Tribal leaders joined state lawmakers Tuesday to call on President Joe Biden to set aside more than 1.1 million acres around the Grand Canyon as a new national monument.
More than a dozen tribes in the reigon say the proposed Baaj Nwaavjo I'tha Kukveni monument is needed to protect the area’s water, wildlife, sacred spaces and ancestral homelands from uranium mining and other projects.
Critics say mining is critical to the region's economy and call it an overreach, noting that the call comes just three weeks after Biden designated a new 500,000-acre national monument in southern Nevada.