The Friends of the Arizona Strip Believe The Grand Canyon Watershed National Monument Proposal Throws the Arizona Strip to the Wolves

    ST GEORGE, UT, April 17, 2012 /24-7PressRelease/ -- A century ago, the Federal Government offered anybody who had the sheer guts to venture out into the western United States the opportunity to build the American Dream, by staking out a homestead claim and living on the property for five years. Many did so, and the descendents of those early settlers still own and work the land. The Federal government actually encouraged settlers to make this place their home.

Today, environmental groups are proposing that a large sections of the Arizona Strip be "protected" by designating them as National Monuments. This so called protection would further restrict human activity in a place that has very few inhabitants anyway. The stated goal of the proposed monument would be to save the habitat of the white tailed squirrel, a creature that has thrived along side the human activity on the Arizona Strip to this day.

The core of this proposal would close some of the few roads that exist in the strip and reintroduce wolves and grizzly bear back into the ecosystem.

"This monument proposal would simply throw the Arizona Strip to the wolves!" said Clay Bundy, president of the Friends of the Arizona Strip.

The Friends of the Arizona Strip find it extremely troubling, that environmental groups who claim to believe in the natural evolution of the ecosystem, want to turn back the clock more than a century and re-engineer it with different predators. Man has been part of the Arizona Strip ecosystem for many centuries. The Friends of the Arizona Strip believe The Federal Government has encouraged the citizenry to actively develop this land and man has done so. Today, environmentalists would have us believe that mountain lions are afraid to cross the road, that mining, which employs the locals since the logging business has all but been killed, needs to be stopped and that a squirrel with a white tail is somehow endangered.

This proposed monument is being sold as something that will "create jobs". It will create jobs for government bureaucrats, at the expense of the local residents who work hard everyday and feel the real effects of the environmental lobby's assault on their livelihoods in their paychecks.

We encourage all citizens to vigorously oppose this newly proposed federal land grab while we still can.

About the Friends of the Arizona Strip - The Friends of the Arizona Strip is a non-profit organization dedicated to the idea that land use policy needs a common sense balanced solution. They believe that respectful land use for mining, ranching, hunting and other recreation activities is achievable and that strict closure to these activities is not the only way to protect the environment.

For more information please visit http://www.azsfriends.org.

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