By Christian M. Lyons On Feb. 19, 2015, President Barack Obama designated 21,586 acres of pristine canyons, rivers and backcountry forest in Colorado as the Browns Canyon National Monument. “Conservation is a truly American idea,” the president said. “The naturalists and industrialists and politicians who dreamt up our system of public lands and waters did so in the hope that, by keeping these places, these special places in trust – places of incomparable beauty, places where our history was written – then future generations would value those places the same way as we did. It would teach us about ourselves, ...
