Canyons of the Ancients.

The name is lyrical, evoking pictures of silent stone structures built with such painstaking effort that some are still standing nearly a millennium later, and then abandoned so suddenly that they still hold clues about the day-to-day existence of those who dwelt within. Warm evening light slanting onto sandstone cliffs, the hazy green of sage, pinon and juniper, and "empty" space as far as the eye can see: That is what outsiders will picture when they think of Canyons of the Ancients.

Mr. Babbitt, protect it. Protect it from the millions of footfalls you’ve brought down upon it by proclaiming the other half of its name: National Monument. Protect it from the haze of the coal-fired power plants and the smog of California. Protect it from the commercialization that seems to surround all beautiful places. Protect it, please, from us, because humanity is the force that threatens it, and yet we’re such a small part of it.

Time seems to crawl across the canyonlands, whose story is told in geology as well as human history. History didn’t began when the first human beings settled in the canyon country. Without far more time than that, there’d be no canyons. Eons before the time we call "ancient," vast seas laid down the rock; the inexorable forces of water and wind wore it away, one grain of sand at a time.

Nor did history end when the Ancestral Puebloans fled so precipitously southward to become the modern Pueblo tribes. Locals who use those public lands fear they can see the sun setting on their way of life, and yet how long has it been "traditional"? Carbon dioxide extraction has been here for a few decades, ranching for a few generations, Native Americans for a few thousand years. The canyons have endured for millions upon millions. We cannot have a monument that honors only those Ancients, who were likely no better stewards in their time than we in ours. We don’t want a monument built on fear: fear that local livelihoods will be lost. Can we, perhaps, craft a management document that allows history to continue?

Humans have never had an easy time inhabiting the rough desert. The Ancestral Puebloans may have fled for political and religious reasons, but they probably observed climactic clues. When an always marginal homeland grows increasingly inhospitable and wresting a living from it declines from difficult to impossible, those changes can easily be viewed as a sign from the gods that humans were not meant to live here.

European settlers seemed inclined to agree. The reason the Anasazi Area of Critical Environmental Concern was public land in the first place was that no one claimed it. As the frontier moved westward, farmers and ranchers homesteaded in the fertile valleys. Miners staked their claims in the mountains, and although they occasionally ventured into the desert in search of precious metals or, later, radioactive ores, they didn’t intend to live there. They meant to make their fortunes and go home.

West of Cortez, and in other dry landscapes across the west, the Jeffersonian plan for reaching our manifest destiny by pushing the frontier westward simply didn’t work. Some tried to make a living here and failed; there simply wasn’t enough water. Others knew better from the very beginning. So the federal government took ownership by default and began to design a system by which westerners could use those lands without proving up on them. Even then, millions upon millions of acres remained nearly untouched. At one point, the federal government tried to turn some of those lands back to the western states. The states, without the resources to manage them, politely declined.

The Ancestral Puebloans may have believed their era was the zenith of civilization. Likewise, many modern Americans believe human progress peaked with the generation that grew up during the Great Depression and fought in World War II. They believe it’s all been downhill from there. They shy away from change, and they especially distrust "those damned environmentalists." Now, though, we have a national monument to preserve our environmental and cultural resources, and unless it actually does protect them, it’s going to do more harm than good.

The high desert is an enduring place, and yet it’s one of the more fragile ecosystem. With so much sun and wind, and so little rainfall, it takes a long time to heal or change. The desert protects itself by repelling invaders, and its denizens are well equipped to do that, with spines, fangs, stingers, claws, venom. Can it fend off the humans that may descend on it in hordes as its new status draws it into the public eye.? A press release from the president’s office Friday called Canyons of the Ancients "a treasure trove." If that encourages pothunters to dig for prehistoric treasure, it’s not an improvement over the former management status and anonymity.

Ambivalent souls that we are, we can hope for economic development through tourism while also hoping that the harshness of the desert will keep most visitors near developed roads. We have no prayer, really, that many of them will understand the spirits of this place. The red rocks stand in brilliant contrast to the turquoise sky, and that’s all that many visitors will notice. The air is clear and dry. The sunsets — the most beautiful on earth — are a show brought to us by Utah dust storms.

It’s big. It looks empty. It’s not, but no casual visitor will learn that truth.

This is a subtle place. There’s no lush greenery, no waterfalls or geysers, no rollercoasters. Few of the birds have brilliant plumage. Most of the animals are nocturnal. The greens are grayish, the trees scrubby, the flowers tiny. With little rainfall, there is little vegetation for herbivores. The rest of the animals — the raptors, the predators, the scavengers — eat each other. The ruins aren’t standing stones, most of them, but piles of rubble, not even recognizable to the untrained eye. Some of them require a goshawful hike to reach, and that’s the way it should be. Don’t forget to carry water, and don’t forget the altitude and the solar exposure, either. This is an unforgiving place. Respect it, because romanticizing it can be fatal.