Native Plant Conservation Campaign News: Trump executive order - National Monuments to be reviewed. Threatens local plant communities, jobs, economies
April 27, 2017
Yesterday Donald Trump issued an executive order directing that national monuments designated since January 1, 1996 be reviewed to identify, among other things, which designations were made “without adequate input from stakeholders”. Under the executive order, the Secretary of the Interior could revoke or alter more than 40 national monument designations that protect millions of acres of public lands after the review.
The executive order comes as the Outdoor Industry Association released their
2017 Report on the value of outdoor recreation. Among the Report’s findings, in 2016 outdoor recreation supported 7.6 million jobs and generated $887 billion in consumer spending and more than $124 billion in Federal, State, and Local taxes in the U.S.
Further, according to Conservation Lands International, regions surrounding national monuments have seen
continued growth or improvement in employment and personal income, and rural counties in the West with more federal lands had
healthier economies, on average, than their peers with less protected lands.
Moreover, national monuments are popular with voters. The
2017 Conservation in the West poll conducted by Colorado College, found that 80% of western voters supported keeping protections for existing monuments in place while only 13% of western voters supported removing protections for existing monuments.
