Children explore as the sun sets on the ancestral Puebloan House on Fire ruins in the Bears Ears National Monument outside Blanding, Utah, U.S., October 22, 2023. (Reuters File)
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President Donald Trump signed orders on Monday that slashed the size of two national monuments in southern Utah by more than 90% to allow for grazing, motorized recreation, logging and other resource development in the region.
The proclamations reduced the Bears Ears National Monument to 121,100 acres from 1.36 million acres, and cut the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument to 181,500 acres from 1.87 million acres.
Trump made the announcement at the White House alongside Utah Governor Spencer Cox and the state’s two U.S. senators, Mike Lee and John Curtis.
“We’re doing something very dramatic and very important for the people of Utah, and the people of our country, because many people use it,” Trump said.
Trump reduced the size of the monuments during his first term, and they were later expanded by former President Joe Biden despite opposition from Utah state officials.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery and Kanishka Singh in Washington and Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; Editing by Sonali Paul)
