National Monuments 101

Cascade Siskiyou National Monument. Photo credit: Bureau of Land Management.

What do places like Arches National Park, the Grand Canyon, the Tetons, and the Black Canyon of Gunnison have in common? Besides their popularity for outdoor recreation, all these landscapes were originally designated as national monuments.

For 117 years, U.S. Presidents have used their power under the Antiquities Act to designate national monuments that protect cultural, historic, and scientific resources on our public lands and waters. The Antiquities Act, passed in 1906 by President Theodore Roosevelt, has been used by 8 Republican and 9 Democratic Presidents to designate more than 130 national monuments. National monuments are an important tool we have to protect existing public land and water in America.

Monuments are also hugely valuable to the outdoor community with abundant outdoor recreation. Across the 126 national monuments Outdoor Alliance mapped, there are 4805 climbing routes on 841 different climbing areas, 2872 hiking miles, 980 biking miles, 81 backcountry ski miles, and 324 paddling miles.

This includes abundant climbing and bouldering through the rocky peaks of Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument; hiking and backcountry winter recreation at the convergence of three spectacular mountain ranges in the Cascade Siskiyou National Monument; year-round recreation including hiking, cross-country skiing, and camping in the backyard of the nation’s second largest metropolitan area in the San Gabriel Mountains National Monument; hiking through the world’s largest trees in the Giant Sequoia National Monument in California; and paddling through Colorado’s Browns Canyon.

Many of our country’s most prized National Parks began as national monuments, including the Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Acadia, and Olympic National Parks. National monuments can only be designated on existing federal public lands and waters, and provide greater protection for federal lands with historic landmarks, historic structures, or other “objects of historic or scientific interest.”

National monuments differ from Wilderness, National Parks, or other congressional legislation in a few key ways. Management plans for national monuments tend to be more flexible than legislation, allowing for a wider range of recreational activities, including motorized recreation as well as human-powered recreation, including mountain biking, climbing, camping, and skiing. Before designating a monument, Presidents have typically engaged in substantial stakeholder outreach, working with businesses, conservation groups, guides and outfitters, and county residents, to decide what the protected area will look like and how it will be used. This process gives local and more distant stakeholders a tremendous amount of control over the final designation. Unlike congressional legislation, national monuments are less susceptible to political horse-trading that can sometimes result in the loss of local compromises around use and access, for example. Local economies also benefit tremendously from the existence of nearby national monuments, with population growth, stronger employment, and higher per-capita income (source).

The outdoor recreation community is a key voice in supporting new national monuments, and ensuring that outdoor recreation access and experiences are embraced. Our country’s newest monument, the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument is a birthplace of backcountry skiing and a tribute to the history of human-powered outdoor recreation in the U.S. It is where Tenth Mountain Division soldiers were trained in climbing, backcountry skiing, and mountaineering in the 1940’s on trails and mountains that are still popular among outdoor recreationists today. The outdoor recreation community’s involvement in this process and advocacy for the protection of not just the landscape, but the outdoor recreation experiences it provides, was invaluable for the final designation language.

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