The creation – and composition – of a local advisory committee will be crucial to the future of the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument. Part of the key, however, will be in not defining "local" too narrowly.

The formation of the advisory committee was discussed Friday at a meeting of the Bureau of Land Management’s Southwest Colorado Resource Advisory Council. Unlike most national monuments, which are administered by the Park Service, Canyons of the Ancients is a BLM responsibility. At the meeting, officials stressed that a local group should advise the bureau.

Cal Joyner, manager of the BLM’s San Juan field office, said, "The local advisory committe’s function would be about the planning process." He also assured landowners at the meeting that the group would have varied interests. "We will try to get people that represent the diversity of opinions of how the land will be managed," he said.

The local advisory committee would consist of nine to 11 citizens. LouAnn Jacobson, the monument’s interim manager, said that a draft of the charter creating the committee should be submitted by the end of September. She said its approval would probably take two months. In that time, officials should give its make-up some serious thought.

A national monument is just that, national. It is the property of all the people of the United States and it is the bureau’s responsibility to manage it with their interests in mind.

In many ways, however, nearby residents both feel the effects of a monument most and are in the best position to know how it should be managed. For that reason, the idea of a local advisory committee is both sensible and fair.

For starters, it should invite the next-door neighbors. The committee membership should include property owners from McElmo Canyon or other areas adjacent to the monument.

It is not enough, however, that divergent views on land use be accommodated or that adjoining landowners be represented. The monument’s effects will extend beyond those touched by its boundaries and involve issues other than how its land will be used. Tourism, highways and economic development are just three examples of the kind of concerns that should also be acknowledged.

The city of Cortez should also be represented, as should the rest of Montezuma County, La Plata County and all of Southwest Colorado. So, too, should Denver and state of Colorado. That may seem like stretching the ideal of "local," but Denver is closer than Washington and highways, for example, need state money.