Protecting existing monuments, expanding these cherished spaces, and fighting for new monuments is an important piece of Sierra Club's conservation work.
Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument
National monuments are lands and waters designated for permanent protection by the federal government. They include areas of important natural, cultural, and historic resources, from geological wonders to sacred Indigenous landscapes to sites that have shaped the history of the United States.
Unlike national parks, which only Congress can designate, national monuments can either be established by the President under the authority of the 1906 Antiquities Act or by an act of Congress.
The United States has over 130 national monuments that are managed by federal agencies. While most are managed by the National Park Service, some are managed by other agencies like the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Bureau of Land Management.
Canyon of the Ancients National Monument
National monuments are protected lands, waters, or historic sites that safeguard our natural, cultural, scientific, and historic resources and legacies. They are an important tool for protecting public lands and waters for generations to come.
National monuments are also part of our response to the climate crisis. Conserving 30 percent of US lands and waters by 2030 will protect the air we breathe, water we drink, and provide a powerful climate solution. Preserving wildlands will protect vital habitats for imperiled species and save more places to connect with nature. Safeguarding places of cultural and historical significance will help honor the stories, sites, and landscapes that make us who we are.
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presidents have designated monuments
Protecting wild places will keep drilling and logging from polluting our air and water, and suck existing climate pollution out of the air. Creating national monuments is one of the best ways to protect public lands and preserve homes for wildlife and opportunities for people to enjoy the outdoors together.
Paria Rimrocks, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Utah
The Sierra Club has been pivotal in the conservation and expansion of national monuments for more than a century, reflecting a broader commitment to preserving natural landscapes, combating climate change, and ensuring everyone’s history and connections to US lands are honored and celebrated.
Right now, Donald Trump, the billionaires who bought access to him, and their allies in Congress are waging an all-out assault on our parks and public lands, firing thousands of federal workers who steward these landscapes, shredding conservation protections for fragile ecosystems and places, and seeking to overturn more than a century's worth of conservation history. Their goal is to give public lands to corporate polluters and billionaires to mine, drill, log, and pollute as they please — activities that effectively block access to public lands for everyday people.
We must use every tool at our disposal, from the courts to pressuring our leaders to collective action, to stop this polluter giveaway. Every victory we've won to protect the places we hold dear has been thanks to the grassroots support of advocates like you who have written a letter, called your legislators, attended an event, posted on social media, talked to friends and family, donated, and so much more.
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Send My MessageSALT LAKE CITY -- Today marks the end of a public comment period for the Trump administration’s proposed management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The plan, being pushed forward despite ongoing legal challenges to the administration’s efforts to shrink the monument, opens significant portions of the remaining monument to dirty fuel development. More than 8,000 public comments were submitted in opposition to the Trump administration’s plan.
Western Environmental Law Center, Wilderness Workshop, Western Colorado Alliance, Natural Resources Defense Council, and the Sierra Club recently won an important victory in Federal District Court. The lawsuit challenged BLM’s 2015 Resource Management Plan (the plan) for the Colorado River Valley Field Office (CRVFO). The suit contested the plan’s prioritization of oil and gas development over all other uses, as well as BLM’s failure to consider the climate impacts of drilling thousands of new gas wells on our local public lands.
The Trump administration is considering recommendations provided by the uranium mining industry that would open public lands surrounding Grand Canyon to uranium mining and directly threaten tribal lands, including the Bears Ears National Monument.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The House Natural Resources Committee today is holding an oversight hearing on Interior Secretary Bernhardt’s plan to relocate the Bureau of Land Management headquarters from Washington, D.C. to Grand Junction, Colorado. New questions about the move have been raised following the naming of William Pendley as acting head of the agency.
WASHINGTON, DC -- Today marks the end of the public comment period for a U.S. Forest Service proposal to weaken the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The Act ensures environmental analysis of projects affecting public lands and forests. The proposed changes clear the way for increased logging, mining and other destructive development in our forests, even as world scientists stress the urgency of protecting and restoring forests to combat the climate crisis.
SALT LAKE CITY -- Today the Department of the Interior released a final management plan for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, despite ongoing legal challenges to the Trump administration’s illegal actions to shrink the monument. The plan opens significant portions of Grand Staircase to dirty fuel development.
BAKERSFIELD, CA: The Forest Service this week will be holding two public meetings on new management plans for the Sierra and Sequoia National Forests. The forest management plans govern how the forests will be used and protected-- setting priorities for wilderness areas, rivers and streams, fire management, recreation, wildlife protection, and more.
BOULDER, COLORADO – The Sierra Club and Nature Needs Half, an international coalition formed in 2009 to advance the protection of 50% of Earth’s land and seas, proudly announce a new partnership to help halt the Sixth Extinction and provide a feasible and affordable solution to the climate crisis.
WASHINGTON, D.C.: Senator Cory Booker today introduced the Climate Stewardship Act. The legislation, endorsed by the Sierra Club, calls for the planting of billions of trees, improved conservation practices on working lands, grants for renewable energy and energy efficiency on our nation’s farms, and wetland preservation. It is sponsored in the House by Rep. Deb Haaland.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change today issued a special report detailing climate impacts already being seen on lands, and the importance of improving land management and land protection and restoration to address the climate crisis. Among the key findings of the report is the essential role for lands in drawing down and storing carbon dioxide pollution from the atmosphere. The report also drives home the urgency of action-- stressing that delay in greenhouse gas emissions reductions is closing the window to combat the effects of the climate crisis on lands,…
