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Poll shows strong support for Grand Canyon monument ahead of Trump taking office

President Joe Biden, accompanied by local tribal leaders and elected officials, signed an order declaring the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument on Tue, Aug. 8, 2023. Red Butte, one of the Havasupai Tribe's most sacred places, is in the background.
Ryan Heinsius/KNAU
President Joe Biden, accompanied by local tribal leaders and elected officials, signed an order declaring the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument on Tue, Aug. 8, 2023. Red Butte, one of the Havasupai Tribe's most sacred places, is in the background.

A new poll shows nearly 80% of registered Arizona voters support the Baaj Nwaavjo I'tah Kukveni – Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon.

However, conservation groups and tribes worry that the incoming Trump administration could slash or nullify the monument altogether.

In 2017, President Donald Trump reduced the size of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah by 85% and the nearby Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by nearly half.

Havasupai Chairwoman Bernadine Jones worries that Trump’s second administration could target the Grand Canyon Monument, which was designated by President Biden in 2023.

But she finds the poll encouraging.

“We don’t know what will again be ahead of us in 2025 and so I am so grateful to hear that there is great support for protection of the land," Jones says.

The poll from the Grand Canyon Trust shows nearly 70% of Republicans, 80% of Independents and 90% of Democrats support the monument.

Biden’s designation banned new uranium mining claims on almost a million acres near the Grand Canyon.

Republican state lawmakers, the Mohave County Board of Supervisors and officials from Fredonia and Colorado City are challenging the designation in court.