Bears Ears National Monument
Southeast Utah, UT
United States
Protection of the Bears Ears area will preserve its cultural, prehistoric, and historic legacy and maintain its diverse array of natural and scientific resources, ensuring that the prehistoric, historic, and scientific values of this area remain for the benefit of all Americans.
(https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/12/28/proclamation-establishment-bears-ears-national-monument)
Description of the Site
Bears Ears National Monument is home to 100,000 historical, cultural, archeological, and paleontological sites including cliff dwellings, petroglyphs, and other remnants of native civilizations that inhabited southeast Utah over the last 13,000 years. Its pristine and natural beauty, preserved in part by having few roads, has few rivals in the United States.
For 80 years, tribal councils, conservationists, scientists, archeologists, and historians endeavored to protect the region of southeast Utah known as Bears Ears. In 2016 President Obama designated 1.35 million acres in southeast Utah as Bears Ears National Monument citing its historic, prehistoric, natural, and scientific significance to all Americans. The Trump administration, however, is considering shrinking the size of the monument–a first under the Antiquities Act of 1906–and opening it up to oil, gas, and uranium extraction. Looters and vandals have also destroyed and damaged countless sites within Bears Ears since before its designation as a National Monument.
The Threat
The Trump Administration is considering a reduction in the size of Bears Ears National Monument in order to open the land to oil, gas, and uranium exploration, even though it is sacred to many tribes and home to important and unstudied archeological sites. The extraction of natural resources would irreparably harm hundreds if not thousands of culturally, historically, and scientifically significant sites.
Update December 2017:
“On Thursday [December 7, 2017], President Trump announced that he would slash the size of Utah’s newest national monument, Bears Ears, shrinking by 85 percent land that President Barack Obama had declared protected in 2016. In response, five Indian tribes sued over Trump’s move in federal court. The tribes claim significant ancestral ties to this land and oversee the area in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management. They argue that although Congress delegated power to the president under the Antiquities Act to designate national monuments, it did not give the power to revoke them.” -Washington Post, December 11, 2017
[The Trump administration’s consideration of shrinking Bears Ears is] an attack on a significant part of the foundation of American conservation law.
Update June 2020:
The Bureau of Land Management seeks to offer parcels of land as part of a oil and gas lease sale in September 2020. Some of these lands will be near Bears Ears and several other national parks and monuments.
Source: https://etvnews.com/blm-seeks-comments-on-77-parcels-offered-in-september-oil-and-gas-lease-sale/
The September lease sale threatens to blanket southern Utah’s landscape of red rock canyons and natural arches with drill rigs, pipelines, and truck traffic—replacing the clean air, expansive vistas, quiet stillness, and sense of wildness with the sights and sounds of industrial development, all while expanding fossil fuel emissions that are driving the climate crisis.
Efforts to Save Bears Ears National Monument
The following are all fighting to preserve the site, the means they use are, advocacy, online activism, protests, research, political process, political lobbying, educating the public, legal means, etc.
The Bears Ears Intertribal Coalition, made up of the Hopi, Navajo, Uintah and Ouray Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Zuni Nations, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, All Pueblo Council of Governors, Friends of Cedar Mesa, Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, the Conservation Lands Foundation, The brand Patagonia, Sutherland Institute, Great Old Broads For Wilderness, Alt National Park Service
…there are many parts within the greater Bears Ears that are sacred [to tribes], there are hundreds of thousands of acres that are not sacred . . . included in [the coalition’s proposal].
(https://suwa.org/tribes-formally-present-bears-ears-proposal-to-obama-administration/)
Who Should Be Held Accountable
The Department of the Interior under Secretary Ryan Zinke has recommended, the oil and gas industry has advocated for, and the Utah State Legislature and Utah Governor Gary Herbert have urged President Trump to rescind entirely or shrink significantly Bears Ears National Monument. Tribes, conservationists, scientists, archeologists, and historians want to preserve the site for its scientific, cultural, and historical significance and oppose any changes to the boundaries and permissions of the monument.
The preservation of the Bears Ears area will preserve its cultural, prehistoric, and historic legacy and maintain its diverse array of natural and scientific resources, ensuring that the prehistoric, historic, and scientific values of this area remain for the benefit of all Americans.
(http://bearsearscoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/NABIJA-01-17.pdf)
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