A new proposal by Canyonlands National Park
superintendent Walt Dabney would more than double the park’s size,
from 368,000 acres to about 852,000 acres. Dabney says the proposal
“completes’ Canyonlands by drawing park boundaries along natural
features. He hopes it will serve as a model for future park
planning.
“This is in the public arena now, and
what it needs now is a discussion about the completion of
Canyonlands and what should your national park be,” says Dabney. “I
would invite people to go out to Dead Horse Point or Needles
Overlook, or Grandview Point and look into that basin and figure
for themselves “Where is the park?” It’s such an obvious
geographical, topographical piece when you see it.”
Much of the land included in the plan is land
proposed for wilderness designation by the Bureau of Land
Management or included in the Utah Wilderness Coalition bill,
H.R.1500.
Congressional legislation is required
to change the park’s boundaries. Urging a yes vote are
environmental groups such as the Grand Canyon Trust and The Nature
Conservancy, which owns the 5,500-acre Dugout Ranch near the
southern entrance to Canyonlands.
Yet Herb
McHarg, Moab representative for the Southern Utah Wilderness
Alliance, says the proposal doesn’t go far
enough.
“If it’s going to happen it needs to be
bigger,” McHarg says. “If they were to
expand the
plan to encompass all the land in that area currently included in
the (Utah Wilderness Coalition) bill, and if they bring it in as
wilderness, then we might feel better about supporting it.”
*Lisa Church
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Officials seek the “complete’ Canyonlands.
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