Healing Bears Ears Campaign
Over the next couple months, we will be launching our Healing Bears Ears Campaign that will highlight significant issues occurring on the Bears Ears landscape today.
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Dear Bears Ears Supporter,
As we continue our Healing Bears Ears Campaign, we will highlight significant issues occurring on the Bears Ears cultural landscape today. Almost 9 months ago, the Biden-Harris Administration directed a review of the illegal reduction of the Bears Ears National Monument boundaries, yet we anxiously await a decision on restoration, even after Secretary Haaland completed her review and recommended that earlier boundaries be restored. While we await a decision, it is critical that we all do our best to spread awareness and help protect this important region. With your donation to the Healing Bears Ears Campaign you can assist in this battle for restorative justice and support us as we pursue the following goals: 1) Restore and expand Bears Ears National Monument to 1.9 Million acres: 2) Elevate Indigenous voices; and 3) Heal the earth.
*Please Note: this month's email depicts purposeful destruction and erasure of Indigenous ancestral connections. We decided to share only to demonstrate the urgency of protecting the Bears Ears cultural landscape.
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This month’s focus area is: Looting, Grave Robbing, and Desecration
The Bears Ears Region is one of America’s most archeologically and culturally rich regions yet it also one of the most unprotected. Looting, vandalism, and grave robbing continue to occur on a running basis. The increased publicity of this area has made these desecrations even worse; not having the proper protections only exacerbates the problem. The area is estimated to contain more than 100,000 cultural and archeological sites in its proposed 1.9 million acre range. For Indigenous people, cultural landscapes are sacred places. It is important that visitors show reverence for the land, especially since the illegal monument reduction in 2017 left the Bears Ears cultural landscape vulnerable to various threats such as looting & grave robbing, mining and energy development, irresponsible motorized travel, and uneducated visitors. Crimes of this nature are historically underreported and it is likely that many instances remain unknown. When special places like Bears Ears are damaged, or when its cultural resources are lost, the traditions and practices that are tied to them often suffer the same fate.
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The Problem
Looting, desecration and vandalism are common problems and these practices have long been a regular occurrence in Bears Ears. According to archaeologists and law enforcement officers who patrol the area, these types of destructive incidents have been on the rise. Archaeologists have found that many looters target burial grounds and graves in order to recover valuable and intact items buried with the dead. Human bones are often cast aside.
Examples of destruction and desecration in the Bears Ears Area
Since 2012
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Campers tore down a 19th century Navajo Hogan for use as firewood.
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Looters desecrated a burial site in Butler Wash.
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A 2,000-year-old pictograph site in Grand Gulch was vandalized.
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Three remote burial sites in Cedar Mesa were dug up and looted, and a separate burial site was dug up in Reed Basin.
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Prehistoric walls were torn down at the Monarch Cave and Double Stack Ruins on Comb Ridge.
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A petroglyph was partially removed from a wall with a rock saw and chisel badly damaging the ancient rock art.
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Rock art in a cave was vandalized with names scratched in the art.
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A fire ring on Muley Point was constructed out of materials from a 2,000 to 3,000 year-old-site.
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ATV riders intentionally left the trail to drive through two archaeological sites in the lower Fish Creek Canyon Wilderness Study Area.
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From small-scale theft to ancestral remains being tossed aside as graves are plundered, these deplorable acts are threatening the past and future of sacred archaeology in Bears Ears. Looting, desecration and destruction impacts the integrity of archeological records and impedes on the ability of archaeologists to understand the past. Monument protection status for Bears Ears is urgent and will ease the wave of looting and vandalism. When compared to many of the already-protected cultural areas in the Four Corners region, Bears Ears and its estimated 100,000 cultural and archaeological sites clearly and desperately need similar protections.
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Impacts to Indigenous People
It is important to shed light on these crimes that happen daily in this culturally sensitive area. Each day we go without restoration of the Bears Ears National Monument we lose more culturally relevant information forever. The implications this has on Indigenous people is the loss of cultural and traditional knowledge for those with ties to this area. Bears Ears is home to the dwellings of our ancestors, the final resting places of our people, and the sacred area where our people still collect traditional herbs and medicines. It is a living landscape that is a part of our people and the loss we experience every day by individuals who choose to disrespect this landscape only deepens the wounds, and exacerbates the harms done to the original inhabitants.
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Your Donations Do Good!
You as a generous supporter of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition therefore, are directly assisting with the conservation and restoration of this treasured landscape. Your commitment, passion, and love for the land gives us a presence that helps carry us through these challenging times. The effort to heal Bears Ears as a cultural landscape – to preserve our stories, our histories, our art, and our connections to this region – will be a lifelong journey.
Thank you for walking with us.
Thank you • Elahkwa • Ahéhee' • Kwakwhay • Askwali • Tog'oiak'
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