Towards Protection Together
For five decades, advocates have been working to ensure that the Dolores River Canyon Country endures for future generations. In the 1970s, as nascent river runners explored the wonders of the Dolores River, the river’s corridor was first described as an extraordinary candidate for protection under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.
In the 1980s, the Bureau of Land Management inventoried potential wilderness areas, and recommended designation of renowned places like Slickrock Canyon above Bedrock. In the 1990s, conservation advocates promoted the introduction of legislation to protect more than 100,000 acres of the wildest areas between Bradfield Bridge and Gateway as wilderness.
Renewed landscape inventories in the 2000s identified many additional areas throughout the Dolores River Canyon Country as undeveloped and retaining their wild character. A nearby landscape—Canyons of the Ancients—was protected as a national monument in 2000.
And in 2008, a coalition of community members, outdoor recreation leaders, conservationists, water advocates, water managers, and local elected officials began to explore options for protecting the Dolores River Canyon Country. The effort reached a milestone in 2022 when Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper introduced legislation to protect the southern portion of the Dolores River watershed in Montezuma, Dolores, and San Miguel counties as a national conservation area—legislation this coalition strongly supports.
But these efforts have fallen short for the equally deserving public lands to the north in Mesa and Montrose counties. Collaborative efforts to designate an NCA stalled in Mesa County in 2011 and Montrose County walked away from the current NCA process in 2018.
Given this, western Colorado community members, businesses, and elected leaders are coalescing around a vision for protecting these deserving lands in Montrose and Mesa counties as Colorado’s next national monument. A national monument would complement the protections that would be afforded by the pending NCA legislation to the south.
Photo courtesy of Jon Mullen
National monuments are flexible conservation tools with similar conservation outcomes to national conservation areas. They can be created by Congress or by the president using the Antiquities Act of 1906. Since Congress gave the president the authority to conserve “objects of historic or scientific interest” as national monuments in 1906, 18 of the 21 intervening presidents have used the Antiquities Act to designate or expand 161 protected areas.
A Dolores Canyons National Monument would provide dedicated management, promote ecosystem health, and preserve public access for hunting, dispersed camping, hiking, climbing, biking, and off-roading, while also allowing “existing rights” like rights-of-way, mining claims, and livestock grazing. Details about ongoing and future land uses in the Dolores Canyons would be refined in a Monument Management Plan for the national monument that invites robust community input and expertise. Community members can inform monument management planning by attending public meetings, submitting public comments, and supporting others to participate in the public process.
Photo courtesy of Bob Wick, Bureau of Land Management.
We believe that we need better protections now, and we don’t have years to wait. We are committed to ensuring that the Dolores Canyons is protected and managed to best serve the needs of our communities and future generations.