Opinion: How we protect areas like the Dolores Canyons in western Colorado is critical for future generations

America’s public lands provide us with a shared language. Having worked on public lands policy in multiple states across the West, it’s amazing how quickly you can relate to a total stranger when you both have a love for a special place. 

It’s common to swap stories and tips for favorite hikes, experiences and campgrounds. Social media, photo sharing, mobile mapping apps and internet blogs have made our public lands feel more accessible than ever, making it easy to assume that popular public lands destinations are permanently protected.   

While national parks and wilderness areas enjoy strong legal protections, this is often not the case for many of the public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service. For example, protections for Utah’s national monuments have swung back and forth as the state of Utah challenges the boundaries, management and even the fundamental authority under which the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments were protected. 

More recently, Utah has doubled down by filing a lawsuit seeking to outright seize control of millions of acres of public lands, and in doing so is challenging a core premise of our understanding of public lands in this county. Remember, public lands and their resources — be it coal, rangelands, timber, scenic vistas, trails to hike or rivers to raft and fish — belong to all Americans, not just the people living in one state. 

Looking ahead to next year, anti-conservation politicians are ramping up to challenge public lands protections, and no doubt Utah will be at the forefront of these efforts, creating political whiplash for public lands advocates and opponents, while leaving important questions about the future management of our public lands in limbo. 

Here in Colorado, the debate over the Dolores Canyons National Monument has echoes of Utah’s monumental tug of war. National monuments will likely be targeted again by the incoming administration, and if in the coming weeks the current president were to declare nearly 400,000 acres of public lands as the Dolores Canyons National Monument, it too would certainly become a target for repeal. 

So where do Dolores monument advocates and opponents go from here? Will Utah’s anti-public lands agenda follow the crowds of visitors as they inevitably creep into western Colorado? Can Coloradans at least agree that public lands should stay in public hands? 

Looking to Utah, we suggest that the best way to “Protect the Dolores”— the motto around which pro-monument advocates have organized— is to focus on our shared values and what makes this place unique, beginning with a recognition for the principles underlying public lands as a public resource. 

For example, both sides have legitimate concerns about visitation and impact to natural resources. Public lands visitation is growing across the country, but national monuments provide an opportunity to plan for this growth in a way that can benefit local economies. 

Against the backdrop of Utah’s lawsuits, the BLM built four visitor centers to provide facilities and information to visitors seeking to responsibly explore Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Local citizens also stepped up to form the Grand Staircase-Escalante Partners and develop a Trail Ambassador Program where volunteers are trained like rangers to help educate visitors while cleaning up trash, old fire pits and graffiti on rock art. 

For the Bears Ears National Monument, a coalition of tribes came together on a co-management agreement to help share the landscape’s Indigenous history and protect important cultural sites for which the monument was designated. 

In Dolores Canyon Country, the Unaweep-Tabeguache Scenic Byway, sites on the National Register of Historic Places, Wilderness Study Areas, and popular recreation, hunting and fishing destinations all hint at the cultural, historical, scenic, scientific, watershed, wildlife, recreation and conservation values underlying the Dolores Canyons National Monument proposal.  

Beyond this administration or the next one, public lands should be managed for the benefit of current and future generations, and endless uncertainty and legal limbo is obviously a poor way to protect any place. 

We support the proposed Dolores Canyons National Monument, but more importantly we believe in the opportunity to work together and recognize our public lands as foundational to what makes the Dolores Canyons special as we strive to further protect what’s already here. By keeping our communities, shared values and existing uses at the heart of these efforts we can begin to agree on focused management approaches that will protect and conserve the Dolores Canyons now and into the future.

Carolyn Z. Shelton, of Delta County, is a former BLM employee and board member of Grand Staircase-Escalante Partners. 

Chris Rackens, of Delta County, is the advocacy director at the Western Slope Conservation Center and former federal employee with the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources.

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