Bears Ears in the News: A National Monument, Restored
Bears Ears buttes, aerial photo. Stephen Strom, 2017.
Welcome back to Bears Ears in the News. We’ve returned from our summer hiatus to recap the year’s most significant development on the Bears Ears beat: the restoration of Bears Ears National Monument by President Joseph R. Biden.
Restoration Follows Recommendation
Biden’s decision comes after years of advocacy by the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and their allies, including a high-profile ad campaign in recent months that urged Biden to act on Interior Secretary Deb Haaland’s recommendation that Biden fully restore the monument.
Haaland issued her recommendation following an executive order signed by Biden on his first day in office directing the Interior Secretary to conduct a review of former President Donald J. Trump’s 2017 move to reduce by 85 percent the original Bears Ears National Monument established by the Obama administration the year before. (You read that right: the Bears Ears saga has now stretched across three presidential administrations.)
“Supporting a brighter future” for Tribal Nations
It’s worth noting that Biden chose to restore the first national monument created at the request of Federally Recognized Tribes on the same day he became the first U.S. President to formally mark Indigenous Peoples’ Day. In his statement, Biden notes that the day “recognize[s] Indigenous peoples’ resilience and strength as well as the immeasurable positive impact that they have made on every aspect of American society.”
“We also recommit to supporting a new, brighter future of promise and equity for Tribal Nations – a future grounded in Tribal sovereignty and respect for the human rights of Indigenous people in the Americas and around the world.”
“Honoring his Commitment”
In a statement, the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, whose members in 2015 submitted to Obama the original national monument proposal said that “By taking this action, President Biden will be recognizing the deep and enduring ancestral and cultural connections that Tribes have to this landscape and taking a step toward honoring his commitment to Indigenous People by acknowledging their original place in this country that is now our shared home.”
Biden’s official proclamation also emphasizes the significance of “[honoring] the special relationship between the Federal Government and Tribal Nations” - a nod to Tribes’ status as sovereign entities that engage in a nation-to-nation dialogue with the Federal Government - and “correcting the exclusion of lands and resources profoundly sacred to Tribal Nations, and ensuring the long-term protection of, and respect for, this remarkable and revered region.”
Return of the Bears Ears Commission
One of the core components of the Bears Ears Coalition monument proposal was a vision for co-management, in which Tribes and the Federal Government would work together as sovereigns to set and implement the management plan for the monument. The Obama proclamation did not call for full co-management, but it did call for the establishment of a Bears Ears Commission comprised of representatives from each of the Coalition’s five Tribes - the Hopi, Navajo, Ute Mountain Ute, Ute Indian Tribe, and Zuni - that would provide guidance and recommendations on development and implementation of management plans.
Biden’s proclamation reestablishes that Commission. It’s expected that the Commission will work with the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to revamp the management plan put into place by the Trump administration, which opened up formerly protected lands to uranium mining and oil and gas drilling.
Supporters Celebrate on Cedar Mesa
The Salt Lake Tribune joined longtime advocates for Bears Ears as they gathered to celebrate their victory on Cedar Mesa, a sacred place for the region’s Indigenous peoples and a beloved place for people who know and are connected to the Bears Ears landscape. The gathering was organized by Utah Dine Bikeyah, an Indigenous-led nonprofit whose efforts to document Native peoples’ connection to the Bears Ears region in order to advocate for the area’s protection paved the way for the Bears Ears Coalition’s proposal, and the eventual establishment of the monument. From the Tribune article:
“We worked so hard for this,” said Leonard Lee, a founding board member of UDB. “It was an uphill battle. A lot of people thought that it was never going to become a reality. … But we had faith, we had prayers, we had songs done up here on the mesa. Today, the Holy People answered our prayer.”
Ida Yellowman of the Women of Bears Ears also referred to the landscape as a “healing place.”
“If there is anything you go away with today,” she said, “I hope you take with you the beauty of the land, the peacefulness … wherever it is you go — back to your city life, your office. In your mind, in your heart, when you want to get away, come back to this moment and it’s going to heal you.”
Utah Politicians: Restoration “a devastating blow”
True to form, Utah’s Congressional delegation slammed Biden’s move to restore the monument.
Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, tweeted, “The decision to re-expand the boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante is a devastating blow to our state, local, and tribal leaders and our delegation.”
Romney was joined by fellow Senator, Mike Lee (R-UT), and other monument opponents in penning an op-ed in the Deseret News titled “A Monumental Insult.” (Side note: We haven’t kept track of every Bears Ears article with a headline that incorporates the word “monumental,” but our best educated guess is that there are roughly 10,328 at this point.)
In it, they characterize Biden’s proclamation as perpetuating “a cycle of abuse under the Antiquities Act” - the Act that U.S. presidents use to create national monuments - “which ignores the rights and wills of Utahns,” whom they claim do not support the monument. (Some might take issue with this assessment, in particular the 55 percent of Utah voters who voiced their support for Bears Ears in a 2016 poll.) Moreover, they take Biden to task for not working with the Utah delegation and others in Congress to hammer out a legislative solution, which they believe would have been less controversial among their constituents than a unilateral decision made by a President (see “abuse under the Antiquities Act” above).
About that legislative solution…
Here’s the thing: Utah’s politicians have been attempting, and failing, to craft a legislative solution on Bears Ears for nearly a decade. In 2013, Congressman Rob Bishop attempted an ambitious process to create legislation that would have provided “certainty” on public lands in eight Utah counties, including San Juan County, where Bears Ears is located. Bishop’s efforts went down in flames after Tribes felt disrespected in discussions about legislation and withdrew from the process, paving the way for the Bears Ears Coalition’s proposal.
Fast forward five years. Congressman John Curtis (R-UT) introduced a bill in 2018 that sought to accomplish similar goals, but his decision to include language in the bill that would codify the boundaries of Trump’s much-reduced monument alienated the tribes. Nonetheless, he persisted in engaging Tribal leaders in conversations about how to “get to yes” on legislation. Those efforts failed to bear fruit before Biden made his move.
“Don’t celebrate just yet”
As millions of people in the U.S. and around the world celebrate the restoration of Bears Ears and what many view as a landmark victory for Indigenous self-determination, one of the Bears Ears Coalition’s first co-chairs expressed her skepticism that the federal government would truly honor its commitment to Tribes. In a remarkably frank interview with High Country News, Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe (who figures prominently in our book, Voices from Bears Ears: Seeking Common Ground on Sacred Land) explains how the history of the federal government’s consultation with Tribes informs her reservations about attempts to shape the future of Bears Ears, as well as her disappointment with some aspects of the Biden administration’s decision-making process regarding the monument.
In the end, Lopez-Whiteskunk returns to the importance of Bears Ears to Indigenous people, and why it is so important that the land be protected today and for future generations.
“We’re not saying we’re entitled to these lands. We’re saying we want these places protected because this is where life has always occurred for our people.”
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Read more about the years-long effort to determine the future of Bears Ears on our blog:
Setting the Stage: A wayback-machine piece from 2017 that gives a brief overview of the historical and cultural elements of the Bears Ears debate
Trump’s Executive Order: Context for Trump’s December 2017 move to slash Bears Ears National Monument by 85 percent. Things get spicy.
Separating Fact from Fiction: Breaking down - and in some cases, debunking - soundbites and catch phrases deployed by politicians and advocates on both sides of the Bears Ears issue.
There’s Oil in Them Thar Hills: This one’s a hat tip to some stellar reporting by New York Times journalists showing that the oil and gas industry lobbied heavily to shrink the boundaries of Bears Ears - and succeeded.
Conflict and Change in San Juan County: A look at the demographic and cultural shifts in San Juan County, home to Bears Ears, and what those changes portend for the future of the monument and the communities that surround it.
Biden’s Executive Order: A closer look at Biden’s first move to determine a new future for Bears Ears - and how protecting and preserving public lands is a key component of his plans to address the climate crisis and promote environmental justice and equity.
Interior Secretary Haaland at the Helm: Deb Haaland of Laguna Pueblo is the first Indigenous Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior. This piece explores the significance of her appointment, and how her leadership influenced the eventual restoration of Bears Ears.
Explore our Bears Ears series for Terrain.org:
You can find our series of stories and essays chronicling the Bears Ears saga in the renowned online environmental magazine, Terrain.org. With its focus on “the built and natural environments that might be called the soul of place,” Terrain.org is an ideal place to explore the economic, cultural, and spiritual connections to the Bears Ears landscape that inform the debate over its future.
And, oh yeah, we wrote a book all about Bears Ears. Check it out.
Voices from Bears Ears: Seeking Common Ground on Sacred Land was published by the University of Arizona Press in 2018 and was a finalist for the 2020 Oregon Book Award in the General Nonfiction category. From the official description: “Through voices of individuals and photographs of the landscape, Voices from Bears Ears shares the rich history of the Bears Ears region in southeastern Utah. By giving voice to a growing movement by Indigenous peoples to protect ancestral lands and culture and also to descendants of Mormon pioneers and the deeply held religious beliefs that connect them to the land, common ground becomes clear, along with the possibility for respectful compromise that lies beyond the politics of the moment, within the people and the land they cherish.”