Press Release
National Trust President Richard Moe Made Keynote Address Regarding Threats to National Monuments
Washington, D.C. (June 8, 2006) – Today, the centennial of the Antiquities Act, National Trust President Richard Moe was the keynote speaker at a forum discussing "The 100th Anniversary of the Antiquities Act: A Forum on the Protection of America’s Cultural and Natural Heritage for a 2nd Century."
The speech celebrated the accomplishments of the Act, which he calls "the most significant piece of conservation legislation in the history of the United States."
In his remarks, Moe highlighted some of the current challenges such as funding and staffing shortages which could lead to the destruction of irreplaceable treasures on America’s public lands, including several national monuments that were created under the Antiquities Act.
As examples of culturally significant places currently threatened by looting, vandalism, oil and gas exploration, heavy recreational use and other factors, Moe cited Nine Mile Canyon in Utah, often called the "world's longest art gallery" because it includes as many as 10,000 petroglyphs and pictographs; Canyons of the Ancients National Monument in Colorado, where one ranger is responsible for patrolling 164,000 acres of land; and Agua Fria National Monument in Arizona, where off-road vehicle use has seen a ten-fold increase in just four years.
The 1906 Antiquities Act authorized the President of the United States to protect "historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest" on federally-owned land by designating them national monuments. According to Moe, "In a very real sense the principles embodied in the Antiquities Act have shaped and informed every piece of preservation legislation since 1906."
"However," he continued, "I believe the principles embodied in the Antiquities Act represent an incomplete agenda, an unfinished chapter in the long and complicated story of man's impact on the land."
A full copy of Richard Moe’s speech is available at http://www.nationaltrust.org/news/2006/20060608_speech_antiquities.html
The symposium, presented by the National Trust and The Wilderness Society, focused on cultural, historic and scientific resources protected by the Act and emerging concepts for the protection of these special resources in the National Monuments – particularly opportunities created by BLM’s National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS). The NLCS, comprising 26 million acres of mountains, forests, prairies and deserts in 12 western states, was named one of the National Trust's 11 Most Endangered Places in 2005.