bike seeds: 🌻 Summer Newsletter 🌻 Defend our national monuments!

NEWSLETTER

Summer 2026

Defending our national monuments

In July 13, the administration virtually eliminated two national monuments by stripping protections from more than 90 percent of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, putting more than 3 million acres at risk from mining, drilling and development.

The proclamations "terminated" the longstanding Bears Ears Commission and effectively erased a co-stewardship framework between the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition and the Bureau of Land Management, disregarding Tribal Nations’ enduring connections to these lands and broad public support for keeping the monuments intact.

The Wilderness Society is fighting back alongside Tribal Nations and local partners, sounding the alarm and mobilizing people across the country to demand that Congress defend these landscapes so that future generations have the freedom to know them intact. As America marks 250 years, we should be protecting the places that tell our shared story, not stripping away the safeguards that keep them whole. Read our blog and explore the map showing the staggering extent of the reductions.

Then tell Congress to stand up for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante and protect these public lands for those who come after us.

Despite overwhelming support for these monuments in Utah, the administration stripped protections from more than 3 million acres, shrinking Bears Ears to roughly 121,100 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante to about 181,500 acres. As a result, more than 90 percent of each monument is now vulnerable to drilling, mining and other development. View a map of the reductions.

Public speaks up to protect greater Chaco

The administration is moving to reopen New Mexico’s Greater Chaco Region to oil and gas leasing, threatening a living ancestral landscape. Despite an unusually short 14-day comment period that appeared designed to limit public participation, The Wilderness Society and our partners mobilized quickly, generating more than 87,000 comments in support of keeping Chaco protected. Thank you to all who stood up for Chaco! Read more.

Cuts and chaos put forests at risk

As wildfire season intensifies across the West, deep staffing cuts, agency upheaval and efforts to weaken forest protections are leaving communities and public lands more vulnerable. From reduced firefighting capacity to policies that could increase wildfire risk the administration is making a dangerous season even harder to manage. Read the full story.