The US Interior Department on Wednesday welcomed the resignations of members of a National Park advisory board who claimed they were being frozen out by the Trump administration.
Nine of the 12 members of the National Park System Advisory Board abruptly quit on Monday, a move first reported by The Washington Post.
Former Alaska governor Tony Knowles, the chairman of the board, said in a joint resignation letter to Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke that the bipartisan body had been ignored by the new administration.
"Our requests to engage have been ignored and the matters on which we wanted to brief the new department team are clearly not part of its agenda," the Post quoted the letter as saying.
"I have a profound concern that the mission of stewardship, protection, and advancement of our National Parks has been set aside," it said.
Knowles expanded on his frustration in an interview with Alaska Public Radio.
"The department showed no interest in learning about or continuing to use the forward-thinking agenda of science, the effect of climate change, protections of the ecosystems, education," he said.
"It has rescinded (National Park System) regulations of resource stewardship concerning those very things: biodiversity loss, pollution and climate change," he added.
"If they don't want to meet with us, fine. That's their prerogative," Knowles said of the Interior Department.
"But we wanted to make a statement as a board as we left what our concerns are, because we don't think they (the new policies) reflect the vast number of public that support the national park system."
In a strongly worded statement, the Interior Department said the resignations were "welcome" and denied that it had not attempted to engage the panel.
"It is patently false to say the Department had not engaged the board when as recently as January 8, we were working with the board to renew their charter, schedule a meeting, and fill vacancies," it said.
Without elaborating, the department also said it "would expect nothing less than quitting from members who found it convenient to turn a blind eye to women being sexually harassed at National Parks."
The department added that it would "fast track" filling the vacancies on the board "with people who are actually dedicated to working with the Department to better our national parks."
Among the board's duties are advising the department on designation of national historic places and natural landmarks.
Since taking office as interior secretary, Zinke has drastically reduced the size of national monuments in the state of Utah and announced plans to allow more offshore drilling.
The tax bill passed last month also opens up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to potential oil and gas drilling.
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