President Biden on Tuesday will designate a national monument in Arizona that protects nearly 1 million acres of sacred tribal land from uranium mining in the Grand Canyon.
President Biden on Tuesday will designate a national monument in Arizona that protects nearly 1 million acres of sacred tribal land from uranium mining in the Grand Canyon.
The White House said establishing the Baaj Nwaavjo I’tah Kukveni-Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument will further Mr. Biden’s conservation goals and his desire to protect indigenous peoples and their lands.
The first part of the monument’s name means “where Indigenous peoples roam” in the Havasupai language, while i’tah kukveni means “our ancestral footprints” in the Hopi language.
The Havasupai tribe lives in the Grand Canyon and has lobbied to protect its lands from uranium mining, saying it would damage their ancestral home and the Colorado River watershed.
“For generations we have been at the forefront, working to permanently protect our homelands from uranium mining, which has disproportionately harmed and sickened Indigenous people across northern Arizona,” the tribe says on its website.
