A child’s imagination is a powerful thing. It’s their epicenter of inspiration, a wonderful machine capable of producing wild thoughts and ideas that some of our brightest minds could never think of. However, imagination relies on the context that a child is raised in, the sights they see and the stories that they hear. Luckily, unique scenery that captivates and confounds is right here in the United States.

The western United States holds some of the most spectacular landscapes on earth. Towers of rock spiraling to great heights are surrounded, by vast swathes of desert that stretch across the horizon. Over millions of years, water has sculpted the landscape with an artist’s grace creating natural wonders that seem to be from a different world, but they are real, with us, right now.

Viewing landscapes, like those found in Bear Ears National Monument in Utah, enable a child to tap into the creative potential that is hidden inside them. Simply seeing a picture of the bizarre but brilliant world that we live in, is enough to begin dreaming of the endless possibilities that exist.

Recently, the presidential administration has started a war on wonder. The people behind this war lost their ability to imagine a long time ago. They view the landscapes as purely a means to make money. Blind to the value of the natural world, they instead plan to desecrate our land in the pursuit of profit.

If we continue on this path, these landscapes will be turned into barren wastelands. After all the oil is depleted and the wonder is gone, the imagination that it inspired will be lost forever. In the blink of an eye, wonders that have stood for millions of years will be gone, and subsequently, the number of people unable to imagine will spread. Children will be left with looking up at a polluted grey sky and scarily be content with that fact because they will know nothing else. To preserve the creativity of future, these monuments must be protected from greed. We cannot risk losing imagination.