President Trump recently signed an Executive Order as a first step towards chopping up public lands and making them more vulnerable to development and mineral extraction. The Executive Order opens up 27 national monuments to the possibility of drilling, mining and other private exploitation.

The first of those is Bears Ears Monument, and time is running out to get your letters of support in to save keep Bears Ears Monument public land. 

We need you to contact Secretary of the Interior Zinke by this Friday, May 26, and let him know that full protection of national forests, parks, rangelands and national wildlife refuges should be his priority of the highest order. NOW is the time to nip in the bud any thoughts of diminishing land, waters and wildlife that belong to us all.

“It is difficult to imagine why some would not want to protect this place, along with other national monument areas,” says Lew Carpenter of the National Wildlife Federation in his recent article. “To hear some call protecting public lands a “land grab” is preposterous — the land already belongs to us — only now it is protected for future generations. Bears Ears allows hunting, fishing, grazing — and it honors existing land use rights.”

The Department of the Interior is requesting comments until this Friday, May 26, about the 1.3 million acre Bears Ears National Monument in Utah that is the first monument to be placed on the chopping block by Secretary Zinke. Even if you have not visited this enchanted place, this land belongs to you as an American just as much as it does to those who frequent it. If the precedent is set on Bears Ears, then additional national monuments, national parks and national refuges will be in jeopardy.

CLICK HERE TO SEND AN EMAIL TO SECRETARY ZINKE TODAY

Photo credit: Tim Peterson, http://bearsearscoalition.org/