President Joe Biden signed a proclamation designating a new national monument near the Grand Canyon National Park on Tuesday, providing stronger protections for nearly 1 million acres and permanently removing them from consideration for future uranium mining.
Using his authority under the 1906 Antiquities Act, the proclamation establishes the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument. The site, totaling more than 917,000 acres, includes lands of ancestral importance to a dozen tribes, as well as multiple cultural and archaeological sites.
Leaders from a dozen tribes, some of whom were present for the signing at an airfield near the Kaibab National Forest, have been pushing for greater protections for the lands. Ahead of the announcement, the administration said the designation is a step toward addressing the historical exclusion and dispossession of Indigenous people in the area, a sentiment Biden echoed during his speech.
