Statement: Two-year anniversary of Camp Hale National Monument

DENVER – Last Saturday marked the second anniversary of President Joe Biden designating the Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument as the first new national monument of his presidency. The monument protects 53,804 acres in Colorado’s Rocky Mountain from new mining and oil drilling leases, safeguarding the habitat of wildlife such as elk, lynx and bears. 

Including Camp Hale, President Biden has protected more than 1.6 million acres of land using the Antiquities Act, including designating Texas’s Castner Range, Nevada’s Avi Kwa Ame and Arizona’s Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon as national monuments.The president has also expanded the Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument and San Gabriel Mountains National Monument in California. 

The Biden administration has protected other special places across the country including the Thompson Divide, which covers 225,000 acres from Glenwood Springs to Crested Butte. 

Advocates across the country are working to convince the Biden administration to protect more land as part of the president’s commitment to advance a goal of protecting 30 percent of United States lands and waters by 2030. A coalition of conservation organizations, community groups and businesses is advocating for the conservation of nearly 400,000 acres of public lands in Mesa and Montrose counties in the form of a proposed Dolores Canyons National Monument. 

To mark the anniversary, Environment Colorado Advocate Henry Stiles, issued the following statement:

“Since designating Camp Hale, President Biden has been on a roll protecting nature from forests to deserts to mountains. The new national monuments and other special places like Colorado’s Thompson Divide are needed in the face of massive declines in wildlife populations across the globe. We hope that President Biden uses the remaining months of his presidency to continue to protect critical wildlife habitat. We urge our Senators and other state leaders to encourage the President to make at least one more trip to Colorado to designate a national monument in the Dolores River canyon country.”