There’s something for everyone at Ironwood Forest National Monument. For nature photographers, there are mesquites and saguaros, pygmy owls and gila woodpeckers; for hunters, there are bighorn sheep; for hikers, there are primitive, rugged trails and clear night skies.
The monument is named for the iconic Ironwood trees, which can live to be 800 years old. Their flowers attract native bees and their canopies protect plants, including the rare Nichol’s Turk’s head cactus, underneath them in the winter.
Just under an hour from Tucson, the monument is beloved by locals and often a stop for tourists visiting the nearby Saguaro National Park. Ironwood is a rugged place, with most roads only accessible by high clearance four-wheel drive vehicles. At nearly 190,000 acres, visitors can get away from the modern world and lose themselves in the desert (metaphorically speaking).
The Ironwood Forest National Monument sits on top of copper deposits, the surrounding area has been mined for more than a century.
Asarco, the owners of the nearby Silver Bell copper mine recently proposed to expand their operations into the monument. New mining operations would almost certainly mean destroying hiking trails, bighorn sheep habitat and damaging archaeological sites to establish new open pits.
Mining operations pollute the air, contaminate water and they can use a lot of water. In Arizona, we know that every drop of water is precious, we don’t need to use it for new industrial mining operations.
The Ironwood Forest National Monument is too special to turn into an open copper pit mine. That’s why Environment Arizona Research & Policy Center is supporting the coalition of local groups opposing the expansion of Asarco’s mining operation into our public lands.
In 2017, the U.S. Department of the Interior considered opening the monument to mining, but public opposition convinced officials to drop the idea. If enough people in Arizona speak up, we can convince our decision-makers to protect Ironwood Forest National Monument.
Environment Arizona Research & Policy Center is working with local groups to raise awareness of the threat to Ironwood, especially among its neighbors in the Tucson area. We’re also planning to bring people out to the monument, so they can see for themselves what’s at stake.
If you’re in the area, you can join us this fall to visit Ironwood Forest National Monument. Make your voices heard so the people in Washington, D.C., who will decide Ironwood’s fate will hear us all the way from Arizona.
The best time to protect the monument is now, before the federal government begins a formal process to open the area to mining. We can protect an important recreation site for the local community and an important piece of Arizona’s heritage.
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Wildlife & wild places
Tell Congress: Protect our parks
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Authors
Ellen runs campaigns to protect America’s beautiful places, from local beachfronts to remote mountain peaks. She sits on the Steering Committee of the Arctic Defense Campaign and co-coordinates the Climate Forests Campaign. Ellen previously worked as the organizing director for Environment America’s Climate Defenders campaign and managed grassroots campaign offices across the country. Ellen lives in Denver, where she likes to hike in Colorado’s mountains.
