Washington, October 14 (RHC)-- In the United States, the Donald Trump administration is planning to shrink 10 national monuments and open them up to mining, logging, drilling and other forms of extraction.
A leaked memo from Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke shows the plan would cut hundreds of thousands -- or perhaps millions -- of acres from protected reserves, including Utah’s Bears Ears and Nevada’s Gold Butte National Monuments.
The plan would also open the Rose Atoll and the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monuments to commercial fishing.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration is laying the groundwork to open the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. The Washington Post reports the Interior Department is modifying a 1980s regulation to allow for exploratory drilling and seismic surveys in the nearly 20 million-acre reserve.