That's why a coalition of wilderness advocates - The Wilderness Society, Sierra Club and Grand Canyon Wildlands Council - is panning the Bureau of Land Management's proposed 20-year plan for this 2.8 million-acre swath of northern Arizona, which includes the Grand Canyon-Parashant and Vermilion Cliffs national monuments.

Jill Ozarski, spokeswoman for The Wilderness Society, argues the BLM lacks the conservation ethic to be good stewards of the monuments, which former President Clinton created in 2000. Traditionally, the National Park Service manages monuments - although the BLM does oversee southern Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument as well.

The BLM "prioritizes oil and gas development and [off-road vehicle] use and doesn't take into account other issues," says Ozarski, who joined other coalition and media representatives this week on a tour and flyover of the remote Arizona areas.

Adds Wildlands Council spokesman Ken Crumbo: "There are no management objectives in the plan to protect some areas."

On March 17, the final day for public comment on the BLM's draft plan, the coalition vows to press the agency to double the 210,564 acres in Grand Canyon-Parashant and 34,415 acres in Vermilion Cliffs now proposed to be maintained as wilderness. They also want less land earmarked for sale to the public.

Coalition members maintain the BLM's 3,000-page draft promotes ORV use instead of safeguarding the monuments' wildlife, ancient artifacts and wild characteristics. They are pushing the federal agency to pare the plan's proposed ORV routes - 1,397 miles in the Grand Canyon-Parashant and 384 miles in the Vermilion Cliffs - by more than half. They further urge the BLM to eliminate proposed ORV "play or speed-event areas" outside the monuments.

BLM officials counter that the management plan - which was based on a 2002 study and culled from five alternatives after extensive public input - is the best option to preserve the area while still allowing public access and recreational activity.

Diana Hawks, planning team leader for the blueprint, notes the proclamation that created the monuments requires the agency to balance the competing interests.

"From our scoping meetings, we learned that access was the primary issue," says Hawks, who notes the roads inventoried thus far are open to all vehicles, not just ORVs.

But Peter Bungart, a Flagstaff, Ariz., archaeologist advising the coalition, says the proposal should detail how the agency aims to protect archaeological treasures from ancient Paiute and earlier cultures dating back 10,000 years.

"Looting, vandalism and even unintentional damage by vehicles are major problems at archaeological sites in this region," he says.

Environmentalists further fret more ORV traffic will translate into more poaching of the imperiled desert tortoise, which is protected under the Endangered Species Act. Weeds and noise are other potential nuisances.

"Weeds carried in by ORVs are a problem, along with noise that can disrupt . . . wildlife" activity and behavior, Ozarski says. Gathered around a campfire with his family and fleet of all-terrain vehicles outside Grand Canyon-Parashant this week, Mardon Connelly expresses dismay to see so many roads in the area closed to all but licensed vehicles.

"When we were kids, we used to go all over in old jalopies and horses," recalls Connelly, a resident of nearby Overton, Nev. The BLM "should allow everybody on these old roads."

Roads across a national monument continue to be a point of contention in Utah's Grand Staircase, whose management plan took hold in 2000. But now Kane and Garfield counties are locked in a court battle with the BLM over road ownership and water rights.

Along the Arizona Strip, mountains and mesas dot the arid landscape, formed by ancient lava flows that today prop up a potpourri of plants and trees: cactuses, grasses, creosote bushes and valleys filled with cottonwood trees hinting at the presence of underground springs.

Yes, the landscape is lonesome - and environmentalists want the BLM to keep it that way.

But growth could change that. Wilderness society officials predict recreation use along the Arizona Strip, an area three times larger than Rhode Island, will jump dramatically as the population in five surrounding counties - including Utah's Washington and Kane counties - swells by a combined 1.4 million by 2020. What's more, the draft plan leaves 96 percent of nonmonument land unprotected for oil and gas drilling, according to the society's Web site.

Hawks says a government program does allow the agency to lease federal lands adjacent cities and towns for parks, cemeteries, infrastructure and other beneficial projects.

Under some circumstances, the land can be sold. Hawks says the BLM welcomes comments about sales and leases, as well as on roads and other parts of the document.

mhavnes@sltrib.com