For less than a year, the desert landscape and sacred mountains of Avi Kwa Ame have been spared from the sprawl of developers and the wandering eye of the mining industry. South of Las Vegas, the more than 500,000-acre site is holy to Yuman-speaking Native American tribes, which credit the region with being their source of life and creation. Last year — thanks to President Joe Biden’s use of a 118-year-old law — Avi Kwa Ame joined the ranks of Tule Springs, Gold Butte, and Basin and Range as a national monument in Nevada.
That law, the Antiquities Act of 1906, allows the sitting president wide latitude to set aside from development swaths of public land that are considered to be of historical and scientific value. Congress has the power to establish national monuments, too.
“It can elicit a strong response because it seems like unilateral action at the whim of the president,” said Bret Birdsong, a UNLV law professor who served in the Obama administration’s Interior Department. “But it’s after a careful process.”
As President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, conservation efforts such as the more than 25-year push to protect Avi Kwa Ame could see some friction. Activists are uncertain what a Trump administration could bring — including whether the longstanding Antiquities Act could change. They remain cautiously optimistic, however, that a Republican-dominated House, Senate and presidency would not only preserve protections but also support projects coming down the pike. Project 2025 raises questions: Could Avi Kwa Ame shrink?
During his first administration, Trump cut down the size of two monuments and criticised the executive ability to hinder development on public lands, raising a question of what could be next in his second term. Trump had signed an executive order requiring the Interior Department secretary to review monument designations made since 1996 that covered more than 100,000 acres or were designated without adequate public outreach. The action brought about the reduction of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah. Though the administration only reduced two national monuments, Trump’s Interior secretary recommended the reduction of Gold Butte in Nevada, as well. Conservation groups launched a lawsuit against Trump’s decision that stalled when Biden reversed the action in 2021. Trump’s transition team didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Conservation activists and experts think Avi Kwa Ame’s situation is different from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. “Some people may argue that the size is too large, but it’s the connective tissue that ties all of the protected areas around it together,” said Alan O’Neill, an ex-superintendent of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. At the time, Republican Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo said he felt the designation of Avi Kwa Ame equated to a “federal confiscation” and was a “historic mistake.”
Avi Kwa Ame wasn’t designated just because Biden decided to do it one day, said Mathilda Guerrero-Miller with the Native Voters Alliance Nevada, one of the many groups behind the Avi Kwa Ame initiative. Rather, its designation was the result of a long fight from tribal nations, businesses, veterans and locals, she said. Unlike the Utah monuments, which the Trump administration found to not have had enough public input, Avi Kwa Ame received support from all levels of the community, from local neighbors and local government to the national level, said Bertha Gutierrez, program director for the Conservation Lands Foundation. “I doubt they’re going to go against what the people want, which is to see that landscape protected,” Gutierrez said. “We’re paying attention, but we don’t know what’s going to happen really.”
US Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., who was a lead proponent of Avi Kwa Ame as a national monument, said she will defend the monument and fight against potential efforts to reduce acreage. The longtime Democratic representative expressed overall concern about conservation measures under a Trump administration. She doesn’t think there is “much appetite” under the Republican-led Congress and presidency to prioritise conservation.
Repeal of the Antiquities Act in the future? While trimming the size of existing national monuments could be under consideration, repealing or reforming the longstanding Antiquities Act also could be on the table. A conservative blueprint of policy proposals, known as Project 2025, calls for repealing the law. Though Trump has distanced himself from it, the document argues that Congress already has the ability to designate national monuments and calls for a review from the new administration to “permit a fresh look at past monument decrees and new ones by President Biden.”
Project 2025 author William Perry Pendley, an ex-director of the Bureau of Land Management who served from 2019 to 2021, wrote that although Trump “courageously” ordered a review of national monument designations, the result was insufficient because only two monuments were reduced. Questions remain over what authority the president has to revoke or reduce sizes of national monuments created by another president, Birdsong said. Any attempt from Trump could be litigated, he said. “The legality of the revocation is another question,” Birdsong said. “His playbook last time was not to outright revoke any monuments, but just to shrink them down. That was grounded in some language in the act.”
Nevada’s sole Republican representative, Mark Amodei, said he hasn’t seen specific plans from Trump, but a change to the Antiquities Act would require congressional action. He wants to see what the exact proposal is, because he doesn’t “want to see the Antiquities Act weaponised depending on who’s in the White House.” Amodei said he thinks some abuses have occurred with the Antiquities Act, so he favors congressional action to make the law more transparent and include more due process.
Kate Groetzinger, of the nonpartisan conservation nonprofit known as the Center for Western Priorities, said national monuments remain popular with voters across the West. A 2023 Colorado College poll found that 87% of surveyed Nevada voters support the president’s authority to designate national monuments. “Congress, when they passed the Antiquities Act in 1906, gave the president the power to create monuments explicitly.
They did not give the President the power to un-create or reduce monuments,” Groetzinger said. “Attempted reductions are illegal, and we believe that they will not be upheld in court if they’re reinstated by Trump.” Groetzinger thinks it would be an unpopular move on Trump’s part to repeal the Antiquities Act, as it is bipartisan legislation that both Democratic and Republican presidents have used over the years. Groups like Guerrero-Miller’s hope Trump won’t do as much damage as they think he did in his first term.
“While we don’t exactly know what Donald Trump plans to do with the Antiquities Act when he’s back in office, I think it’s really important to remember that we can’t pretend that we don’t know what he’s capable of,” Guerrero-Miller said.
Regardless of what a Trump administration will bring, conservation activists’ work will continue, Guerrero-Miller said. Nevada Indigenous and conservation activists continue to push the East Las Vegas national monument proposal, which would protect 33,000 acres spanning Frenchman Mountain, Rainbow Gardens and Sunrise Mountain, running up to the boundary of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Near Ely, the fight to designate a sacred Native American massacre site known as Bahsahwahbee, or Swamp Cedars, will continue. Most recently, a coalition of tribes spoke out against the BLM’s Western Solar Plan, a document finalised on last Friday that opened part of the site for solar development.
Some tribal leaders from North Dakota have said former Gov. Doug Burgum, Trump’s pick for Interior secretary, could be an ally for Native Americans in the new administration. Pending Senate confirmation, he will take the post from Deb Haaland, the country’s first-ever Indigenous Interior secretary. Trump often touted a “drill, baby, drill” approach to public lands management on the campaign trail, meaning oil drilling likely would be a priority. North Dakota is third on the list of states with the most oil production.
While Trump has made no public statements about how he might approach national monuments, Guerrero-Miller said she’s hopeful. Burgum is credited with improving relations with the state’s five federally recognised tribes, pushing for tax-sharing agreements with sovereign nations and better emergency response times on reservations. “I’m looking forward to seeing how that goes,” Guerrero-Miller said.
