President Biden will designate approximately one million acres of land around the Grand Canyon in Arizona as a national monument as a way to protect revered Native American lands and hold off uranium mining in the area, the Washington Post reports.
The area, to be designated the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni Grand Canyon National Monument, sits north of Arizona’s Grand Canyon National Park approaching the Utah border to the north and the Colorado River to the east. The Havasupai, Hopi and other tribes in the region have lobbied for the protection of the lands, saying the territory was part of the land their tribes would travel during nomadic periods.
The Obama Administration has put a 20-year moratorium on mining for uranium on the land in 2012, but the Trump cabal ignored that order and attempted to selling uranium mining rights on the land in 2020, a move that was blocked by internal administration officials as well as outside groups threatening lawsuits. Advocates called on Biden to strengthen protections for the land, providing permanent blocks on mining.