President Joe Biden designates a new national monument on sacred tribal lands near the Grand Canyon, carved from lands administered by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management.
President Joe Biden designates a new national monument on sacred tribal lands near the Grand Canyon on Aug. 8, 2023.RED BUTTE — President Joe Biden visited a windswept sage flat at this sacred Havasupai landmark on Tuesday to proclaim it and nearly 1 million acres of federal lands as Arizona’s newest natural preserve, Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument.
Biden signed the monument proclamation while flanked by the leaders of 12 tribes. It was an emotional event for many, including Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the nation’s first Native American Cabinet member. She choked up while addressing the crowd as she explained that the government will collaborate with tribes and rely on Native wisdom in the monument's land management.
Her hope for the new monument’s co-stewardship plan is that federal managers will rely on tribal knowledge of the locations of thousands of archaeological sites, as well as traditional plants such as tobacco and, in traditional Shivwits Paiute lands north of Grand Canyon, wild rice. Cattle grazing is allowed on the monument, but Tilousi said she hopes for actions to protect those resources.
The Havasupai Tribe on Tuesday released a statement celebrating the monument and noting that it represents a further restoration of tribal recognition on lands the tribe lost when federal agencies took over. The Havasupai were removed from the canyon starting in 1882 and regained a reservation surrounded by the national park 70 years later.
“Given the toxic history of uranium mining in this region, we commend the leadership of this Administration for enacting the wishes of millions of people hoping to preserve the beauty of this idyllic landscape,” Trout Unlimited Arizona Field Coordinator Nathan Rees said in a written statement. “As sportsmen and sportswomen, we value a multi-use approach on our public lands and insist on practical and science-based management of our natural resources. A national monument does just that.
“This is a real Arizona treasure,” Gallego said of the Grand Canyon region. “It’s a national treasure, and now we’re going to make sure it is in perpetuity.”
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