On July 13, 2026, President Trump announced new reductions of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, removing protections from nearly three million acres. The action again places Tribal cultural landscapes, wildlife habitat, watersheds and public lands at risk from mining, drilling and other development.

Writer Morgan Sjogren joins Chris Clarke from southern Utah. Sjogren has traveled these landscapes extensively and written about Glen Canyon, uranium mining and the conflicting legacies carried by public lands. She describes the disorienting contrast between an enormous political assault and the apparent quiet of the country itself.

The conversation also considers what landscape-scale knowledge provides: an understanding that rivers, mesas, wildlife, plant communities, rural towns and Indigenous homelands cannot be separated by conveniently redrawn lines on a government map.

Key Takeaways

• The July 2026 actions removed national-monument protections from most of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.
• Bears Ears is an Indigenous cultural landscape whose protection was developed through years of Tribal leadership and advocacy.
• Reduced protections could expose lands to uranium and coal mining, drilling and other extractive uses.
• National-monument protection also safeguards rivers, watersheds, wildlife habitat, archaeological sites and public access.
• Sjogren argues that traveling through these places at landscape scale reveals connections that political boundaries conceal.
• Supporting organizations based in and near the monuments remains an important way to respond.

Notable Quotes

“The air is filled with tension, and the noise is mostly online, but outside it’s eerily quiet.”

“Monuments are one of the most robust protections we have for rivers in this country.”

“I’ve been getting to know my riverside neighbors: both the human and more-than-human, plant communities, wildlife, Tribes, rural Americans, urbanites, farmers.”

“Vote like this landscape and our lives depend upon it.”

About Morgan Sjogren

Morgan Sjogren is a writer, adventurer and longtime traveler through the landscapes of the Colorado Plateau. Her books include Path of Light: A Walk Through Colliding Legacies of Glen Canyon, Outlandish: Fuel Your Epic, and The Best Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument Hikes.

Resources

• Morgan Sjogren’s Glen Canyon Backcountry Club
• Grand Staircase Escalante Partners
• Bears Ears Partnership
• Conservation Lands Foundation: Defend Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante