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Arizona got a big parting gift in the final years of the Clinton administration: five national monuments.

With the president's signature, Ironwood Forest, Sonoran Desert, Agua Fria, Vermilion Cliffs and Grand Canyon-Parashant were set aside for us to enjoy in their natural splendor. Their rich habitat, stunning scenery and archaeology are protected for future generations.

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The administration last week released a sweeping report recommending many useful steps for conserving, even expanding, America’s open spaces and making them more accessible to the American people. It is the sort of document destined to gather dust on bureaucratic shelves unless someone pays attention and follows up.

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In the Robledo Mountains of southern New Mexico, an international team of scientists spent the past week toiling under the desert sun, searching for clues to help them better understand what life was like along a prehistoric shoreline.

Layer after layer, the mudstone at Prehistoric Trackways National Monument has offered up the tracks of reptiles and jumping insects and even the imprints of jellyfish. There are fossil logs and plants that predate the dinosaur age by tens of millions of years.