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Help Preserve Arizona Strip's Wild Character!
In Northern Arizona sit nearly 3 million acres of some of the most rugged, remote and wildly beautiful public land in the lower 48 states. Known as the Arizona Strip, the region includes two National Monuments: Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs. How wild the Strip remains will depend on the kind of management plan that's set in place. That, in turn, depends on what the managing agency hears from all of us.
Please take a moment to send a letter. ADD IMPACT TO YOUR LETTER, by including a paragraph in your own words at the top of the document, emphasizing why you care about the archeology, the beauty, the wilderness or the wildlife of the Arizona Strip.
| Sample Letter for Campaign |
Subject: Arizona Strip Management Plan
Dear [ Decision Maker ] ,
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the preliminary draft management alternatives for the Arizona Strip.
The final plan must ensure the long-term preservation of the irreplaceable scenery, wildlife, and remoteness of the BLM's Arizona Strip Planning Area, which includes the Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs National Monuments. As a general matter, I believe that planning alternative A comes closest to my vision for these important public lands. I urge you to adopt it as your preferred alternative and I offer the following specific comments.
Please implement the citizen-proposed transportation network that would restrict motorized recreation to the appropriate designated open roads in the Monuments and reduce road density in non-Monument sections of the planning area. Leave all roads unpaved and maintained only at current levels.
Please also adopt the citizen-proposed "management area plan." This plan calls for preservation and enhancement of wilderness and primitive characteristics where they exist in the Monuments. It also calls for management of general Monument lands for maximum protection for the Monument's objects. And it calls for management of lands outside the monuments to restore ecosystem health and promote biodiversity and sustainable landscapes.
Again, I urge you to select as your preferred alternative one that incorporates these actions. The preliminary alternative that comes closest to meeting these criteria is Alternative A. I thank you for this opportunity to comment.
Sincerely,
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Campaign Launched:
June 24, 2003
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BACKGROUND
ARIZONA STRIP: Where the American West Endures
The Arizona Strip lies on the north rim of the Grand Canyon which separates it from the rest of Arizona. The Arizona Strip encompasses more than 2.8 million spectacular acres. A measure of their grandeur is the fact that within them lie two of America's newest National Monuments: the 1,014,000-acre Grand Canyon-Parashant and the 293,000-acre Vermilion Cliffs. Both were set aside to permanently protect their diverse biological and geological treasures and their remote and undeveloped spaces.
This remoteness is the major reason the area's biological, scientific and historic resources survive today. The Strip contains archaeological artifacts from human use and activity that reach back 11,000 years. Its geological record spans nearly 2 billion years. The Strip contains wilderness, great tracts of roadless lands, critical watersheds for the Grand Canyon, and a richness of wildlife that ranges from the very swift, the pronghorn, to the very deliberate, the desert tortoise.
For all these reasons, President Clinton designated the Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs National Monuments in 2000 and made them part of the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) within the Bureau of Land Management. The mission of the NLCS is to conserve, protect, and restore for the benefit of present and future Americans these nationally significant landscapes and their outstanding cultural, ecological, and scientific values.
PLANNING FOR A GENERATION AND BEYOND
The BLM is now writing management plans for Arizona Strip and is seeking public comment on early drafts. The plans will cover the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument, the Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument (which is under joint BLM and National Park Service management), as well as another 1.7 million acres of BLM-managed land on the Strip between the two monuments.
The plans will provide the framework for BLM and NPS management on the land for the next 15 to 20 years. Decisions taken as part of this process will have a profound impact on the area for decades.
The draft plan includes four possible alternatives. They range from one that, while imperfect, at least emphasizes conservation to others that portend expanded roads, grazing, and motorized use that will significantly damage the sensitive lands and other resources of the Strip and change its character for all time. We need your help to ensure that the management plans preserve the rich natural beauty of this area.
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