New Mexico environmentalist group on ‘high alert’ after Trump’s shrinks Utah national monuments

A New Mexico environmentalist group is sounding the alarm about what President Donald Trump’s decision to dramatically reduce the footprints of two national monuments in Utah could mean for several “beloved” national monuments in New Mexico. 

Trump on Monday signed a pair of executive orders to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah by about 3 million acres or 90% of their original size. The decision drew outrage across the West from environmental advocates and Indigenous organizations, including the Navajo Nation and Zuni Tribe, who said they were not consulted in the decision. 

Trump and Utah’s top Republican leaders said the reduction will allow the remaining protected lands to be better managed and preserved while also enabling better public access.

But Mark Allison, executive director of New Mexico Wild, told Source NM on Tuesday that Trump’s move was a “travesty” and illegal, in his opinion. And he said the move opens the door for Trump to keep stripping protections from national monuments across the country, including three in New Mexico that he said might be next on Trump’s list. 

Allison noted that the monuments — Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks, Río Grande del Norte,and Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks — all have similarities with Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. 

Democratic presidents designated all three monuments relatively recently, and leaked U.S.  Interior Department documents have listed those monuments as potential targets for reductions. 

Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks was one of six the Trump administration identified as targets, along with the two Utah mountains that lost protections Monday, according to a Washington Post report in April 2025. 

Also, when he was a member of Congress representing New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District, newly confirmed U.S. Bureau of Land Management Director Steve Pearce opposed the designation of the Organ-Mountains Desert Peaks monument near Las Cruces.

“So all that means we’re on high alert,” Allison said. 

If Trump comes next for any New Mexico national monument, Allison said, New Mexico Wild would prepare to fight any reductions in court and mobilize New Mexicans in opposition. 

A Trump rollback of any New Mexico site will be met by “fierce opposition by the overwhelming majority of New  Mexicans,” Allison said. “These are places that we know and love, and we would be united as New Mexicans opposing that.”