In a leaked memo to the White House on September 18, 2017, Ryan Zinke, 52nd Secretary of Interior of the United States, calls for the reductions in size for at least four national monuments and various modifications to other monumental places.

Zinke pushes to lift restrictions on logging, mining, and drilling in parks, such as the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante parks located in Utah. Zinke also wishes for the expansion of commercial fishing on the Pacific Remote Islands and Rose Atoll monuments in the Pacific.

Despite the recommendations to scale back the national monuments, Zinke says that they won’t be eliminating any of them.

The four national monuments that may face size reductions are Oregon’s Cascade-Siskiyou, Nevada’s Gold Butte, and the two Utah monuments. The total acres of the monuments combined are more than 3.6 million.

The Antiquities Act allows for the formation of national parks by United States presidents. The act was set in place in 1906 by Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States. According to The Heritage Foundation, the act allows the federal government an expeditious path to protect archeological sites.

These proposed changes to the national monuments would not be the first changes to be implemented by a president. For example, Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States, reduced the size of now Olympic National Park in Washington.

Currently, there are limits on certain activities in national monuments that include limits on mining, timber cutting, and the use of off-road vehicles. With the reduction in size for some of the monuments, Zinke hopes to increase efforts to enhance conservation and wildlife.

“It’s time to end these abuses and return control to the people, the people of Utah, the people of all of the states, the people of the United States,” said President Trump.

Contrary to this statement, many recent national monuments created by former President Obama created national parks with consideration for Indian tribes.  Former predecessor Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States, had also created the Grand Staircase-Escalante national monument to help encompass Navajo tribes.

Despite these scale backs and in recent events, Zinke recommends the creation of three new national parks. One at Camp Nelson in Kentucky where African-American soldiers received training during the Civil War, a second at Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, the home of slain Civil Rights leader, and a third at the Badger-Two Medicine area in the Lewis and Clark National Forest in Zinke’s home state, Montana.

There is criticism for the new monument that Zinke plans to create in his home state. Although he notes that the Badger-Two Medicine monument is sacred to the Blackfoot tribes, that also means that he will be blocking plans of drilling for natural gas. This is contrary to his proposals to reduce other monuments and open industrial practices there. Further information is yet to be disclosed.