Native Plant Conservation Campaign ACTION ALERT: Comment by July 10 on Executive Order that Threatens National Monuments
June 26, 2017
Donald Trump has ordered the Department of the Interior to review all designations of national monuments greater than 100,000 acres created since 1996.
That executive order, which he signed in April, places at least 20 — possibly as many as 40 — monuments at risk.
Many of these areas are threatened by oil, gas, mineral and real estate development if protection is withdrawn. These monuments provide habitat for a wide variety of rare plant species as well as fragile plant communities such as Giant Sequoia forests, Sonoran desert, Pacific island tropical forests, and rare serpentine scrub. Diverse wildlife that depend on these plant communities would also be impacted.
Some of the National Monuments that may be eliminated or reduced in size include:
- Basin and Range,
- Bears Ears,
- Berryessa Snow Mountain,
- Canyons of the Ancients,
- Carrizo Plain,
- Giant Sequoia,
- Gold Butte
- Grand Canyon-Parashant,
- Grand Staircase-Escalante,
- Hanford Reach,
- Ironwood Forest,
- Mojave Trails,
- Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks,
- Pacific Remote Islands (expanded by 300,000 acres under Obama)
- Papahānaumokuākea (expanded by 300,000 acres under President Obama),
- Rio Grande del Norte,
- Sand to Snow,
- San Gabriel Mountains,
- Sonoran Desert,
- Upper Missouri River Breaks
- Vermillion Cliffs,
