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.
33
18
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 MessageWashington, DC-- Ryan Zinke has continued to work tirelessly to show his true self as he reveals his future political ambitions. Last Friday, it was revealed that Zinke has said diversity is not important nor a priority for his department-- clarified by his actions that disproportionately affect Native Americans and women working at the department.
One year ago, Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at exploiting our public lands for fossil fuel development and rolling back Obama-era safeguards. In the year since, Ryan Zinke has made it his mission to be a “partner” with industry while pushing their agenda, ignoring the cost to America’s health, safety, and wild places.
SEDRO WOOLLEY, WA -- Upwards of 65 people gathered today as Secretary Zinke visited Washington. With signs opposing Zinke’s monuments mistakes, offshore drilling proposals, park fee hikes, oil and gas leases, and his general disregard for our public lands, the message of opposition to the Secretary’s sell out was clear.In response Alex Craven, Washington Organizer for Sierra Club’s Our Wild America campaign issued the following statement.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In a rush to avoid another government shutdown, members of Congress have proposed an omnibus deal that fortunately falls short of Trump’s outrageous requests to fully fund his wall, but still includes $1.6 billion for border walls along the U.S.- Mexico border. A significant portion of the funding is designated for 33 miles of new barriers that can be built as levee-walls or existing “bollard fence.
This afternoon, Native American Community members and community groups gathered in front of the Bureau of Land Management State Office to demonstrate opposition to the Trump administration’s handling of public lands decisions in Utah.
Utahns to oppose oil and gas leasing on iconic public lands.
Interior Secretary Zinke was on Capitol Hill again today testifying before the House Energy and Natural Resources Committee defending the proposed budget for the Department of the Interior. Sec. Zinke’s answers to Congressional questions largely mirrored those he gave earlier in the week when he blamed the elderly, disabled, veterans, and children for failing to pay for the National Park maintenance backlog, changed his story on opening the country’s coasts to offshore drilling, lectured members he disagreed with, and made clear nothing will be allowed to get in the way of the Trump…
Today Ryan Zinke’s Department of the Interior is wrapping up oil and gas leasing on public lands near the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument. Though the administration walked back the initial leasing proposal, which also included areas near Yellowstone National Park, today’s leases remain a threat to protected public lands and big game herds in an area prized for its elk.
Today, the Department of the Interior announced plans to speed up efforts to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The effort would give the area over to the oil industry, ignoring the place’s importance to the Gwich’in Nation, the permanence of drilling damage to one of the country’s last wild places, and the irreversible climate impacts in a state already warming at twice the rate of the rest of the country.
Today, in his remarks at an energy conference in Houston, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke made his preference for supporting the oil and gas industry over protecting our public lands and waters clear.
