Why Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument relies on a strong management plan

I was a park ranger at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument for 21 of my 36-year career. Now I’m afraid that partisans in Congress will abuse the Congressional Review Act to overturn its management plan, dismiss the public’s voice in public land management, and corrupt the planning process across the country.

Like other national monuments, this one is beloved by people from every state. Recent polling shows that large majorities of Utah and Western voters, including a majority of Republicans, want to keep Grand Staircase-Escalante protected and whole. The current management plan also reflects years of close collaboration with the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition, six tribes who united to advocate for the continued protection of the cultural and ecological resources within their ancestral homeland.

My own neighbors and friends depend on stable management of these lands. Some run guide services; others graze cattle on allotments within the monument. Our grocery stores, gas stations, restaurants, and motels are owned and staffed by people who live here. Multiple economic studies, as recent as January, confirm what we already know: communities like ours benefit greatly from the stability that a well-managed national monument provides. 

Grand Staircase-Escalante is the original multi-use national monument managed by the Bureau of Land Management. Its current management plan protects the resources named in the monument’s proclamation while accommodating a genuine mix of uses: anyone can camp, hike, backpack, hunt, fish, and ride OHVs on designated roads; scientists conduct research; cattle graze on allotments managed collaboratively by ranchers and BLM range specialists; cultural sites are protected; habitat for at least 660 species of bees is preserved; and dozens of previously unknown dinosaur species are being discovered here. Every modern land use involves trade-offs, but distributing a careful variety of uses across a whole landscape is precisely what multiple use management means, and this plan achieves that balance.

Park rangers are the bridge between the BLM and the visitors and land users: helping people plan trips, patrolling the backcountry, monitoring resources, leading volunteer stewardship projects, and interpreting desert ecology, human history and geologic time.

I often fielded questions from visitors like: Why do I have to pack out my poop when there are cows pooping everywhere? Why is there an oil field inside a national monument? Why do I need a camping permit on BLM land? Some conversations weren’t easy, but they were always friendly and thoughtful. Free overnight camping permits, which some have called “government overreach,” serve multiple purposes: they enhance public safety, provide valuable management data, and most importantly, create opportunities for real, face-to-face conversations between visitors, residents, and land managers. In 21 years, those conversations were universally appreciated. I thought of my work as “making friends for public lands.” It was fascinating, challenging, and deeply rewarding.

I’ve seen firsthand what happens when stable management is thrown into chaos. The original management plan was 111 pages, clear enough that I could use it to explain our practices and philosophy to anyone who asked. But the first Trump administration shrank the monument by 50%, sliced it into four separate units, stripped protection from numerous cultural, historical, and scientific resources, and produced a replacement plan of 660 pages across two volumes — so indecipherable that our staff never figured out how to communicate its reasoning to visitors or land users. It was a betrayal of my career and the job I was hired to do. I was relieved when the monument was restored with a coherent plan developed in accordance with relevant federal laws and input from local people, local governments, Tribal nations, various user groups, and Americans across Utah and nationally.

Using the Congressional Review Act to overturn this management plan — as proposed by Utah Sen. Lee and Rep. Celeste Maloy — is not reform, it’s a demolition that will upend the lives of communities, visitors, ranchers, and scientists who have learned to work within its framework, and will corrode intergovernmental trust with Indigenous tribes. It will also throw into question management plans for other land and water conservation areas across our United States.

This multi-use national monument sustains our local and state economy and inspires people from around the world — and it is our home. We live and work with the land, we don’t just take from it.

Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument has a balanced, multi-use management plan carefully and lawfully crafted for everyone. Smashing it in a partisan vote contradicts the will of voters in Utah and nationwide.