Congress has not reauthorized or amended the NMSA since 2000. Now would not be a good time to try. Recent history, under both a Republican and a Democratic president, has shown that serious large-scale ocean conservation occurs only with the use of the Antiquities Act.

The Three Sisters, individually known today as South Sister, Middle Sister and North Sister, and in early days as Faith, Hope and Charity. The 283,630-acre Three Sisters Wilderness is still a unit of the National Wilderness Preservation System, but is no longer a unit of the World Network of Biosphere Reserves.

Though President Trump has said he “loves” public lands and doesn’t want to sell or give them to states, counties, or private industry, he does favor increased logging, grazing, mining, drilling, and just about anything else bad for these lands.