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There’s a painful axiom in the conservation community: “To protect land, you have to win the same battle over and over again.”
The fight for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments has resumed. It never really ended.
When President Trump eviscerated these Utah preserves in December 2017, Grand Staircase had been a national monument for more than 20 years. Bears Ears was new, established by President Obama in 2016, and acclaimed as a historic gesture of healing and respect toward the five Native American nations that had proposed the preserve and would share in its management. Trump’s directive reduced the size of Bears Ears by 85%, Grand Staircase by half.
FRUITA, Wayne County Capitol Reef National Park wants to ensure there s still fruit in Fruita for many more years to come.
Park officials announced late last week they intended to begin an orchard replanting project later this year. If approved, it would begin a long-term rehabilitation project of the historic orchards in the small southern Utah community.
The project would seek to reverse a trend of dying trees at orchards that have ties to the region for over a century. The park reports that over 100 orchard trees have died annually over the past five years alone.
As a part of the plan, 53 trees at the Guy Smith and Cook orchards would be removed and about 4.6 acres of orchard surface would be regraded this fall, according to a document published by the National Park Service. About 4,100 feet of irrigation ditch would be reinstalled during that time.