Patagonia sues Trump over slashing of protected areas in Utah

Key Points:

• Patagonia has joined a lawsuit challenging former President Donald Trump’s decision to reduce the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah by nearly 3 million acres, which removes protections and opens the land to oil and gas development.
• Trump claimed the reductions would allow the land to be used for higher-priority purposes, including access to critical minerals important for national security, but the move has been criticized for disregarding tribal sovereignty and public land protections.
• Patagonia’s CEO Ryan Gellert condemned the reductions as illegal and an attempt to transfer federal land control to states and private companies for resource extraction, emphasizing the importance of preserving these lands beyond monetary value.
• The monuments were originally established by Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton to protect culturally and environmentally significant areas, with Bears Ears created following advocacy by Indigenous tribes.
• The Natural Resources Defense Council called the reductions one of the largest rollbacks of public land protections in US history, warning that opening the lands to mining and drilling threatens irreplaceable natural and cultural resources.