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John,
The United States has a long history of wrongdoing and mistreatment of Indigenous people and their sacred lands, but now members of several tribes in Utah are attempting to reclaim their land.
As the first national monument proposed by a coalition of Tribal Nations, Bears Ears gained protections under the Obama Administration but lost protections under the Trump Administration.
The five Tribes of the Bears Ears Commission (BEC) -- Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and the Zuni Tribe -- are among the many Tribal Nations with deep cultural connections to the entire Bears Ears landscape.
They helped win the reinstatement of protections under President Biden, who restored the original designation and re-established the BEC as collaborative managers of these sacred lands and waters.
In an unprecedented collaborative process, the BEC worked directly with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service to develop a draft resource management plan for the monument, which has just been released.
This new resource management proposal signifies a pivotal shift in federal-Tribal relations and approach to Tribally-informed management.
This proposal is historic, but we must advocate for its adoption before a final decision is made.
Click here to add your name to the public comment in support of Tribal sovereignty and sustainable management of public lands.
Bears Ears landscape is over 1.9 million acres, and the land management plan is rooted in Indigenous perspectives and sustainable conservation practices that have been developed over centuries.1
The members of the BEC were the first Tribes to ever petition for a presidentially declared national monument. Not only are the Tribes deeply rooted in the communities surrounding Bears Ears, they also possess Traditional Ecological Knowledge to sustain the land.
The self-determination of Indigenous people is essential to right historical wrongs and to protect our environment. Click here to add your name to the public comment supporting Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.
Thank you for all you do,
Deborah Weinstein
Executive Director, CHN Action
1 The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition
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