Commercial air tours over Canyon de Chelly in northeastern Arizona will soon be banned under a plan finalized last week by the National Park Service and the Federal Aviation Administration.
The plan, signed on Thursday, will take effect in 180 days, according to a statement from the National Park Service. It prohibits commercial air tour operators from flying over the park or within a half-mile of its boundaries.
Canyon de Chelly is located within the Navajo Nation, on the outskirts of Chinle, Ariz. The monument was designated in 1931 “to protect prehistoric villages built between 350 and 1300 A.D.,” according to the park service.
The monument is more than 80,000 acres large and boasts a sandstone spire that towers hundreds of feet in the air, known as Spider Rock. More than 300,000 people visited Canyon de Chelly in 2023, figures from the NPS show.
On April 1, 1931, the Canyon de Chelly National Monument was established.
“Prohibiting commercial air tours protects these lands’ cultural and spiritual significance to the Navajo Nation,” park Superintendent Lyn Carranza said in the news release about the plan. “Canyon de Chelly National Monument’s Air Tour Management Plan honors the unique nation-to-nation relationship regarding decisions affecting the park and helps to preserve one of the most important archeological landscapes in the Southwest.”
Bruce Adams, owner and founder of New Mexico-based tour company Southwest Safaris, has been offering air tours of Canyon de Chelly for 50 years. He says he wasn’t surprised by the finalized air tour management plan — but he is disappointed.
“Now the agencies have alienated the community against us,” Adams said. “And we’re just left speechless.”
Canyon de Chelly is not the only national park unit in the U.S. where air tours are, or will soon be, essentially banned.
New Mexico’s Bandelier National Monument and South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore both have plans outlining similar restrictions in place. The air tour management plan for Washington’s Mount Rainier National Park, finalized more than two years ago, allows for “up to one air tour per year on a defined route.”
The National Park Service works in concert with the FAA to implement The National Park Air Tour Management Act of 2000, which requires operators who wish to conduct air tours to get FAA approval.
The act also requires the park service and FAA to “establish air tour management plans for parks or tribal lands for which applications are submitted,” according to the park service.
An amendment made in 2012 allows the NPS and the FAA to enter into voluntary agreements with air tour operators instead of developing management plans.
Several operators — including Southwest Safaris, Adams’ company — have entered into such an agreement with both agencies to continue running air tours over Lake Mead National Recreation Area in northwestern Arizona “with more consistent reporting requirements for monitoring,” according to a statement from the National Park Service.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Commercial air tours to be banned over Canyon de Chelly