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Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is in southern Utah this week visiting Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. Over the next two days, she will meet with stakeholders to discuss the restoration of the monuments whose boundaries were slashed by the Trump administration. In 2017, the Trump Interior Department shrunk Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante by 2 million acres, an unprecedented use of the Antiquities Act that continues to be litigated. It is widely expected that President Biden will restore protections for these monuments.
Yesterday, Haaland started the trip by meeting with state and tribal leaders, including the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition that proposed the monument during the Obama administration. While Haaland has stated that she will hear from "all sides" on this issue, the majority of Utahns—74%—agree that the boundaries of these monuments should be restored.
Restoring the monuments is an important and necessary step for protecting the natural and cultural resources within their original boundaries. In Bears Ears National Monument, rising visitation has had a significant impact on the land. Areas cut out of the monument have experienced looting, and ATV tracks crisscross sensitive ecosystems and archaeological sites. President Biden has committed to protecting 30% of America by 2030, and restoring Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante would not only contribute acres to that goal, but also address the 30x30 goal's focus on supporting tribal sovereignty and indigenous-led conservation efforts.
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For the first time ever, Native people led the way in achieving a 1.35 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument. The Inter-Tribal Coalition engaged patiently to have their religious freedom and hunting and gathering rights recognized, and to have their traditional knowledge and Indigenous science incorporated into the management of Bears Ears. That recognition and right must be returned to them.”
