You must grant the opponents of national monuments that they are right, that the Antiquities Act of 1906 specified that the land protected as a national monument shall "in all cases be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected."
So, what of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, which at 1.9 million acres is the largest national monument in the nation, larger than the state of Delaware? What of Bears Ears National Monument, bulging at 1.35 million acres in size?
Too large?
Bears Ears is said to contain as many archaeological sites as there are in North America, and maybe the world. Where are they? Do we protect them by separating the land into many islands, each a monument in its own right, or do we connect them all and reduce the monument only to the size that fits them all in?
Over in Grand Staircase-Escalante, you have dinosaur fossils dating back 75 million years. A good portion of them have been discovered just this century.
And, there's the rub: How many archaeological sites are yet uncovered? It would seem that while you are to confine protection to the smallest area possible, in both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, you must protect all the area where archaeological sites might yet be discovered. Does that leave much room for trimming back the size of the monuments?
Parts of these lands are among the last areas of the U.S. to be mapped and explored. It is said much of the land remains as it was millions of years ago. If we do open these areas to mining, the pristine nature of the land will be forever lost. It would seem if you are to err, you should err on the side of protecting them.
A treasure destroyed cannot be returned.
in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected
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