Action Alerts

Defend Our National Monuments

What's At Stake

Our national monuments are under threat of fossil fuel and mineral development, and we need your help.  

Since the Trump administration took office, they have wasted no time in attempting to roll back popular life-saving policies that protect clean air, clean water, and our progress towards a safe and stable climate. A series of executive orders direct the Department of Interior to find ways to open public lands to fossil fuel extraction and mining, amounting to a gift to fossil fuel industry executives who stand to profit from stripped protections. 

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Newly installed Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who has longstanding ties to the fossil fuel industry, issued a series of Secretarial Orders on his first day. Buried in there was a single line, cloaked in obscure legal language, to quietly lay the groundwork for future attacks on national monuments and areas currently protected from mining and oil and gas drilling. . This means that cherished monuments like Bears Ears in Utah, as well as areas withdrawn from mineral extraction such as the Boundary Waters wilderness area in Minnesota, could soon be targeted with proposals designed to erode protections and facilitate toxic development.     

Americans do not want our public lands given over to the oil and gas or mining industries at the expense of outdoor recreation opportunities, local businesses, open land, wildlife, and clean air and water. No matter who is in the White House, one thing remains true: Americans of all political persuasions want to conserve public lands, where we can enjoy their rich biodiversity, clean air and water, and the many unique opportunities to see ancient fossils, jaw-dropping geologic features, or cultural sites whose preservation is essential to Indigenous peoples.

National monuments and our public lands are cherished nationwide. Rather than protecting the cultural treasures, world-renowned fossils, historic places, and one-of-a-kind ecosystems that monuments like Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante and Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni hold, this administration is laying the groundwork to  sell these lands to the highest bidder. This is your chance to reach out to Interior Secretary Burgum and let him know you won’t stand for America’s natural and historic heritage to be sold to the highest bidder.  

First light over Cedar Mesa in southeast Utah, Bears Ears National Monument.
First light over Cedar Mesa in southeast Utah, Bears Ears National Monument. (Mason Cummings / TWS)

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