5 National Monuments Designated By President Obama

During his eight years in the Oval Office, President Obama designated 29 national monuments and expanded four others but I will be showing you 5. National monuments are federally protected areas that feature “objects of historic or scientific interest,” and can be established directly by Congress or the president.

Discover all of the national monuments President Obama created or expanded, and learn what makes each one so important to protect.

1. Bears Ears National Monument, Utah

• Where: Southeastern Utah
• What: Twin buttes with deep significance for Native American cultures, surrounded by 1.35 million acres of stunning spires, canyons, mesas and mountains
• When: Established December 2016
• Why: Named for their resemblance to ursine ears, Utah’s Bears Ears Buttes are the anchors of a vivid landscape that has hosted native people for hundreds of generations. It’s dotted with ancient artifacts, rock art, cliff dwellings and ceremonial sites, and remains sacred to many Native American cultures, including the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah Ouray, Hopi Nation and Zuni Tribe. A tropical sea covered the area 300 million years ago, leaving a wealth of fossils such as dinosaurs, giant amphibians and mammal-like reptiles. There’s an array of modern wildlife, too, from tiger salamanders, tree frogs and night snakes to badgers, bald eagles, bobcats and ringtails. The area is renowned for its starry skies and tranquil silence, and has flirted with federal protection since at least 1936, when Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes proposed a monument designation. Eighty years later, thanks largely to Native American advocacy, President Obama heeded that advice.
• Update: In late 2017, President Trump announced plans to shrink the monument, which has been opposed by several state and federal Republican leaders. Native American tribes who consider the land sacred say they’ll sue to prevent the monument’s size reduction.

2. Gold Butte National Monument, Nevada

• Where: Southeastern Nevada
• What: Nearly 300,000 acres of dramatic geology, wildlife habitat and human history
• When: Established December 2016
• Why: The Gold Butte area is decorated with deep red sandstone, twisting canyons, conifer forests and snowcapped mountains. It has supported human residents for at least 12,000 years, and still holds ancient artifacts like pottery, agave roasting pits, projectile points and rock art, including the famed Kohta Circus and Falling Man petroglyph sites. Europeans began arriving in the late 18th century, and by 1865, Mormon pioneers had built settlements there. The area experienced a brief mining boom after gold was found in the early 1900s, but it was mostly abandoned by 1910, and its remnants have since become a ghost town. Geological highlights include the Virgin Mountains, the colorful Aztec Sandstone and a still-expanding, 13,000 square-foot sinkhole known as Devil’s Throat. The area offers critical refuge for rare animals — including the Mojave desert tortoise, relict leopard frog and banded Gila monster — and also provides an important wildlife corridor between the Virgin Mountains and Lake Mead for large mammals like bighorn sheep and mountain lions.
• Update: This monument is one of several being targeted by the Trump administration for a size reduction or management changes.

3. Reconstruction Era National Monument, South Carolina

• Where: Beaufort County, South Carolina
• What: A collection of historic sites near South Carolina’s southern coast, totaling 15 acres in the city of Beaufort, the town of Port Royal and Saint Helena Island
• When: Established January 2017
• Why: This monument is one of three President Obama created on Jan. 12, 2017, to honor the American Civil Rights Movement (along with the Birmingham Civil Rights and Freedom Riders national monuments, both in Alabama). It commemorates the Reconstruction Era — a period of major transformation in the United States, spanning from the Civil War until the start of Jim Crow racial segregation in the 1890s — by focusing on several historic sites around Beaufort County, South Carolina. These include the Penn School, an African-American cultural and educational center founded in 1862 on Saint Helena Island, and Camp Saxton, a former plantation in Port Royal that was occupied by the Union Army during the Civil War and hosted ceremonies celebrating the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

4. Fort Ord National Monument, California

• Where : Monterey Bay, California
• What: Former U.S. military post spanning 14,658 acres on the Pacific coast
• When: Established April 2012; public use allowed from dawn to dusk
• Why: Fort Ord is like a time machine, offering a pristine pocket of California coast amid the increasingly developed Monterey Bay area. Dating back to the Pleistocene Epoch, its dunes form undulating landscapes that host a unique array of wildlife, including badgers, bobcats, California quail, golden eagles, horned lizards and pumas. Fort Ord now protects at least 35 rare species, and some plants rely on it for 50 to 90 percent of their global habitat. It also has more than 86 miles of trails to explore on foot, bike or horseback. The area owes its undeveloped state largely to its role as a U.S. Army post from World War I until 1994.

5. First State National Historical Park, Delaware

• Where: Seven locations around Delaware
• What: A collection of historic sites in northern and central Delaware
• When: Established as national monument in 2013; renamed national historical park in 2015. Operating hours and seasons vary by location.
• Why: Until 2013, Delaware was the only U.S. state with no national parks, monuments or other NPS units — which was odd, since it was the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution. So Obama created the First State National Monument in 2013, which was later redesignated a national historical park by Congress. It’s an array of sites relevant to the state’s rich history, from the Native American Lenape tribe — who occupied the area long before Europeans arrived — through colonial times and the American Revolution. Sites include the state capital’s Dover Green Historic District, the plantation of U.S. founding father John Dickinson, the New Castle Court House Museum, Sweden’s old Fort Christina, and Beaver Valley, which spans 1,100 acres of rolling hills and forest along the Brandy win River……See More

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