The gestation of Canyons of the Ancients National Monument was somewhat like an unplanned pregnancy: Even though it wasn’t exactly what we had in mind, we were resigned to the reality and focused on the birth. Would Bruce Babbitt really do what he’d promised? Would traditional uses be allowed to continue? How would the inevitable new restrictions affect us?

Friday, after the president’s proclamation became public, locals counted fingers and toes. Now we knew what the monument would look like, what its focus would be, and how it would affect us. The baby was healthy and it was time to start the parenting process.

In time we’ll probably grow fond of this monument, especially if we put in the time and effort required to help it grow into something positive. There’s hope that local residents will be allowed enough input into the design of the management plan to ensure that the monument remains a good citizen of the Four Corners region, rather than something foreign plunked down in our midst.

Adequate funding is going to be a big part of that. The first need may be for enforcement. Increased publicity will bring more public attention, not all of it good. The focus of the monument is to protect the Ancestral Puebloan sites and the desert ecosystem that provides their context. We’d like to believe that education will prevent visitors from destroying anything, but the truth is that we’ll need some way of identifying violators, apprehending them and punishing them. The framework for that system is already in place with the Bureau of Land Management; now we need to build on it.

The educational foundation is in place as well. The Anasazi Heritage Center is a wonderful place to introduce visitors to the prehistory of the region, and it doesn’t need to be duplicated at an entrance to the monument. In fact, it makes economic sense to place interpretive exhibits within the local communities rather than isolating them at the monument. That will pull visitors into Cortez, Dolores and Dove Creek, and it will allow residents and merchants to provide cultural context and connect visitors to the rest of what’s happening here.

Opponents to the monument have wrung some small amount of hope from the idea that Congress might overturn the designation or might, at least, refuse to provide any funding. Neither of those options is very likely, considering that the president has to sign the budget. Few congressmen are willing to jeopardize funding for their own pet projects to tweak the president over a minor and fairly inexpensive monument in a sparsely populated region of the West. Failing to fund Canyons of the Ancients would be counterproductive and harmful to local communities.

The negative repercussions have been set in motion already. Without funding to manage increased visitation, they’ll only get worse. Now it’s up to Colorado’s congressional delegation to help parent this monument by making sure it receives adequate local oversight and adequate federal resources.