There are places in the American West where the landscape feels almost impossibly big.
Canyons stretch beyond the horizon. Roads disappear into the desert. Ancient rock art and archaeological sites sit among cliffs and mesas. Wildlife moves through enormous expanses of public land.
In southeastern Utah, two of those landscapes have spent the last decade at the center of a national fight over what public lands should be protected—and who gets to decide.
Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument have now been reduced twice.
The first time was in 2017.
Their original boundaries were restored in 2021.
Then, on July 13, 2026, President Donald Trump signed proclamations reducing both monuments by roughly 90% once again.
Nearly 3 million acres of national monument designation were removed. Bears Ears was reduced from approximately 1.36 million acres to about 121,100 acres. Grand Staircase-Escalante was reduced from approximately 1.87 million acres to roughly 160,000 acres.
The land didn’t disappear.
It remains public land.
But the designation that gave these landscapes a particular conservation and management framework is now gone across enormous portions of the monuments.
And that changes what can happen here.
Explore the Monument Boundaries
The map below shows the dramatic changes to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante and how the 2026 boundaries compare with the much larger landscapes protected by the monuments just weeks ago.
Look closely.
The new boundaries aren’t simply lines around empty desert.
They cut through canyons, mesas, recreation areas, cultural landscapes, wildlife habitat, and some of the most recognizable places in southeastern Utah.
A project or policy can sound very different when you see it on the ground.
That’s what this map is meant to show.
What Happened in 2026?
On July 13, 2026, President Trump signed proclamations modifying both national monuments.
The reductions followed an earlier attempt to shrink the same monuments during Trump’s first administration.
In 2017, Bears Ears was reduced by more than 1 million acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante was reduced by hundreds of thousands of acres.
In 2021, President Joe Biden restored the monuments to their larger boundaries. Bears Ears returned to approximately 1.36 million acres, while Grand Staircase-Escalante returned to approximately 1.87 million acres.
Five years later, the boundaries moved again.
This time, the reductions were even more dramatic.
Bears Ears now encompasses only about 121,100 acres.
Grand Staircase-Escalante now encompasses roughly 160,000 acres.
Together, the two monuments went from protecting more than 3.2 million acres to protecting only a small fraction of that landscape.
The result is one of the largest changes to national monument boundaries in modern American history.
The Land Is Still Public
This distinction matters.
When land is removed from a national monument, it does not automatically become private land.
Much of the land removed from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante remains federally owned and managed by the Bureau of Land Management or, in some areas, the U.S. Forest Service.
But public land can be managed in very different ways.
National monument designation establishes a management framework focused on protecting the objects identified in the monument proclamation.
Outside the monument boundaries, those specific monument protections no longer apply.
Other protections may still exist.
Wilderness areas, Wilderness Study Areas, cultural-resource laws, wildlife protections, and other designations can overlap portions of the landscape.
But the loss of monument status changes the management framework across millions of acres.
The land remains public. The rules governing its future have changed.
That distinction is at the heart of this story.
Bears Ears Is More Than a Landscape
Bears Ears is one of the most culturally significant landscapes in the American West.
The mesas, canyons, springs, cliffs, and valleys contain thousands of archaeological and cultural sites.
Ancient villages.
Cliff dwellings.
Rock art.
Burial sites.
Trails.
Ceremonial places.
Evidence of people living in and traveling through this landscape for thousands of years.
For the tribes connected to Bears Ears, these aren’t simply archaeological resources.
They are part of an ancestral homeland that remains culturally and spiritually important today.
The Bears Ears Commission was established as part of the monument’s management framework and brought together representatives from the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe, and Pueblo of Zuni.
It was an unusual experiment in federal land management.
Tribal governments were not simply being consulted about their ancestral lands.
They were being given a formal role in helping manage them.
The 2026 reduction also dissolved the Bears Ears Commission and removed large portions of the landscape from the monument framework.
For Bears Ears, the boundary change is therefore about more than acreage.
It is about who gets to help care for an ancestral landscape—and what happens to the places that fall outside the new line.
Grand Staircase Is Written in Stone
Grand Staircase-Escalante tells a different story.
Here, the landscape itself is a record of deep time.
The monument protects enormous geological formations, deep canyons, high plateaus, desert ecosystems, and one of the most important paleontological landscapes in North America.
Fossils found here have helped scientists understand ancient ecosystems and the evolution of dinosaurs and other species.
The rocks tell stories that stretch back hundreds of millions of years.
The landscape also supports modern ecosystems.
Pinyon-juniper woodlands transition into desert shrublands and higher-elevation forests. Rivers and washes provide habitat through an otherwise arid landscape.
And then there are the places people know simply because they are beautiful.
Canyons.
Waterfalls.
High plateaus.
Sandstone cliffs.
Remote desert roads.
Dark skies.
Grand Staircase-Escalante isn’t a single attraction.
It is an enormous connected landscape.
And in 2026, most of that landscape moved outside the monument boundary.
What Happens When the Boundary Moves?
This is where the map becomes important.
Imagine standing in a canyon.
The rock doesn’t change when you cross the new monument boundary.
The plants don’t change.
The wildlife doesn’t know.
The archaeological site doesn’t move.
But the management framework can.
That means the effects of a boundary change aren’t always immediately visible.
You won’t necessarily see a new mine appear the day after a monument is reduced.
You may not see a new road.
You may not see a new drilling pad.
What changes first is what becomes possible.
Activities that were previously restricted or managed specifically to protect monument resources can become subject to a different set of rules.
That can include mineral exploration, mining claims, road construction, grazing, recreation management, and other multiple-use activities, depending on the specific land and applicable laws.
The details matter.
So does the location.
The Mining Question
One of the clearest examples of why these boundaries matter appeared almost immediately after the 2026 reductions.
Within 24 hours of the proclamations, Utah-based Kimmerle Mining filed seven mining claims on land that had previously been inside Bears Ears.
Additional mining claims were later filed within the former Grand Staircase-Escalante boundary.
A mining claim is not the same thing as an operating mine.
Claims still have to move through regulatory and permitting processes, and the future of the 2026 boundary changes is also being challenged in court.
But the speed with which claims appeared illustrates something important.
When a protection is removed, people respond to the new possibilities.
The question is not whether every acre outside the monument will be mined.
It won’t.
The question is whether some of these landscapes will now face development pressures that the monument designation was specifically intended to prevent or manage.
Recreation Is Part of the Story Too
These aren’t landscapes that people simply look at.
People live in them.
Work in them.
Hike them.
Climb them.
Camp in them.
Hunt and fish in them.
Ride through them.
Study them.
And return to them year after year.
Bears Ears contains internationally recognized climbing and recreation areas, including Indian Creek.
Grand Staircase-Escalante contains hundreds of miles of trails and roads through some of the most remote country in Utah.
The 2026 boundary changes put many of those places outside the national monument designation.
In some cases, the new boundaries cut directly through well-known recreation areas.
Indian Creek is a striking example, with the new Bears Ears boundary separating much of the area’s climbing resources from the monument.
That doesn’t mean recreation immediately disappears.
It means the landscape is now managed under a different framework.
And that can influence everything from road access to resource protection to future development.
What About Wildlife?
Wildlife doesn’t recognize a national monument boundary either.
The Colorado Plateau contains a patchwork of habitats that stretch across BLM lands, national forests, national parks, wilderness areas, private property, and other conservation lands.
For wildlife, those boundaries are mostly meaningless.
A mule deer doesn’t know when it leaves a monument.
A mountain lion doesn’t stop at a BLM boundary.
Birds move across the entire region.
The ecological importance of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante therefore extends beyond the exact acreage contained within their boundaries.
Large, relatively intact landscapes provide room for wildlife to move, find food, respond to drought, and adapt to changing conditions.
Fragmenting those landscapes with roads, energy development, mining, or other infrastructure can have consequences that aren’t always obvious from a single project.
That is why connected landscapes matter.
And it is why the size and location of conservation designations matter too.
A History of Moving Boundaries
This isn’t the first time these monuments have been reduced.
Grand Staircase-Escalante was established in 1996 by President Bill Clinton.
Bears Ears followed in 2016 under President Barack Obama.
Both were reduced by President Trump in 2017.
Both were restored by President Biden in 2021.
And both were reduced again in 2026.
That back-and-forth has created something that is difficult to put on a map:
uncertainty.
Imagine trying to manage an archaeological resource, plan a trail, study wildlife habitat, or make a long-term recreation plan when the boundaries of the landscape can change dramatically from one administration to the next.
Effective land management requires thinking in decades.
Political administrations operate in much shorter cycles.
Those timelines don’t always fit together.
Why Monument Designations Matter
National monument designations are not meant to lock a landscape away from people.
They are intended to protect specific cultural, historic, scientific, and natural resources.
People can still hike.
Camp.
Climb.
Fish.
Hunt.
Ride.
Explore.
Study.
And experience these landscapes.
The difference is that those activities occur within a management framework where the resources identified in the monument proclamation receive special consideration.
That distinction is important because one of the arguments surrounding the 2026 reductions has been that national monument status prevents people from using the land.
In reality, recreation has long been an important part of both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.
The question isn’t whether people should be allowed to use these places.
It’s how we balance use with protection.
The Antiquities Act Debate
The legal debate surrounding these monuments goes back to the law that created them.
The Antiquities Act of 1906 gives presidents the authority to establish national monuments on federal lands to protect objects of historic or scientific interest.
It also says that monuments should be confined to “the smallest area compatible with the proper care and management” of the objects being protected.
The Trump administration has argued that the enormous size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante exceeded that standard.
The 2026 proclamations therefore reduced the boundaries dramatically.
But whether a president has the legal authority to reduce a monument created by a previous president remains contested.
Conservation organizations and other groups have challenged the reductions in court, arguing that the Antiquities Act gives presidents authority to establish monuments but does not give them authority to eliminate or substantially reduce existing designations.
The courts will ultimately have to decide how that conflict is resolved.
Until then, the new boundaries are the landscape we are watching.
Why We Built This Map
We created the Public Land Threats Map because public land issues are often difficult to understand from a headline alone.
“Three million acres” is an enormous number.
But it is difficult to imagine.
Put those acres on a map and the story becomes different.
You can see the canyons.
The roads.
The archaeological landscapes.
The climbing areas.
The wilderness.
The neighboring national parks.
The communities.
And the enormous areas that suddenly sit outside the monument boundaries.
That’s what we want the map to do.
We’re not trying to replace the underlying science, planning documents, government records, or Tribal perspectives.
We’re trying to make them easier to understand in the context of the landscape.
Location matters.
What Happens Next?
The future of these lands is not completely settled.
Legal challenges to the 2026 reductions are underway.
Management planning will determine how many of the newly excluded lands are handled under the Bureau of Land Management and other applicable land-management frameworks.
Mining claims and other development interests are already beginning to appear on some of the lands removed from the monuments.
And the political debate is likely to continue.
For visitors, scientists, Tribal Nations, recreationists, and people who simply care about public lands, that means paying attention matters.
These landscapes are still here.
The question is what happens to them next.
The Bigger Question
The story of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante isn’t really about whether a line on a map moved.
It is about what happens when we change what that line means.
A national monument designation can provide a layer of protection for cultural resources, scientific resources, wildlife habitat, and extraordinary landscapes.
Removing that designation doesn’t make the land private.
It doesn’t automatically mean a mine will be built.
It doesn’t mean recreation ends.
But it does change the management framework.
And once a landscape is opened to new possibilities, some of those possibilities may be difficult or impossible to reverse.
An archaeological site can be looted.
A fossil can be removed.
A road can fragment habitat.
A mine can permanently alter a landscape.
Those impacts don’t disappear if the boundary is restored years later.
That’s why consistency matters.
That’s why planning matters.
And that’s why the lines on this map matter.
The American West is full of landscapes that look limitless.
They aren’t.
We only get one chance to decide what we want these places to become.
Sources & Further Reading
The Public Land Threats Map is an independent project built from publicly available government documents, agency data, scientific research, planning documents, and other sources.
Because public land management and the legal status of the 2026 monument reductions can change, we recommend consulting the original documents and current agency information for the latest information.
2026 Monument Reductions
- White House — Modifying the Bears Ears National Monument
- White House — Modifying the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
- Federal Register — Presidential Proclamations modifying Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, July 2026
- Bureau of Land Management — Bears Ears National Monument
- Bureau of Land Management — Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument
Monument History
- Presidential Proclamation 6920 — Establishment of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, 1996
- Presidential Proclamation 9558 — Establishment of Bears Ears National Monument, 2016
- Presidential Proclamations 9681 and 9682 — 2017 modifications to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante
- Presidential Proclamations 10285 and 10286 — 2021 restoration of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante
Cultural Resources & Tribal Stewardship
- Bears Ears Commission
- Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition
- Bureau of Land Management — Bears Ears National Monument Management Plan
- U.S. Forest Service — Manti-La Sal National Forest
Current Reporting
Reporting and mapping from the Salt Lake Tribune, Associated Press, Axios, and other outlets were used to help track the 2026 boundary changes and their immediate effects.
About This Project
The Public Land Threats Map is an independent project created by Public Land Lovers.
We are travelers, scientists, geographers, and public land enthusiasts who believe that understanding a landscape is one of the best ways to appreciate it.
We built this map to make complicated public land issues easier to see, explore, and understand.
If you find an important source, project, or piece of information that we missed, we’d love to hear from you.