Biden Designates National Monument to Block New Mining at Grand Canyon

President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday a new national monument surrounding the Grand Canyon that protects the park from uranium mining and honors Indigenous people.

The new monument, called Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, will conserve nearly 1 million acres of public land, according to the White House, including protecting places for cultural and spiritual uses for Tribal Nations and Indigenous peoples. 

The move, which tribal and environmental groups had been advocating for, comes as a 2012 ban on uranium mining in the area is set to expire. The proclamation, which Biden signed during his visit to Arizona Tuesday, will block new mining on the land but honor existing mining claims.

Biden said he used his authority to create this monument to help “right the wrongs of the past and conserve this land of ancestral footprints for all future generations.”

The president noted that preserving the Grand Canyon as a national park drove out Indigenous people and denied them access to places where they hunted, gathered and had sacred, ancestral sites.

“At a time … when some seek to ban books and bury history, we're making it clear that we can't just choose to learn only what we want to know,” Biden said Tuesday. “We should learn everything that's good or bad, the truth about who we are as a nation, that's what great nations do."

“And we're the greatest of all nations,” he continued. “Only with truth comes healing and justice, and another step toward forming a more perfect union.”

The new monument will consist of three areas to the south, northeast, and northwest of Grand Canyon National Park.

This is the fifth new national monument established by Biden. The president also announced $44 million to strengthen climate resilience across America’s iconic National Parks system, including 43 projects across 39 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a Cabinet secretary, praised the new monument, saying the Biden administration is “putting historic and once in a generation resource resources into Indian country.”

“Native American history is American history,” Haaland said. 

Haaland noted that protecting the land means that Indigenous peoples “can continue to use these areas for religious ceremonies, hunting and gathering of plants, medicines and other materials, including some found nowhere else on earth.”

In May, Haaland visited the area and met with tribal leaders at Supai Village, which is located in the canyon and is the capital of Havasupai Indian Reservation. She cited that trip as “one of the most meaningful trips of my life.”

“These special places are not a pass through on the way to the Grand Canyon. They're sacred and significant unto their own right,” she said. “We are in a new era, one in which we honor tribally led conservation, advanced code stewardship and care about the well being of native people. Our work for Indian Country is far from over. But the progress we've accomplished under President Biden is historic.”