Dear Friend,

Summer is in full swing, and, like me, you may be poised for your next national park adventure. Before you head outside, I hope you will take a few minutes to celebrate recent milestones to protect the treasured landscapes of the Southwest and to learn new ways you can help us safeguard the parks for future generations.

Rocky Mountain Releases Long-Term Visitor Use Plan
After a collaborative and thoughtful multi-year effort among park leadership, Colorado community members, NPCA and other park advocates, Rocky Mountain National Park released their final visitor use management plan in late May.

To address an almost 50% increase in the park's visitation over the last 10 years, the plan permanently establishes a seasonal timed entry reservation system, also known as a “day use visitor access plan”. This adaptable plan marks a major milestone for the park and further establishes Rocky Mountain as an innovative leader in visitation planning throughout the National Park System.

To help you plan and prepare for your next trip, visit our “Know Before You Go” webpage. To learn more about managed access and timed-entry, watch NPCA’s informative video.

New Guidance for Neighboring Public Lands Will Protect Parks
In a regional and national victory for public lands, the Bureau of Land Management released two new agency rules in April: The Public Lands Rule and the Oil and Gas Rule. Both rules put conservation and recreation on more equal footing with other commodity-driven extraction uses in landscapes, including those that border national parks.

Benefits from these rules will also extend to protect irreplaceable sacred spaces and cultural resources, such as the landscape surrounding Chaco Culture National Historical Park. NPCA is celebrating this victory after years of advocacy for better safeguards from the threat of encroaching fossil fuel development and drilling near sensitive areas, including Dinosaur National Monument.

Advocating for the Antiquities Act in Arizona
In response to the Arizona State Legislature’s legal challenge to the establishment of Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument, NPCA and other conservation groups recently filed motions to support President Biden’s use of the Antiquities Act. These actions follow the leadership of the Havasupai Tribe, Hopi Tribe and Navajo Nation to protect this important landscape.

The tireless advocacy, spearheaded by the Grand Canyon Coalition, to secure and maintain federal protections for sacred and cultural sites, as well as critical waters, resulted in nearly 1,000,000 acres adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park being permanently protected within the new monument. NPCA continues to support the Antiquities Act as a bedrock conservation law that has been repeatedly upheld by the courts.

Milestone on the Motorized Vehicles Saga at Glen Canyon
Glen Canyon National Recreation Area recently agreed to propose a revised rule that would protect ecologically sensitive areas and visitor experiences from off-highway vehicles (OHVs) and street-legal all-terrain vehicles (ATVs).

This is a result of recent settlements of lawsuits brought by NPCA and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) against the National Park Service over off-road vehicle management at the monument at Glen Canyon, especially in the Orange Cliffs area bordering Canyonlands National Park. If adopted, the long-term results of these changes would allow the Park Service to adaptively manage OHV use and protect visitor experiences.

The work continues to see the rule through to finalization and preserve this outcome against new legal challenges, but we are pleased about this most recent development.

Enjoy a wonderful summer outdoors and stay safe,

Cory MacNulty
Campaign Director, Southwest Region

P.S. Have you heard? We’ve launched the Protecting America’s Legacy campaign to empower us to safeguard the parks we love across the Southwest and beyond for the next one hundred years. Click here to learn more about how you can help!