National monuments protect landscapes and enrich communities

By Ruthie Boyd

The legacy of landscape-level protections is upheld both culturally and legislatively. From the establishment of the Antiquities Act in 1906, to the creation of the National Parks Service in 1916, and the passage of the Wilderness Act in 1964, ideas of protecting the beauty and the bounty of our country’s wild lands are as vast as the landscapes themselves. 

While the practices of identifying and protecting environmental values have evolved over time, no single method is all-encompassing. Numerous histories, including sacred sites, cultural symbols, massacres and politics complicate the respite of the wild that history constructs. These histories are inextricably linked, telling elaborate stories of environmental histories and unique landscapes in the U.S.  

None of these histories can stand alone. Many cannot stand at all without advocacy and intention. 

In today’s political world, one of the primary advocacy tools to protect landscapes is establishing national monuments. Under the Antiquities Act of 1906, the president of the U.S. has the power to designate national monuments on the basis that the lands are “cultural and natural resources of historic or scientific interest,” including lands managed both by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management.  

National monument designations include protecting Indigenous homelands and cultural sites, preserving historically important infrastructure, maintaining wildlife habitat connectivity and more. Colorado’s nine national monuments include Browns Canyon, Colorado National Monument, Chimney Rock, Canyon of the Ancients, Dinosaur, Florissant Fossil Beds, Hovenweep, Yucca House and Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument.  

Like the landscapes and cultures they preserve, each is entirely unique, with varied management plans, sizes and purposes. 

The benefits to land and communities alike are not confined within a monument’s physical boundaries. A recent study by Headwaters Economics found that “trends in important economic indicators, including population, employment, personal income and per-capita income growth in regions surrounding national monuments generally grew following a new monument’s creation.”  

Rural communities who are culturally and economically connected to the lands they live on may be skeptical of landscape-level designations through executive action. How do national monuments transform the ways land can be utilized? Will such a designation alter the access to local lands or water rights? The answer to these questions depends on the management plan that is put into place, which can be heavily influenced by local input. National monuments, by definition, are meant to honor and protect the most beautiful, important places in our country. The uses, symbols and protections granted to landscapes through designating national monuments honor these communities and reflect the complexities of culture, environment and history throughout the U.S. 

In protecting landscapes across the U.S., we must take into consideration the stories that these places tell. The stories of the people who have lived on them since time immemorial, the ways that water has moved past and present, the species that depend on them. We must fix our eyes on the horizon and advocate for those that remain unprotected. 

As author and scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer states, “If all the world is a commodity, how poor we grow. When all the world is a gift in motion, how wealthy become.” 

If a national monument is, within our current system, a gift-in-motion to the land, we must keep giving. 

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