Protecting the High, Wide, Lonesome:
National Monument Planning

Perhaps the chief value of the Lonesome Country is that in between its flashes of gaiety and enriching experience are wide mesas of stillness where the mind may rest and renew itself in search for lost meaning and new paths.
J. Lauritzen, 1951
Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs National Monuments are two such places in Lonesome Country still possessing those all-too-rapidly vanishing qualities of solitude and remoteness. Created by President Clinton under the Antiquities Act in 2000, they are two of Arizona’s five new national monuments, both on the Arizona Strip. In the new monuments lie stunning canyons such as the Paria and the Parashant; the Paria Plateau and the southern part of the Shivwits Plateau, which form important watersheds for the Colorado River and the Grand Canyon; the Grand Wash Cliffs region; and desert badlands, sandstone slickrock, and brilliant cliffs.
It would be nice if the story ended here. Unfortunately, conservationists are concerned that the Bush administration, which campaigned on rolling back the new monuments, will try to undercut them through the recently announced management planning process. The final management plans will specify the actual management of the new national monuments, including energy development, off-road vehicle use, grazing, and the placement of visitor services.
The Bureau of Land Managements (blm) Arizona Strip office, the lead agency for both northern Arizona monuments, recently announced a 90-day public comment period and will host a series of public meetings to gather public input on the issues to be considered by the planning effort. For Grand Canyon-Parashant, the National Park Service (nps) also has oversight because Lake Mead National Recreation Area includes lands within the monument.
The proclamation establishing each monument clearly identifies the unique features for which it was created. Grand Canyon-Parashant, for example, was established to protect the vast, biologically diverse, impressive landscape encompassing an array of scientific and historic objects. This remote area of open, undeveloped spaces and engaging scenery is located on the edge of one of the most beautiful places on earth, the Grand Canyon. The proclamations focus on remoteness, scientific and historic objects, geologic wonders such as the Navajo Sandstone of Coyote Buttes, and the traces of Ancestral Pueblo cultures, Spanish explorers, and Mormon settlers.
If the management planning process is to provide real protection to Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs National Monuments, the management plans must:

Eliminate the numerous, nonessential roads that disturb wildlife, soils, and archaeological sites and develop a transportation plan that is consistent with the preservation purposes for which the monuments were created;
Assess the negative impacts of grazing, especially within the Mojave Desert regions (desert tortoise habitats), and develop appropriate management steps;
Protect and restore native fish species threatened by invasion of non-native species and the impacts of Glen Canyon dam within Vermilion Cliffs National Monument;
Provide better protection for archaeological resources, which are threatened by pot hunters and off-road vehicle use;
Curb unrestrained recreational use and development, specifying that all visitor services be developed outside of the monuments;
Protect and restore springs and seeps, biological hot spots that are critical sources of water for wildlife in an arid climate; and
Identify and protect lands qualifying for wilderness designation—the strongest existing form of multi-species protection.
For many of us on the river, the sheer rims of the north side are shaded with mystery, from those who long ago gave up the river and left, seeking in that direction civilization and finding misfortune. We take the mystery and remoteness of these places for granted, thinking they are insulated from change, but we should not. As a new river season dawns it is hard to focus on a sluggish bureaucratic process, but your input can help secure these new national treasures. If you care about the Lonesome Country, please send written comments to the blm (contact info below) before July 31, 2002.
Diana Hawks, (435) 688-3266
Dennis Curtis, (435) 688-3202
Bureau of Land Management
Arizona Strip Field Office
345 E. Riverside Drive
St. George, UT 84790
Fax: (435) 688-3388
arizona_strip@blm.gov (for email comments)
Kelly Burke
Grand Canyon Wildlands Council