by Victoria Brandon, Redwood Chapter Chair
On August 24 Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke presented the long-awaited results of his “review” of 27 national monuments, including our own Berryessa Snow Mountain. Instead of the specific details that had been expected, Zinke instead issued a report that lacked any actual recommendations or decision-making metrics.
The national Sierra Club has filed a Freedom of Information Act request to get the information Zinke is attempting to keep from the public.
This secrecy should probably not be surprising given the intensely political nature of the whole capricious charade. At the time of Zinke’s announcement multiple press accounts based on inside information suggested that cuts would be made to the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, and to the Cascade Siskiyou national monument straddling the Oregon/California border. Reductions to another unspecified monument were also rumored.
The threat to Bears Ears is particularly outrageous, since its designation represents the consensus of five sovereign native nations, who responded: “The Bears Ears region is not a series of isolated objects, but the object itself, a connected, living landscape, where the place, not a collection of items, must be protected. You cannot reduce the size without harming the whole. Bears Ears is too precious a place, and our cultures and values too dignified and worthy, to backtrack on the promises made in the Presidential Proclamation.”
Then on the very day that the Redwood Needles was scheduled to go to the printer a more detailed list of reductions was issued, and it’s even more appalling than we thought. Cuts are now intended not only to Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Cascade-Siskiyou, but also to Gold Butte in Nevada, Katahdin Woods in Maine, and Organ Mountains and Rio Grande Del Norte, both in New Mexico, and also to Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll marine national monuments. No specific information about the scope of the reductions is available. Taken as a whole, these actions represent an unprecedented attack on our public lands, and on the values and priorities of the American people as expressed in more than 2.7 million public comments submitted in response to this irresponsible proposal, with more than 98 percent supporting the continued protection of these special places for the sake of posterity.
Although it appears that Berryessa Snow Mountain will be spared (for now) the proposal to close a portion of the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument is of particular regional concern. These protected lands anchor the northern end of the Klamath-Siskiyou ecological region while Berryessa Snow Mountain anchors the southern end. Connectivity throughout this region is important for the plants and animals throughout, and will become more so as effects of climate change wreak ecological havoc.