GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. -- Saying
that the
nation's economy in the 21st century hinges on the health of its environment,
President Clinton created three new national monuments 92 years to
the day after President Theodore Roosevelt made the Grand Canyon one of the
country's first protected areas.
"It is altogether fitting that on this day
and on this place, we continue that journey," Clinton said from Hopi Point,
overlooking the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.
"President Roosevelt challenged us to live
up to our ideals, to see beyond today, or next month or next year. He said the
one characteristic that is more essential than any others is foresight,"
Clinton said, speaking along the canyon's edge.
"We know we cannot improve on this
landscape, but the only thing we can add to it is our protection," he said.
Clinton said that over the years he has
"worked to protect and restore our most glorious natural resources from the
Florida Everglades to California's Redwoods and Mojave Desert, (and from)
Escalante to Yellowstone.
"We have, I hope, finally put to rest the
false choice between the economy and the environment, for we have the strongest
economy perhaps in our history with a cleaner environment, cleaner air, cleaner
water, more land set aside, safer food," Clinton said.
"I hope finally we have broken the hold of
an old and now wrong idea that a nation can only grow rich and stay rich if it
continues to despoil its environment and burn up the atmosphere," he said.
His words came shortly after he and Interior
Secretary Bruce Babbitt took what Clinton described as a breathtaking helicopter
ride to Tuweep Valley on the canyon's North Rim to sign the proclamation for the
new Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument, a 1-million-acre scenic chunk of
northern Arizona.
The area, already under federal control, will be
managed through a team effort by National Park Service officials from Lake Mead
National Recreation Area and officials from the Bureau of Land Management.
Parashant, named for one of the monument's side
canyons, encompasses steep cliffs, vast valleys and expanses of relatively
untouched land.
Lake Mead Park Superintendent Alan O'Neill stood
behind the president while he signed the proclamation. O'Neill said after
Clinton's speech at Hopi Point that 213,000 acres within the Lake Mead
recreation area are in the new monument and will remain under Park Service
control.
The monument also has 803,000 acres of BLM land,
which will be overseen jointly by the BLM and the Park Service.
These two tracts combined double the size of
protected land in the Grand Canyon area.
O'Neill said the goal of the two agencies will be
to restore the land to its condition before white settlers arrived.
The monument designation will prevent mining and
make off-road vehicle restrictions permanent, but roads currently maintained by
the agencies will remain open, he said. Hunting and grazing, which are generally
not allowed in national parks, will still be allowed in the monument area.
"We want this to be a model of ecological
restoration," O'Neill said. "What we're trying to do is maintain the
remoteness."
The move by Clinton to protect vast areas of the
Southwest from future mining operations, as he did when he created the Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument four years ago in Southern Utah, drew
criticism from Arizona's Republicans.
A Jan. 6 letter to Clinton from Gov. Jane Hull;
Sens. Jon Kyl and John McCain; and Reps. Jim Kolbe, Matt Salmon, Bob Stump, J.D.
Hayworth and John Shadegg, urged Clinton to "forgo unilateral federal
action in declaring further monuments in Arizona, and instead work with us as we
involve the people of Arizona in a preservation effort that allows the public a
voice in the process."
The Arizona delegation's only Democrat, Rep. Ed
Pastor, did not sign the letter, and unlike the others, he attended the
president's speech.
Besides the Grand Canyon-Parashant National
Monument, Clinton also created the Agua Fria National Monument: a
71,100-acre site 40 miles north of Phoenix that is rich in American Indian
petroglyphs and prehistoric ruins.
And he created the California Coastal National
Monument, which includes thousands of islands, rocks and reefs along an 840-mile
stretch of the California coast, a nesting ground for seabirds such as the
threatened brown pelican and home to marine mammals including the threatened
Steller sea lion.
Clinton also expanded Pinnacles National Monument
in California by 7,900 acres to preserve unusual rock formations southeast of
San Jose.
"This morning on the North Rim of the Grand
Canyon, I designated three new national monuments and the expansion of a fourth
to make sure more of the land that belongs to the American people will always be
enjoyed by them," he told a crowd of a couple of hundred federal employees
and their families and students from schools around the Grand Canyon who had
gathered at Hopi Point.
"What a remarkable place this canyon
is," he said. "It is in so many ways the symbol of our great natural
expanse, our beauty and our spirit.
"Thirty years ago for the first time I
watched the sun set over the Grand Canyon for over two hours. This morning I got
up, and for about an hour, I watched the sun rise over the canyon for the first
time. In both cases, watching the interplay of the changing light against the
different layers and colors of the canyon left me with a lifetime memory that I
will always cherish," Clinton said.
He said generations in the distant future might
not know what has taken place at the Grand Canyon, but they will reap the
benefits of his proclamation.
"When we were flying over to the North Rim
and got further west along the canyon, Bruce (Babbitt) looked at me and said,
'There are some dormant volcanoes, and you can see the residue of the ash.' And
I said, 'When did that volcano erupt?' And he said 'Oh, not long ago, 10 or
20,000 years ago.'
"Ten (thousand) or 20,000 years from now, if
the good Lord let's us all survive as a human race, no one will remember who set
aside this land, but the children will still enjoy it," Clinton said.