A sunrise flight over Valley of the Gods in Bear's Ears National Monument, Utah, provides a look at the landscape.<br>
A sunrise flight over Valley of the Gods in Bear's Ears National Monument, Utah, provides a look at the landscape.
Photograph by Aaron Huey, National Geographic

What Trump’s Shrinking of National Monuments Actually Means

The president announced reductions to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, but the actual picture on the ground remains highly uncertain.

Editor's note: President Trump's December decision to scale back two national monuments in Utah took effect on February 2. Bears Ears National Monument has been reduced to 16 percent, and Grand Staircase-Escalante to a little over half of its original size. As legal challenges to the decision make their way through the courts, portions of the land that were excised from the monument by the Trump administration will again be open to claims under the General Mining Law of 1872. Though the interest in doing so remains unclear at this time. This story was first published on December 4 and updated with this note on February 2.

In a speech delivered in Salt Lake City on December 4, President Trump announced his intention to sharply reduce two Utah national monuments established by his predecessors.

In a move presaged by leaked government documents, Trump announced that he would reduce the 1.35-million acre Bears Ears National Monument, created by President Barack Obama in late 2016, by 85 percent. The president also said he would cut the 1.88-million acre Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument, designated by President Bill Clinton in 1996, nearly in half. (See maps of the monuments under recent review.)

“Some people think that the natural resources should be controlled by a small handful of very distant bureaucrats located in Washington,” Trump said at Utah’s

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