctuary for wildlife and habitat that otherwise probably would have been developed."

Listen to the full conversation by clicking the audio above.