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Last year, on a remote stretch of northern Arizona forest, President Biden designated the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni—Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument.
“From time immemorial, more than a dozen tribal nations have lived, gathered, prayed on these lands,” Biden said as he addressed an enthusiastic crowd of tribal leaders, members of Congress, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs and advocates.
The monument designation permanently banned new uranium mining claims on nearly a million acres adjacent to Grand Canyon National Park and blocks what could have been hundreds of new operations in an area that is culturally significant to the Havasupai, Hopi, Navajo and others.