Vermilion Cliffs National Monument

Proclamation 7374 of November 9, 2000

Vermilion Cliffs National Monument

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Amid the sandstone slickrock, brilliant cliffs, and
rolling sandy plateaus of the Vermilion Cliffs National
Monument lie outstanding objects of scientific and
historic interest. Despite its arid climate and rugged
isolation, the monument contains a wide variety of
biological objects and has a long and rich human
history. Full of natural splendor and a sense of
solitude, this area remains remote and unspoiled,
qualities that are essential to the protection of the
scientific and historic objects it contains.

The monument is a geological treasure. Its centerpiece
is the majestic Paria Plateau, a grand terrace lying
between two great geologic structures, the East Kaibab
and the Echo Cliffs monoclines. The Vermilion Cliffs,
which lie along the southern edge of the Paria Plateau,
rise 3,000 feet in a spectacular escarpment capped with
sandstone underlain by multicolored, actively eroding,
dissected layers of shale and sandstone. The stunning
Paria River Canyon winds along the east side of the
plateau to the Colorado River. Erosion of the
sedimentary rocks in this 2,500 foot deep canyon has
produced a variety of geologic objects and associated
landscape features such as amphitheaters, arches, and
massive sandstone walls.

In the northwest portion of the monument lies Coyote
Buttes, a geologically spectacular area where crossbeds
of the Navajo Sandstone exhibit colorful banding in
surreal hues of yellow, orange, pink, and red caused by
the precipitation of manganese, iron, and other oxides.
Thin veins or fins of calcite cut across the sandstone,
adding another dimension to the landscape. Humans have
explored and lived on the plateau and surrounding
canyons for thousands of years, since the earliest
known hunters and gatherers crossed the area 12,000 or
more years ago. Some of the earliest rock art in the
Southwest can be found in the monument. High densities
of Ancestral Puebloan sites can also be found,
including remnants of large and small villages, some
with intact standing walls, fieldhouses, trails,
granaries, burials, and camps.

The monument was a crossroad for many historic
expeditions. In 1776, the Dominguez-Escalante
expedition of Spanish explorers traversed the monument
in search of a safe crossing of the Colorado River.
After a first attempt at crossing the Colorado near the
mouth of the Paria River failed, the explorers traveled
up the Paria Canyon in the monument until finding a
steep hillside they could negotiate with horses. This
took them out of the Paria Canyon to the east and up
into the Ferry Swale area, after which they achieved
their goal at the Crossing of the Fathers east of the
monument. Antonio Armijo's 1829 Mexican trading
expedition followed the Dominguez route on the way from
Santa Fe to Los Angeles.

Later, Mormon exploring parties led by Jacob Hamblin
crossed south of the Vermilion Cliffs on missionary
expeditions to the Hopi villages. Mormon pioneer John
D. Lee established Lee's Ferry on the Colorado River
just south of the monument in 1871. This paved the way
for homesteads in the monument, still visible in
remnants of historic ranch structures and associated
objects that tell the stories of early settlement. The
route taken by the Mormon explorers along the base of
the Paria Plateau would later

become known as the Old Arizona Road or Honeymoon
Trail. After the temple in St. George, Utah was
completed in 1877, the Honeymoon Trail was used by
Mormon couples who had already been married by civil
authorities in the Arizona settlements, but also made
the arduous trip to St. George to have their marriages
solemnized in the temple. The settlement of the
monument area by Mormon pioneers overlapped with
another historic exploration by John Wesley Powell, who
passed through the monument during his scientific
surveys of 1871.

The monument contains outstanding biological objects
that have been preserved by remoteness and limited
travel corridors. The monument's vegetation is a unique
combination of cold desert flora and warm desert
grassland, and includes one threatened species, Welsh's
milkweed. This unusual plant, known only in Utah and
Arizona, colonizes and stabilizes shifting sand dunes,
but is crowded out once other vegetation encroaches.

Despite sporadic rainfall and widely scattered
ephemeral water sources, the monument supports a
variety of wildlife species. At least twenty species of
raptors have been documented in the monument, as well
as a variety of reptiles and amphibians. California
condors have been reintroduced into the monument in an
effort to establish another wild population of this
highly endangered species. Desert bighorn sheep,
pronghorn antelope, mountain lion, and other mammals
roam the canyons and plateaus. The Paria River supports
sensitive native fish, including the flannelmouth
sucker and the speckled dace.

Section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225, 16
U.S.C. 431) authorizes the President, in his
discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic
landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and
other objects of historic or scientific interest that
are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the
Government of the United States to be national
monuments, and to reserve as a part thereof parcels of
land, the limits of which in all cases shall be
confined to the smallest area compatible with the
proper care and management of the objects to be
protected.

WHEREAS it appears that it would be in the public
interest to reserve such lands as a national monument
to be known as the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument:

NOW, THEREFORE, I, William J. Clinton, President of the
United States of America, by the authority vested in me
by section 2 of the Act of June 8, 1906 (34 Stat. 225,
16 U.S.C. 431), do proclaim that there are hereby set
apart and reserved as the Vermilion Cliffs National
Monument, for the purpose of protecting the objects
identified above, all lands and interests in lands
owned or controlled by the United States within the
boundaries of the area described on the map entitled
``Vermilion Cliffs National Monument'' attached to and
forming a part of this proclamation. The Federal land
and interests in land reserved consist of approximately
293,000 acres, which is the smallest area compatible
with the proper care and management of the objects to
be protected.

All Federal lands and interests in lands within the
boundaries of this monument are hereby appropriated and
withdrawn from all forms of entry, location, selection,
sale, or leasing or other disposition under the public
land laws, including but not limited to withdrawal from
location, entry, and patent under the mining laws, and
from disposition under all laws relating to mineral and
geothermal leasing, other than by exchange that
furthers the protective purposes of the monument. For
the purpose of protecting the objects identified above,
the Secretary shall prohibit all motorized and
mechanized vehicle use off road, except for emergency
or authorized administrative purposes.

Lands and interests in lands within the proposed
monument not owned by the United States shall be
reserved as a part of the monument upon acquisition of
title thereto by the United States.

The Secretary of the Interior shall manage the monument
through the Bureau of Land Management, pursuant to
applicable legal authorities, to implement the purposes
of this proclamation.

The Secretary of the Interior shall prepare a
transportation plan that addresses the actions,
including road closures or travel restrictions,
necessary to protect the objects identified in this
proclamation.

The establishment of this monument is subject to valid
existing rights.

Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to enlarge
or diminish the jurisdiction of the State of Arizona
with respect to fish and wildlife management.

This proclamation does not reserve water as a matter of
Federal law. Nothing in this reservation shall be
construed as a relinquishment or reduction of any water
use or rights reserved or appropriated by the United
States on or before the date of this proclamation. The
Secretary shall work with appropriate State authorities
to ensure that any water resources needed for monument
purposes are available.

Laws, regulations, and policies followed by the Bureau
of Land Management in issuing and administering grazing
permits or leases on all lands under its jurisdiction
shall continue to apply with regard to the lands in the
monument.

Nothing in this proclamation shall be deemed to revoke
any existing withdrawal, reservation, or appropriation;
however, the national monument shall be the dominant
reservation. Warning is hereby given to all
unauthorized persons not to appropriate, injure,
destroy, or remove any feature of this monument and not
to locate or settle upon any of the lands thereof.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
ninth day of November, in the year of our Lord two
thousand, and of the Independence of the United States
of America the two hundred and twenty-fifth.

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