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By Joe Edwards
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President Donald Trump has drastically reduced two Utah national monuments, raising questions about which protected landscapes could be next.
Trump earlier this month issued proclamations cutting Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by about 90 percent each, according to The Associated Press, undoing protections created by Democratic presidents for lands that include ancient cliff dwellings, petroglyphs, scenic canyons, and coal and uranium deposits sought by Utah officials for development.
The White House said the reductions would shrink Grand Staircase-Escalante from about 1.87 million acres to about 181,500 acres, and Bears Ears from about 1.36 million acres to about 121,100 acres. It argued the changes restore “multiple-use” management, including grazing, hunting, resource development, infrastructure upgrades and motorized recreation.
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“The specific landmarks, structures, and objects of historic and scientific interest that the Antiquities Act and monuments safeguard will continue to be protected, while the surrounding lands not relevant to such protected landmarks, structures, and objects will now be available for multiple-use, sustained-yield management,” the White House said.
Tribal leaders and conservation groups have condemned the move, with Davina Smith-Idjesa, co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and a Navajo Nation citizen, calling the decision “heartbreaking” and saying officials had sidestepped tribal consultation obligations.
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The reductions could foreshadow fresh scrutiny of other large, recent or resource-adjacent monuments that have drawn opposition from Republican lawmakers, mining interests or prior Trump-era reviews.
Newsweek reached out to the Interior Department and White House for comment via email on Friday. Newsweek contacted the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and Navajo Nation for comment via email on Friday.
Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni, Arizona
Former President Joe Biden designated Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon in 2023 to conserve nearly 1 million acres around Grand Canyon National Park, citing sacred Tribal sites, wildlife habitat and clean water.
The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) says, "The monument gives way to views of mule deer that pass through this important migration corridor and glimpses of endangered California condors as they catch thermals with their nine-foot wingspan and soar over the expansive desert floor. The monument is also home to pinyon jays, golden eagles, tiger whiptail and desert horned lizards, pronghorns, ferruginous hawks, and western burrowing owls."
The Navajo Nation said the designation prohibited new uranium mining within its boundaries, while Arizona Republican Representative Paul Gosar later introduced legislation to nullify the monument, arguing it had blocked “responsible” mining.
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Ironwood Forest, Arizona
Ironwood Forest "contains habitat for the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl," and the "desert bighorn sheep dwelling in the region are the last viable population indigenous to the Tucson basin," BLM said on its website about the location.
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Ironwood Forest has also drawn direct mining-related attacks. Gosar said in 2025 that his bill to nullify the Clinton-era monument was aimed at lands he said had been closed to domestic copper and gold mining. Conservation groups said the monument northwest of Tucson was being targeted for possible copper mining, while Arizona reporting noted nearby Silver Bell Mine interests previously sought boundary changes.
Chuckwalla, California
Biden established the monument in January 2025, and the Bureau of Land Management says it contains about 624,270 acres of public lands within a larger nearly 740,000-acre boundary.
"The Monument contains habitat across the unique and remarkable desert landscape, providing critical landscape connectivity and critical habitat for several threatened and endangered species such as the Agassiz’s desert tortoise and the desert pupfish," BLM said on its website. "The lands within the Monument have, and continue to be, home to the Iviatim (Cahuilla), Nüwü (Chemehuevi), Pipa Aha Macav (Mojave), Kwatsáan (Quechan), and Maara’yam and Marringayam (Serrano), and other Indigenous peoples and include sacred trails, sacred sites and objects, traditional cultural places, geoglyphs, petroglyphs, pictographs, and culturally important plants and wildlife."
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CalMatters reported in 2025 that the Trump administration was weighing whether to reverse the designation, while some mining and recreation advocates supported undoing what they called a late-term land grab.
Sáttítla Highlands, California
Sáttítla Highlands, also designated by Biden in January 2025, covers 224,676 acres across three national forests in northern California. Its extraction fight centers less on mining than geothermal energy: the Pit River Tribe and allies fought industrial geothermal development around Medicine Lake Highlands for decades, and advocates sought monument status as a stronger shield against new leases, according to Shasta Scout.
The area is home to Medicine Lake Volcano, one of the two largest volcanoes in the Cascades Volcanic Arc, covering roughly 10 times that of Mount St. Helens, Washington, according to the U.S. Forest Service. "These stunning and unusual lands have been known as 'Sáttítla' in the Ajumawi language, which translates to 'obsidian place.' Sáttítla's obsidian deposits formed by the volcano have long been important to Indigenous peoples, as shown by obsidian tools and sites they left here from their lives and travels."
Sáttítla Highlands was one of two Biden-era California monuments that The Wilderness Society said in 2025 the Trump administration had reportedly moved to rescind, citing New York Times and Washington Post reporting. The group said a White House fact sheet had described “terminating proclamations” for nearly a million acres of new monuments that it said restricted “economic development and energy production,” though that language was later removed from the White House website.
Cascade-Siskiyou, Oregon and California
"This convergence of three geologically distinct mountain ranges has resulted in an area with unparalleled biological diversity and a tremendously varied landscape," BLM says on its website of the area. "The Monument was established in 2000 in recognition of its remarkable ecology and to protect its diverse range of biological, geological, aquatic, archaeological, and historic resources."
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Cascade-Siskiyou was already in the crosshairs once. A leaked 2017 Interior report recommended revising its boundary to remove certain O&C lands for sustained-yield timber production, according to the Western Environmental Law Center. The Washington Post also reported at the time that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke recommended reducing the monument after Trump’s first-term review.
Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, New Mexico
Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, created by former President Barack Obama in 2014, protects about 496,000 acres in southern New Mexico. It "was established to protect significant prehistoric, historic, geologic, and biologic resources of scientific interest, and includes four areas: the Organ Mountains, Desert Peaks, Potrillo Mountains, and Doña Ana Mountains," according to BLM, which describes them as "a steep, angular mountain range with rocky spires that jut majestically above the Chihuahuan Desert floor to an elevation of 9,000 feet."
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It was included in Trump’s 2017 monument review, but Zinke did not recommend shrinking it, according to New Mexico Political Report.
Public lands and wildlife organization New Mexico Wild warned in 2025 that a new Interior order reviewing withdrawn lands could again implicate monuments including Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, according to Source New Mexico.
Rio Grande del Norte, New Mexico
"From the sagebrush plains at roughly 7,000 feet, extinct volcanic cones—Cerro de la Olla, Cerro San Antonio, and Cerro del Yuta—rise above canyons, wild rivers, and native grasslands that harbor vital wildlife habitat and unique scientific resources," BLM says. "Together, these features form an extraordinary mosaic of extreme beauty and daunting harshness, offering rare opportunities to understand the forces that shaped northern New Mexico’s diverse ecological systems and enduring human cultures."
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Rio Grande del Norte was also reportedly part of the 2017 review.
Senator Martin Heinrich warned at a June 2025 rally that the monument could be threatened by Trump administration and congressional efforts to roll back public-land protections, pointing to budget legislation and an Interior push to prioritize resource development on “withdrawn public lands.” The monument was not directly named in reporting cited by New Mexico Wild, but the Interior language could cover national monuments broadly, according to a release from Heinrich’s office.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and Gray R. Thomas
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