WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity released profiles today of 10 national monuments and other protected public lands and waters likely to be targeted by the Trump administration for industrial fracking, drilling and mining.

“Trump and his cronies might think a golf course is the great outdoors, but most Americans know better, and they want our public lands protected,” said Randi Spivak, public lands policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These spectacular places should be preserved for this and future generations, but Trump wants sell our natural heritage to the highest bidders, no matter how much pollution and destruction it causes.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered his agencies to review policies with the intent of increasing fracking, drilling and mining across all public lands and waters, including lands protected from damaging extraction.

The move could scrap protections for millions of acres of public lands, threatening both iconic places and lesser known, critically important ecosystems. These at-risk areas include:

• Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota. The most visited wilderness area in the U.S. spreads across more than 1 million acres of boreal forest, rocky outcrops and nearly 2,000 clear glacial lakes. The biggest threat here has long been copper mining.
• New Mexico’s Upper Pecos Watershed. This spectacular landscape of mountain peaks, ridges and valleys in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains could be targeted for hard rock mining exploration and extraction.
• Oak Creek Canyon. This stunning, biodiverse red-rock river canyon flows south through Sedona from northern Arizona’s rugged Mogollon Rim, with more than 2 million visitors a year. Trump could repeal a mining ban here to allow uranium mining.
• Carrizo Plain National Monument. Known as “California’s Serengeti,” the home of massive wildflower “super blooms” could be in Trump’s crosshairs for oil and gas drilling.
• Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument. This marine protected area in the Atlantic Ocean about 130 miles southeast of Massachusetts hosts a variety of marine life, including endangered whales, sea turtles and at least 54 species of deep-sea corals. Revoking the monument’s protections could open it to commercial fishing and mining.

Recent polling shows Westerners have never been more in love with their public lands. The Trump administration’s land grab is deeply unpopular with voters, with overwhelming numbers saying they want public lands protected against fossil fuel extraction, mining and other development.

At stake are breathtaking landscapes, wild rivers and streams, sacred cultural sites, habitat for hundreds of imperiled wildlife species, pristine ocean ecosystems, world-class recreation and precious groundwater.

Burgum’s order required agency heads to submit action plans by Feb. 18 to potentially rescind these protections. Those plans haven’t been made public.

“Americans didn’t vote to have their public lands plundered and wildlife driven to extinction by fracking and mining, but the Trump administration doesn’t care what people want,” said Spivak. “Trump, Burgum and the rest of this band of plutocrats has grossly underestimated the ferocity with which the public will defend these cherished lands and waters.”