• Land

Trump Administration To Allow Oil and Gas Drilling in CA Land Monument

• Bureau of Land Management
• California
• climate change
• endangered species
• Endangered Species Act
• monument
• national monument
• oil and gas

In a quiet decision in late May, the Trump Administration said it will open up California’s Carrizo Plain National Monument, which is known for its stunning wildflowers, to oil and gas drilling and a pipeline, the LA Times reported last week. 

Why This Matters:  This project is inconsistent with the purposes of the monument and will surely cause environmental harm.

• Land

Trump’s Border Wall Blasting Through Burial Site for Tohono O’odham Nation in Arizona

• #ParksforAll
• national monument
• Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
• Saguaro Cactus
• Sonoran Desert
• Tohono O'odham Nation
• UNESCO

The Trump Administration has begun blasting through a Native American cultural site called Monument Hill in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona “in preparation for new border wall system construction within the Roosevelt Reservation,” USA Today reported on Friday.  And Congressman Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, who is the chair of the House […]

• Ocean

Northeast (NE) Canyons and Seamounts Monument Designation Stands

• #monumentsforall
• Antiquities Act
• national monument
• ocean

At the end of December, an appeals court in Washington, D.C. upheld the designation by President Obama of the first national “monument” in the Atlantic Ocean, the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Monument off the coast of Cape Cod, an area teeming with unique and endangered wildlife (such as North Atlantic Right Whales) and due to its topography of deep canyons and extinct volcanic peaks. 

Why This Matters:  This is a clear win for the conservation of natural resources.  The area covered by the monument is full of ocean wonders and is as deserving of protection as similarly precious places on land — like Yellowstone or Yosemite.