by Victoria Brandon, Redwood Chapter Chair
The comment period on the Department of the Interior’s “review” of 22 national monuments and five marine sanctuaries closed on July 10, ironically enough two years to the day from the designation of our own Berryessa Snow Mountain national monument. The public spoke out loud and clear: 2.7 comments were received, with 98 percent supporting the continued protection of these very special places. Some 49,000 comments were specific to Berryessa Snow Mountain.
If the administration were sincere in its declared intention to gauge the pulse of public opinion Secretary Ryan Zinke’s next action should be to issue a declaration that none of the threatened monuments will be eliminated or reduced in size, but unfortunately there is no good reason to believe that sincerity has played any part in this whole exercise, which was founded in duplicity and fueled by greed.
A few days later DOI recommended that Craters of the Moon national monument in Idaho and Hanford Reach national monument in Washington remain protected. While that’s good news for those very deserving places, the decision underscored the arbitrariness that has been the most consistent feature of Zinke’s review. No one has known which monuments are actually being targeted or what criteria are driving the decisions in a process without logic or transparency. Our public lands, the federal agencies that manage them, and the local economies that depend upon them all deserve better than to be manipulated as pawns in a cynical game.
As the Redwood Needles was going to press, the comment period had not yet closed on a parallel “review” of the protected status of five marine sanctuaries, including Cordell Bank and Greater Farallones here on the coast of northern California. This nutrient-rich water supports an extraordinarily diverse ecosystem, including at least 25 endangered or threatened species and 36 marine mammal species, and an abundance of sea life that extends at least as far south as the Monterey Canyon.
Loss of protected status could re-open the area to resource exploration and extraction, including off-shore oil and gas drilling: the potential for catastrophe is obvious.
A resolution of support from the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors said that rescinding the sanctuary status would “create unnecessary economic uncertainty and is in disregard to the expectation of fisherman, residents, recreational users, researchers, state and local governments, and others who participated in the process that led to the Sanctuary designation and related protections.” We agree wholeheartedly.