President Donald Trump‘s legacy on public lands is a four-year war against protected wild places, which has included dismantling Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. 

That legacy will follow him long after he’s out of the White House. But many of the rollbacks are unlikely to survive the incoming Democratic administration. 

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President–elect Kamala Harris have vowed to not only restore the Utah monuments, but designate new protected sites to safeguard ecologically important landscapes and combat the global climate crisis.

“As President, Biden will take immediate steps to reverse the Trump administration’s assaults on America’s natural treasures, including by reversing Trump’s attacks on the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Bears Ears, and Grand Staircase-Escalante,” reads their comprehensive plan for tribal nations, which the campaign released in October. 

The incoming administration’s plan for combating the climate crisis similarly notes that Biden will protect “areas impacted by President Trump’s attack on federal lands and waters,” as well as establish national monuments and parks “that reflect America’s natural heritage.”

Biden […]