Greater Canyonlands

Proposed National ParkUtah
The Green River in Labyrinth CanyonPhotograph: Bureau of Land Management
All proposed National ParksGreater CanyonlandsNo active campaign
Location
Utah
Current protection
Bureau of Land Management lands, including the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness; parts of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area
Status
Dormant campaign
Tier
Tier 2 · National Monument
In the book
Not featured in Undiscovered America

Why should it be a National Park?

Canyonlands National Park is the core of one of the great canyon systems on Earth, but the park stops well short of the landscape it belongs to. Around it lie about 1.8 million acres of the same country, the Dirty Devil, Robbers Roost, and Labyrinth Canyon on the Green River, managed largely for grazing, drilling, and off-road use.

When Stewart Udall first proposed Canyonlands, he imagined a park of about a million acres. Congress gave him a quarter of that. Finishing the park he imagined is some of the most obvious unfinished business in the National Park System.

The history of National Park Campaigns

The fight over Canyonlands' boundaries is as old as the park. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall's 1961 vision covered about a million acres; the park Congress created in 1964 held 257,640, enlarged in 1971. In the 2010s, the Greater Canyonlands Coalition asked President Obama to protect 1.8 million acres around the park as a national monument; he chose Bears Ears to the south in 2016 instead, and the 2019 Dingell Act later made Labyrinth Canyon a wilderness.

Distinct National Park attempts
1 (1961 million-acre Canyonlands proposal)
Other designation attempts
2 (2010s monument campaign; 2019 wilderness)

Sources

  • Canyonlands National Park administrative history (NPS)
  • Greater Canyonlands Coalition materials
  • Wikipedia, List of proposed national monuments of the United States
Know of a campaign? Tell us
  1. 1961

    Interior Secretary Stewart Udall proposes a Canyonlands National Park of about a million acres.

  2. September 12, 1964

    Congress establishes Canyonlands National Park at 257,640 acres.

  3. 1971

    Congress enlarges the park to about 337,000 acres.

  4. 2010s

    The Greater Canyonlands Coalition campaigns for a 1.8-million-acre national monument around the park.

  5. December 28, 2016

    President Obama designates Bears Ears National Monument to the south instead.

  6. March 12, 2019

    The John D. Dingell Jr. Act designates the Labyrinth Canyon Wilderness along the Green River.