Latest news with #landprotection
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Conservation group has secured an additional 55 acres in this Bucks County township
As more swaths of land across Bucks County are slated for development, Heritage Conservancy just secured protection for a 55-acre property in Springfield Township. Now protected by a conservation easement, the entirely wooded 55-acre Staff property is part of the 175-acre Kirkland Farm, where 120 acres were preserved last year through a Bucks County agricultural easement. "The Staff property and adjacent farm have a big 'footprint' in Springfield Township, and the easement assures that the property and its natural resources remain intact," Heritage Conservancy CEO and President Bill Kunze said in an email. "The land can never be developed." The newly protected land is "located within the ecologically important Cooks Creek Conservation Landscape and Watershed, an area vital for local wildlife habitat," Kunze added. "It has an 'exceptional value stream' that is a tributary to Cooks Creek." A conservation easement is a voluntary, legally binding agreement between a landowner and a land trust or government agency that permanently limits the use of the land to protect its conservation values such as open space, natural habitats or historical features. To ensure compliance with these conservation easements, Heritage Conservancy staff monitor their protected properties across the region to ensure the land is being preserved appropriately. Over the last 67 years, the organization's members have protected more than 17,000 acres of land across Bucks, Montgomery and Northampton counties. They're on track to preserve an additional 600 acres by the end of the year, Kunze said. "Bucks County is known nationally for its bucolic views, rolling farmland, and forests," he added. "Our work protects the natural beauty that makes this place special. Beyond the preservation of natural beauty, projects like this have a deeper impact on the local environment, protecting and attracting local wildlife, contributing to clean air and water in the community, and helping to mitigate the impacts of climate change." Lacey Latch is the development reporter for the Bucks County Courier Times and The Intelligencer. She can be reached at LLatch@ This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Heritage Conservancy obtains easement near Crooks Creek
CBC
22-06-2025
- Politics
- CBC
Bill C-5 passes in the House of Commons. Now what?
Chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton speaks with B.C. Premier David Eby about how his province is hoping to work with the federal government. Plus, Grand Chief Trevor Mercredi of the Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta talks about concerns the legislation would enable the government to bypass land protections in the name of economic development. And the Sunday Scrum discusses Liberals' unexpected partner in the minority government: the Conservatives.
CNN
11-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Trump can revoke national monument designations, Justice Department says
President Donald Trump has broad authority to revoke protected land designated as national monuments by past presidents, the Justice Department said in a new legal opinion. The May 27 legal opinion from the Justice Department found that presidents can move broadly to cancel national monuments, challenging a 1938 determination saying monuments created under the Antiquities Act cannot be rescinded and removed from protection. The memo could serve as a legal basis to attempt to withdraw vast amounts of land from protected status. Trump's administration wants to prioritize fossil fuel and energy development, such as drilling for oil and gas and mining for coal and critical minerals, including on federal lands. 'For the Antiquities Act, the power to declare carries with it the power to revoke,' the Justice Department memo states. 'If the President can declare that his predecessor was wrong regarding the value of preserving one such object on a given parcel, there is nothing preventing him from declaring that his predecessor was wrong about all such objects on a given parcel.' The DOJ memo mentioned two California national monuments designated by former President Joe Biden shortly before leaving office. In Trump's first term, the president shrank the size of two national monuments in Utah, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, and reduced the size of a national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean. Biden restored the three areas upon taking office and designated or expanded 12 national monuments during his term. Environmental groups blasted the DOJ opinion. 'This opinion flies in the face of a century of interpretation of the Antiquities Act,' Axie Navas, designations director of conservation programs and policy at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement. 'Americans overwhelmingly support our public lands and oppose seeing them dismantled or destroyed.'
CNN
11-06-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Trump can revoke national monument designations, Justice Department says
President Donald Trump has broad authority to revoke protected land designated as national monuments by past presidents, the Justice Department said in a new legal opinion. The May 27 legal opinion from the Justice Department found that presidents can move broadly to cancel national monuments, challenging a 1938 determination saying monuments created under the Antiquities Act cannot be rescinded and removed from protection. The memo could serve as a legal basis to attempt to withdraw vast amounts of land from protected status. Trump's administration wants to prioritize fossil fuel and energy development, such as drilling for oil and gas and mining for coal and critical minerals, including on federal lands. 'For the Antiquities Act, the power to declare carries with it the power to revoke,' the Justice Department memo states. 'If the President can declare that his predecessor was wrong regarding the value of preserving one such object on a given parcel, there is nothing preventing him from declaring that his predecessor was wrong about all such objects on a given parcel.' The DOJ memo mentioned two California national monuments designated by former President Joe Biden shortly before leaving office. In Trump's first term, the president shrank the size of two national monuments in Utah, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, and reduced the size of a national marine monument in the Atlantic Ocean. Biden restored the three areas upon taking office and designated or expanded 12 national monuments during his term. Environmental groups blasted the DOJ opinion. 'This opinion flies in the face of a century of interpretation of the Antiquities Act,' Axie Navas, designations director of conservation programs and policy at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement. 'Americans overwhelmingly support our public lands and oppose seeing them dismantled or destroyed.'
Fox News
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
DOJ argues Trump may cancel Biden-era national monuments
The Justice Department says President Donald Trump has the right to abolish national monuments established by former President Joe Biden at the request of Native American tribes. In the final days of his presidency, Biden established the Chuckwalla National Monument and the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument to protect hundreds of thousands of acres of land in California. According to Reuters, the Chuckwalla National Monument protects over 624,000 acres, while the Sáttítla Highlands National Monument protects 224,000 acres. The monuments could lose their status after a Trump DOJ legal opinion reversed a 1938 determination that presidents did not have the power to abolish monuments designated by previous presidents under the Antiquities Act of 1906. Deputy Assistant Attorney General Lanora Pettit argued in the opinion that "for the Antiquities Act, the power to declare carries with it the power to revoke." In his first term, Trump reduced the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments in Utah, according to the Associated Press. The outlet noted that Trump claimed the monuments were a "massive land grab." However, Biden later restored them during his term in office. The DOJ's opinion, which was released on Tuesday, has already drawn backlash as Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., slammed the Trump administration. "At Donald Trump's order, his Justice Department is attempting to clear a path to erase national monuments," said Heinrich, who serves as the ranking member of the Senate Natural Resources Committee. "Here's what they don't understand: Our national monuments are about who we are. They tell the story of our ancestors, support jobs and our rural economies, and connect Americans to our history and the land itself. No president can erase that." Heinrich also vowed to oppose Republican efforts "to rip away our national monuments." In the legal opinion, Pettit wrote that Biden's designation of the new monuments was part of a larger effort to create an environmental legacy for himself. She also appeared to discredit Biden's reasons for designating the sites as national monuments, including the creation of more places for outdoor recreational activities, like biking, hiking, hunting and camping. "Such activities are entirely expected in a park, but they are wholly unrelated to (if not outright incompatible with) the protection of scientific or historical monuments," Pettit wrote. There is no clear indication if or when Trump would revoke the status of the two sites established by Biden—or the status of any other monuments. However, according to Reuters, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields spoke about the need to "liberate our federal lands and waters to oil, gas, coal, geothermal, and mineral leasing" when asked about the opinion.
