America’s newest national monument may be in Arizona, but some Utah ranchers are worried.
‘The Arizona Strip is historically, religiously, culturally more Utah than Arizona,’ one Utah mayor said.
Biden’s announcement drew swift condemnation from state and southern Utah officials, who characterized the new monument as yet another example of federal overreach and underhanded dealing.For some, the announcement evoked feelings of déjà vu. On Sept. 18, 1996, then-President Bill Clinton visited the south rim of the Grand Canyon National Park and declared the creation of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument on 1.7 million acres in southern Utah.
According to the Utah Farm Bureau, more than 45 Utah ranching families have grazing allotments within the monument’s boundaries. Kanab Mayor Colton Johnson said the land in question is geographically separated from the rest of Arizona by the Grand Canyon, noting that part of the monument can only be accessed from Utah by ranchers in Kane, Garfield and Washington counties.
Heaton also called the notion that the national monument would protect indigenous people’s culture and sacred sites a smokescreen because the government will lure thousands of people to the region through advertising, which will result in the land being desecrated with graffiti and human waste. The Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument name is derived from the Havasupai word “baaj nwaavjo,” meaning “where Indigenous peoples roam,” and the Hopi word “utah kuveni,” which denotes “our ancestral footprints.
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