By Patrick Donnelly

This week President Trump ordered the largest removal of land protections in American history, aiming to erase more than 2 million acres from Bear’s Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah. Nevadans should be deeply concerned by this illegal land grab because he’s coming for us next.

Trump’s action was followed Tuesday by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s release of a report that included recommended reductions to the size of Nevada’s Gold Butte National Monument. This is a concerted effort, in part related to the Cliven Bundy saga, to undermine our public land protections.

Gold Butte is one of the crown jewels of Southern Nevada. It’s a wonderland of sculpted sandstone and rugged mountains, with springs vital to wildlife and areas sacred to the Southern Paiute Indians. This spectacular landscape was permanently protected by President Barack Obama in 2016 with the strong support of Nevadans and our elected officials.

And yet Sen. Dean Heller (R-Smith Valley), the Virgin Valley Water District and a few local politicians from eastern Clark County are pushing Trump and Zinke to remove 24,000 acres from Gold Butte ― nearly 10 percent of the protected area. Heller has thrown his weight behind this pernicious theft of our natural heritage, calling the wildly popular designation “extreme overreach” from “Washington bureaucrats” and ignoring Nevadans’ overwhelming support for Gold Butte.

Trump’s action is entirely illegal. The Antiquities Act gives presidents the authority to designate national monuments, but it contains no language authorizing the removal of protections. Conservation groups ― including the Center for Biological Diversity, where I work ― have already filed suit, challenging Trump’s move to chop up Bear’s Ears and Grand Staircase and open huge swaths of protected public land to fossil fuel development and mining.

With 71 percent of Nevadans polled supporting our national monuments, why on earth is Heller asking Trump to take away our precious protected lands? Because he is pandering to a small group of anti-government zealots whose icon is the infamous Bundy.

Nevadans need no introduction to Bundy, who is currently on trial in federal court in Las Vegas for conspiracy and extortion, among other charges. This militia-rallying scofflaw who didn’t want to pay his taxes and inspired dozens of people to aim weapons at law enforcement officers has been operating his illegal cattle operation on lands now protected as Gold Butte National Monument for years. Some have even speculated that Bundy drove the designation itself through his destructive actions.

There aren’t known ties between the Trump administration and the Bundys, but the administration has done nothing to distance itself from Nevada’s most notorious rancher. And indeed the administration appears to be operating from the same anti-conservation, anti-government playbook that has animated public lands policy in eastern Clark County for decades.

Despite the fact that the Bundys are accused of extorting and conspiring to harm federal law enforcement officers, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said of the case in July, “I’m not taking sides.” Although I once saw Secretary of Interior Sally Jewell come to tears over how valiantly her Bureau of Land Management law enforcement staff conducted themselves at the Bunkerville incident, Zinke has only said, “I’m not going to address that issue.”

When Zinke visited Nevada in July to see our national monuments, he met exclusively with monument opponents. And he chose to hold a press conference in Bunkerville at the home of Brian Haviland, a vocal opponent of conservation in Gold Butte,  a member of the Bunkerville Town Board, which expressed support for Bundy during the standoff.

Heller’s ping-ponging across the political spectrum is not news, but in his desperate attempt to appeal to the far right of Nevada’s electorate he’s now aligning himself with those who took up arms against the government. Indeed, during the 2014 standoff, Heller gallingly referred to Bundy and his armed thugs as “patriots.”

And it comes as a shock to see our ostensibly moderate and widely respected Gov. Brian Sandoval aligning himself with the worldview of the Bundys and their ilk, as he did on Wednesday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, duplicitously saying that the removal of protections would be a “win-win” to “recognize the balance of private interests” on our protected public lands. In truth, only one side wins in a move to illegally strip protections from Gold Butte.

Trump and Zinke put Gold Butte National Monument squarely in their crosshairs this week, with the support of a disparate band of characters, from Cliven Bundy to Brian Sandoval. Their actions are opposed by the vast majority of Nevadans, who continue to support permanent protection for this irreplaceable landscape. And as those targeting the monuments may find out next November, the people will not be ignored.

Patrick Donnelly is the Nevada state director for the Center for Biological Diversity, based in Las Vegas. He can be reached at [email protected] and @bitterwaterblue.