Since it was created in the waning days of the Clinton administration, Canyons of the Ancients National Monument has embodied the divergent interests that tug public lands management in multiple directions. It has been no small achievement, then, that the 2010 final management plan for the monument represented a balanced approach to protecting the significant archaeological resources contained therein, as well as provided reasonable access for mineral leaseholders and other uses. Maintaining that balance requires constant on-the-ground survey and adjustment, and the decision to close a patchwork of unauthorized routes into the monument represents wise and practical attention to the canyons and all that they contain.
There are currently 178 miles of roads open to vehicles in the monument, and the planned closures would reduce that to 147 miles. That reduction is designed to eliminate routes for a number of reasons, including redundancy, obsolescence, and unofficial origin all under the umbrella purpose of protecting the resources in the monument. By making a 31-mile reduction in the monuments road system, managers can do much to improve and ensure the pristine nature of the preserve.
There are certainly those who do not see the road- and route-closure effort that way. Many of the routes targeted for reclamation in Canyons of the Ancients have ad hoc histories, as off-road vehicle enthusiasts, hunters, and others made use of tracks that initially were cut to access timber, minerals, cattle or fires that needed fighting. The roads such as they were were officially abandoned, but were nevertheless popular among recreationists entering the monument. Officially closing the routes, with active reclamation work conducted by Southwest Conservation Corps crews, will require some monument visitors to change their routines a matter of inconvenience. But the tradeoff of protecting the rich archaeological treasures that made the monument worthy of designation is sufficient to justify the impact on recreationists and other visitors.
Designing and maintaining a comprehensive and cohesive road plan for the monument is instrumental to implementing the balanced management plan that dictates how the resources will be cared for, with an eye toward balancing the interests of all stakeholders. That is the important work of the Bureau of Land Management, as the caretaker of the monument.
The scope of that jurisdiction has been challenged in recent months as some residents have questioned federal agencies right to close roads that lie on federal lands, claiming that counties have a right-of-way under a now-repealed federal law known as RS 2477. That statute, which gave states and counties rights of way across federal land after a road was built, has caused a number of flare-ups throughout the West between local governments, private land owners and federal land management agencies over whether either of the latter two have the right to close roads that transect their land. The argument for invoking RS 2477 is tenuous in most circumstances, and in any case, the statute is fundamentally irrelevant to the Canyons of the Ancients management discussion.
There are ample ways to access the significant recreational, cultural and economic resources, and closing those that are potentially harmful to those treasures is the right move for the Bureau of Land Management. It might require some changing of habits, but the long-term benefits for the shared resources contained in the monument outweigh the inconvenience or any philosophical opposition to the closure.
