In mid-February, Sean Pond, a resident of remote Nucla, Colorado, learned from an area rancher about an effort to convince President Joe Biden to establish nearly 400,000 acres of canyonland surrounding the Dolores River as a new national monument.

At the time, Pond had no knowledge of the Antiquities Act, the landmark 1906 law that gives presidents the unilateral power to protect federal lands with natural, cultural and scientific values. Eighteen presidents, Republican and Democrat, have used the law to designate 161 national monuments .

But within days, Pond emerged as one of the most vocal opponents of the monument effort, sounding the alarm about what he described as a looming federal land grab in his backyard.

I had absolutely no idea. But I do now. And I dont know how to go back to thinking normally, he said in a video recently posted to Facebook. Once your eyes are open to the real picture, the real threat, the threat from our own government, its scary.

However, the push is not coming from the Biden administration. Rather, a coalition of environmental groups has petitioned the White House to establish a national monument along the Dolores River, and the administration has not signaled that it is considering the proposal.

That comes as little comfort to Pond. He views the movement to establish Dolores Canyons National Monument, along with the Biden administrations goal of conserving 30% of Americas lands and waters by 2030, known as 30x30, as part of a global scheme to control land and strip away individual rights.

They just dont want people there, he told HuffPost. Lets strip away the layers of BS. The goal is to get people off the land and off of waters. To stop oil and gas, to stop mining, to stop offshore drilling in the name of climate change.

National monuments have become a political lightning rod in recent years, in no small part due to former President Donald Trumps controversial monument review and subsequent dismantling of two protected sites in Utah in 2017. Along with reversing Trumps rollbacks, Biden has used the Antiquities Act to create or expand several monuments since taking office.

When it comes to the future of the Dolores River corridor, both proponents and opponents of the monument say they want to protect the landscape. They just have wildly different views about how to do that.

In many ways, the fight over a proposed monument in Colorado is an extension of the larger political battle over the future of Americas public lands. While the Biden administration and Democrats have sought to bolster protections to combat climate change and biodiversity loss, Republicans have worked to keep as much of the federal estate as possible open to drilling, mining and other extractive uses.

Tug Of War

Conservation advocates have worked on and off to secure greater protections for the Dolores River since the 1970s, when it was first identified as being suitable for protection under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. While there is bipartisan legislation on the table to protect the southern portion of the river as a national conservation area, discussions to safeguard the northern portion of the Dolores in Mesa and Montrose counties have derailed.

Weve seen a failure of leadership in both [Mesa and Montrose] counties on the legislative approach, Scott Braden, director of the Colorado Wildlands Project, one of the 14 conservation groups behind the monument proposal, told HuffPost. Thats one of the reasons why a national monument is an attractive tool to look at.

In April, Grand Junction Mayor Anna Stout traveled to Washington, D.C., to deliver a petition to the White House signed by more than 100,000 people who want to secure monument status for the Dolores.

By protecting this landscape, we can ensure future generations can enjoy the same natural beauty and economic opportunities that we ourselves have been fortunate to experience, Stout said at a press conference in Washington.