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and Utah writer and naturalist Terry Tempest Williams. Featured speaker Colorado Governor Roy Romer, the only western governor present, stated that the m o n u m e n t area was owned by the people of the United States and that the president had the responsibility to preserve the land. Several environmental organizations have argued that the dispute between themselves and residents in southern Utah over social and economic ideologies has gone on for three decades. They cited local apathy about environmental concerns and lack of cooperation in helping define wilderness preserves as conditions that forced the president's hand. A spokesperson for one organization, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, whose membership is composed of many living both within and outside the state, declared that, "The wilderness value far outweighs the commercial value here because we can get coal anywhere. Coal is abundant." 27 Environmentalists also contended that the ceremony at the Grand Canyon would not have been necessary if Utah's congressional representatives had been more reasonable concerning wilderness issues in Congress. Some in the audience criticized Governor Leavitt, who prided himself on trying to be conciliatory on sensitive issues, for not being present on this occasion to pledge Utah's cooperation in managing the preserve, unaware that he did not know of the event and was not invited to attend. Environmental organizations also vowed they would n o t back down on their d e m a n d for 5.7 million acres of wilderness designated BLM lands in the state. 28 This a m o u n t far exceeds that favored by Utah's governor, the state's congressional representatives, and southern Utah county governments, whose counties make up most of the millions of acres earmarked by environmentalists for wilderness status. As Garfield County's General Plan states: the "ecosystem management" concept, as described by federal agencies tends to treat humans as intruders in the natural system. County leaders reject this supposition and will insist that natural resource management plans and/or "ecosystems" management plans for all county lands, public and private, consider humans as part of the system.29
