{"id":3894,"date":"2026-07-21T17:07:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T17:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3894"},"modified":"2026-07-21T17:07:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T17:07:10","slug":"hundreds-protest-reductions-to-2-utah-monuments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3894","title":{"rendered":"Hundreds protest reductions to 2 Utah monuments"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Hundreds packed the park strip outside of the Utah Governor\u2019s Mansion in Salt Lake City Monday evening to sound their frustration about last week\u2019s reduction of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments.<\/p>\n

Read more Opinion: The Utah we love is changing \u2014 but we can still protect it<\/a><\/p>\n

Many came holding signs while they rotated chants like \u201cvote them out\u201d and \u201cthis is what democracy looks like\u201d during what was dubbed a \u201cmonumental day of action\u201d by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s time for us to call out the lies and to hold our elected officials accountable,\u201d said Mimi Ortega, the organization\u2019s Utah organizer, speaking over a bullhorn, as the crowd cheered and rattled cowbells, and some passing vehicles honked their horns.<\/p>\n

More than anything, she said the effort was aimed at showing Utah leaders that Utahns care deeply about the public lands, and many aren\u2019t happy with the decision to urge President Donald Trump to order a significant reduction of the two Utah monuments twice within the decade.<\/p>\n

To that end, the protest was one of five scattered across Utah organized by SUWA on Monday. Protesters also gathered in Ogden, Provo, St. George and Moab, setting up outside the offices of Utah\u2019s congressional delegation, in addition to the Governor\u2019s Mansion in Salt Lake City.<\/p>\n

Previous decisions over the monument sizes sparked lawsuits, and SUWA and other organizations are currently planning similar measures for President Donald Trump\u2019s recent orders. It\u2019s \u201cnot a matter of \u2018if\u2019 but \u2018when,\u2019\u201d Ortega told KSL after the event.<\/p>\n

Gov. Spencer Cox, Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, R-Hooper, and Utah\u2019s congressional delegation were all present when Trump signed a pair of declarations drastically shrinking the sizes of the Utah monuments last week.<\/p>\n

One order reduced Bears Ears to approximately 121,000 acres, while the other trimmed Grand Staircase-Escalante down to 182,000 acres, shedding nearly 3 million acres of monument protection between the two in the process.<\/p>\n

The new sizes are about a tenth of their original sizes and a quarter of the size of a previous cut that Trump had ordered in 2017, before that was overturned by President Joe Biden in 2021. Their previous sizes, Trump said, were \u201cvery unfair\u201d to Utah.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to rightsize these monuments,\u201d Cox added, noting that both areas will still be managed by the Bureau of Land Management, which he said will keep natural, cultural and scientific \u201ctreasures\u201d protected.<\/p>\n

Other state leaders, like Attorney General Derek Brown, said that the Antiquities Act was never intended to be \u201ca tool for locking up millions of acres with the stroke of a pen,\u201d which is why he called Trump\u2019s order \u201ca major step in the right direction of appropriately sized monuments.\u201d<\/p>\n

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However, several public lands, environmental and conservation groups have chastised the orders over the past week, asserting that the rollbacks allow for more oil, gas, coal and geothermal leasing and new mineral mining claims within areas that were previously protected.<\/p>\n

Many in the crowd raised their hands when they were asked if they had visited places like Coyote Gulch and Cedar Mesa, two of the recreation sites within both of the monuments, during Monday\u2019s protest. That was in response to comments Trump made that nobody could use the land at all, including virtually all recreation, under the original designation.<\/p>\n

Leaders of the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition, a tribal group that represented the monuments, said they were never consulted about the reductions, either. That also irked many who attended Monday\u2019s event.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to be fighting for the Indigenous people and the indigenous animals and the indigenous plants,\u201d said Carl Moore, co-founder of the environmental and Indigenous rights group Pandos, saying they\u2019re all groups often left without a voice in major land decisions.<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s event ended with people signing postcards that will be sent to Utah\u2019s congressional and state leaders, letting them know about their frustrations and desire to protect both monuments.<\/p>\n

The turnout didn\u2019t shock Sen. Nate Blouin, D-Millcreek, who was among those in attendance. He referenced a Utah State University poll published in February that found a majority of Utahns support the monuments.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not surprising to see … a lot of people come out on a Monday evening on a hot evening to express solidarity here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t the first protest over the decision. The Wilderness Society set up projectors outside of the Department of the Interior\u2019s Washington, D.C. headquarters to display images of the two Utah monuments with \u201cSOLD\u201d written over them on Wednesday. It also projected images of the White House ceremony while calling it \u201cone of the largest giveaways of public land protections in U.S. history.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s likely not the end, either, as groups seek to ensure Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears remain protected.<\/p>\n

Read more Report: BYU has added Polish big man Jakub Urbaniak<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cFolks are really, really upset about what took place last week,\u201d Ortega said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hundreds stood outside of the Utah Governor’s Mansion to sound their frustration about last week’s reduction of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3893,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-utah"],"yoast_head":"\nHundreds protest reductions to 2 Utah monuments - American Movers Hub<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3894\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hundreds protest reductions to 2 Utah monuments - American Movers Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hundreds stood outside of the Utah Governor's Mansion to sound their frustration about last week's reduction of Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/americanmovershub.com\/?p=3894\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Movers Hub\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-21T17:07:10+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3894#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3894\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/b68c8483906c0d2987f271455f0177af\"},\"headline\":\"Hundreds protest reductions to 2 Utah monuments\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-21T17:07:10+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3894\"},\"wordCount\":853,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3894#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/e319647f9a39c281325f78578caf19dd.avif\",\"articleSection\":[\"Utah\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3894#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3894\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/americanmovershub.com\\\/?p=3894\",\"name\":\"Hundreds protest reductions to 2 Utah monuments - 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