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🇬🇧 United Kingdom /Environment & Climate

Patagonia Sues Trump Over Cuts to Utah National Monuments

From The Guardian · () English

Translated from English and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Named sources In the courts
  • Patagonia joined a federal lawsuit challenging Donald Trump’s decision to reduce Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by 90%.
  • The order removes protections from nearly 3 million acres and could open the land to oil, gas and mining activity.
  • Conservation groups and Patagonia say the reductions violate the Antiquities Act and threaten tribal sites, fossils and ancient cliff dwellings.

Patagonia has joined a lawsuit seeking to block Donald Trump’s decision to shrink two Utah national monuments by 90%, a move that removed protections from nearly 3 million acres.

higher-priority use

— Donald TrumpTrump used the phrase in his proclamations defending the reduction of the monuments.

The Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments are sacred to Indigenous tribes. Trump approved the reductions in July, clearing the way for oil and gas companies to operate on land no longer covered by the monuments. In his proclamations, he said the land could be put to a “higher-priority use” and contained critical minerals important to “resource independence ...[and] national security.”

Patagonia previously sued Trump in 2017, when he first sought to reduce the protected areas. Joe Biden later overturned that move. The company said it was joining the latest case because Trump had issued illegal orders that “betray Tribal sovereignty.”

resource independence ...[and] national security

— Donald TrumpTrump cited critical minerals in the monuments as a reason for the policy.

“We will not stand idly by while anti-public lands crusaders attempt to exploit these lands for their extractive-industry friends or disrespect tribal nations,” Patagonia CEO Ryan Gellert said. He argued that the Antiquities Act gives presidents authority to establish national monuments but not to dismantle them. Trump’s action, Gellert said, sought to transfer federal land to the state and allow private companies to extract its natural resources. He pointed to mining claims already filed in areas removed from the monuments.

We will not stand idly by while anti-public lands crusaders attempt to exploit these lands for their extractive-industry friends or disrespect tribal nations

— Ryan GellertPatagonia’s CEO explained why the company joined the lawsuit.

“Protecting Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante is worth more than any amount of money. The vast majority of Americans agree,” Gellert said. The Natural Resources Defense Council, which filed a federal lawsuit, called the proclamations one of the largest rollbacks of public-land protections in U.S. history. NRDC executive director Christy Goldfuss said the move could put ancient cliff dwellings, unique dinosaur fossils and tribal sacred sites at risk.

Protecting Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante is worth more than any amount of money. The vast majority of Americans agree

— Ryan GellertGellert defended continued protection for the two monuments.
About this summary

Originally published by The Guardian in English. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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