{"id":34175,"date":"2017-04-26T12:27:35","date_gmt":"2017-04-26T12:27:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/trump-to-review-protections-on-vast-nature\/"},"modified":"2017-04-26T12:27:33","modified_gmt":"2017-04-26T12:27:33","slug":"trump-to-review-protections-on-vast-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/trump-to-review-protections-on-vast-nature\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump to review protections on vast nature preserves"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Review could upend protections and restrictions on millions of acres of land designated as ‘national monuments’.}<\/p>\n

After moving to roll back climate change protections, US President Donald Trump is turning his sights on America’s vast nature preserves, with a view to possibly lifting federal protections brought in over the past two decades.<\/p>\n

Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Wednesday reviewing the designation of tens of millions of acres of land as “national monuments” under a 1906 law known as the Antiquities Act, which was brought in by president Theodore Roosevelt to conserve America’s natural heritage.<\/p>\n

The review could upend protections and restrictions on how the lands are used.<\/p>\n

“National monument” land has come to be synonomous with a bar to drilling for fossil fuels on public land, or other commercial activities.<\/p>\n

The aim of Trump’s review is to “give states and local communities a meaningful voice in the process”, said Ryan Zinke, interior secretary, whose department oversees federal land use under the motto “Protecting America’s Great Outdoors and Powering Our Future”.<\/p>\n

Zinke said the outcome of the review was not preordained. His department is to provide an interim report in 45 days, then a fuller one in 120 days.<\/p>\n

But the review could set the scene for fierce legal challenges.<\/p>\n

While Republicans in Utah and other states are keen to lift protections they see as too expansive and undermining economic opportunities, environmental groups and Native Americans are deeply opposed.<\/p>\n

{{National monuments}}<\/p>\n

In the past, areas tagged as “national monuments” were later transformed by Congress into fully fledged National Parks – the Grand Canyon and Death Valley among them.<\/p>\n

Since the Act came into force more than a century ago, only three presidents – all Republicans – did not use its powers: Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush.<\/p>\n

Barack Obama had millions of hectares classified under the act during his presidency, including maritime zones, especially in the Pacific.<\/p>\n

Under Trump’s review, only “monuments” of 40,000 hectares or more will be examined.<\/p>\n

A key area will be the Bears Ears National Monument, a 530,000-hectare zone in Utah that Obama designated as a national monument in 2016.<\/p>\n

Another will be the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, also in Utah – a spectacular tract of canyons, ridges and a river – designated by Bill Clinton in 1996.<\/p>\n

The Republican senator for Utah, Orrin Hatch, has railed against the national monument decisions made in Washington, saying his state should have more say over how the land is protected.<\/p>\n

In a Washington Post opinion piece, Hatch said Obama “ignored the best interests of Utah and cast aside the will of the people – all in favour of a unilateral approach meant to satisfy the demands of far-left interest groups”.<\/p>\n

Other presidents, too, went too far, Hatch opined, adding that Trump “stands ready to undo the harm brought about by their overreach”.<\/p>\n

Trump will also sign an executive order on Friday to instigate a review of the locations available for offshore oil and gas exploration. It will also order a review of certain regulations governing offshore operations, reported the AP news agency.<\/p>\n

Last month Trump had also declared the end of a “war on coal” as he signed an “energy independence” executive order to review some of Obama’s climate legacy, declaring an end to “job-killing regulations”.<\/p>\n

In a maiden trip to the Environmental Protection Agency in March, he ordered a review of emission limits for coal-fired power plants and eased restrictions on federal leasing for coal production.<\/p>\n

A coalition of 23 US states and local governments vowed to fight the order in court.<\/p>\n

{{Public resistance}}<\/p>\n

But Martin Heinrich, a Democratic Party senator for New Mexico, said that if Trump truly wants to “make America great again”, he should use the Antiquities Act to protect and conserve America’s public lands.<\/p>\n

In New Mexico, Obama’s designation of Rio Grande del Norte National Monument and Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument have preserved important lands while boosting the economy, Heinrich said, a story that has been repeated across the country.<\/p>\n

“If this sweeping review is an excuse to cut out the public and scale back protections, I think this president is going to find a very resistant public,” Heinrich told AP news agency.<\/p>\n

Recent polls have shown strong support for national parks and monuments, said Christy Goldfuss, who directed the White House Council on Environmental Quality under Obama.<\/p>\n

Kristina Waggoner, vice president of the Boulder-Escalante Chamber of Commerce in Utah, said businesses near the Grand Staircase-Escalante monument in southern Utah are booming, driven by sharp increases in tourism since the area was designated in 1996 by President Bill Clinton.<\/p>\n

“I’m here today to support the monument and my three-year-old son,” Waggoner said in a conference call with reporters organised by a pro-Obama group. “Once our land is gone, it’s gone for ever.”<\/p>\n

\"Bears<\/figure>\n

Source:Al Jazeera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Review could upend protections and restrictions on millions of acres of land designated as ‘national monuments’.} After moving to roll back climate change protections, US President Donald Trump is turning his sights on America’s vast nature preserves, with a view to possibly lifting federal protections brought in over the past two decades. Trump is expected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[160],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-34175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-theophile-niyitegeka"],"bylines":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"contributors":[{"id":160,"name":"Th\u00e9ophile Niyitegeka","slug":"theophile-niyitegeka","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":3}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34175"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=34175"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=34175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}