SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Federal land managers approved another big natural-gas project Monday for eastern Utah and said they persuaded the driller to pull back from the wild Green River.

Environmental groups said drilling will nibble away at a proposed wilderness area for Desolation Canyon, which has seen little change since explorer John Wesley Powell remarked on “a region of wildest desolation” while boating the river in 1896. The area is populated by elk, deer and bighorn sheep.