View this email in your browser

2022: A Year of Monumental Moments

Thank you for following our work and for supporting the work of the Hopi Tribe, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, the Zuni Tribe, the Navajo Nation, and Ute Indian Tribe - member Tribes of the Coalition and Commission - who are fearlessly defending their ancestral homelands and sacred places in Bears Ears.

2022 was a year of immense progress thanks to supporters like you. The Coalition Tribes made significant strides towards ensuring that Bears Ears will continue to be stewarded by Indigenous perspectives moving forward. Throughout 2022, the Coalition held nine in-person meetings with Tribal leadership and the Cultural Resources Subcommittee; nearly half also included meetings with our collaborative management counterparts from the US Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). These in-person meetings are in addition to weekly virtual Tribal Leader meetings, and bi-weekly virtual meetings with federal land planners. These important meetings provide the opportunity for the Coalition Tribes to educate agency personnel around Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Traditional Indigenous Science, come together to heal, promote inter-Tribal relations, and allow for better understanding of one another, all while strategizing and collaborating for the protection of the Bears Ears cultural landscape.

Among the most significant accomplishments this year, the five Tribes signed a cooperative agreement with federal agencies for the collaborative management of the Bears Ears National Monument (BENM) and launched the first iteration of a potentially permanent youth stewardship program, the Bears Ears Conservation Corps. Another major success was the release of the Coalition’s Tribal Land Management Plan for the BENM to our agency partners and to the public. As an acknowledgement to this year’s progress, the BENM was featured among the examples of co-stewardship agreements signed this year by both the Department of Interior and the USFS.

The First Ever Bears Ears Conservation Corp (BECC): During the week of October 17-21st, the Coalition held the pilot project of the Bears Ears Native Conservation Corp in Arch Canyon, UT, which is located on the landscape of Bears Ears National Monument.

BECC participants, included youth and elders, representing the Zuni and Hopi Tribes and the Navajo Nation. Together, we successfully removed a defunct barbed wire fence that was obstructing an important cultural site and workshopped future management actions for this site with collaborators from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the United States Forest Service (USFS).

Signing of the Cooperative Agreement

Perhaps the most consequential accomplishment of the year was entering into a historic and unprecedented cooperative agreement with the United States Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management and the United States Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service at the White Mesa Community Center, located on Ute Mountain Ute lands.

On a sunny Saturday morning in June, just outside of the Monument boundaries, the five Coalition Tribes signed an agreement with federal agencies codifying the collaborative management of the Bears Ears National Monument. With this agreement, the Coalition Tribes will advance principles of Indigenous Stewardship and will apply their Traditional Knowledge for the management of the BENM, as partners to the federal agencies. The signatories of the cooperative agreement included the Chairman of the Hopi Tribe, Mr. Timothy Nuvangyaoma; (former) President of the Navajo Nation, Mr. Jonathan Nez; Councilman of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Mr. Malcolm Lehi; Councilman of the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Business Committee, Mr. Christopher Tabbee; (former) Lieutenant Governor of the Zuni Tribe, Mr. Carleton Bowekaty; Director of the Bureau of Land Management, Ms. Tracy Stone-Manning; and Under Secretary of Natural Resources and Environment, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Mr. Homer L. Wilkes.

The agreement obligates each Tribe and both agencies to work together to achieve the multitude of goals and commitments in the Obama and Biden Proclamations establishing and restoring the BENM. The significance of this agreement cannot be understated. Because of this extraordinary agreement, Bears Ears will be managed differently from other federal lands, and we are confident that other Tribal Nations will become meaningfully involved in the management of their ancestral homelands and sacred places on public lands across North America.

Following the signing of the cooperative agreement, there was a ceremony unveiling the new BENM signs. The new signs contain Tribal seals representing each of the five Tribes of the Bears Ears Commission. The sign unveiling was celebrated by Tribal leaders and staff, Agency leaders and staff, Coalition staff, Tribal members, grassroots supporters, NGO partners and local and regional advocates.

Read News Coverage of the Signing of the Cooperative Agreement

The sign unveiling was celebrated by Tribal leaders and staff, Agency leaders and staff, Coalition staff, Tribal members, grassroots supporters, NGO partners and local and regional advocates.

The new signs contain Tribal seals representing each of the five Tribes of the Bears Ears Commission.

Tribal Land Management Plan

Soon after signing the cooperative agreement, the Coalition released their Tribal Land Management Plan (LMP).

This plan synthesizes the perspectives of five distinct Tribal Nations and their collaborative plan for Bears Ears. The Tribal LMP took over four years of coordination, hundreds of hours of thought-work, and extensive efforts to document the cultural and historical expertise of the five Tribes by the Coalition’s Cultural Resources Subcommittee (CRS). The CRS is composed of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers and staff, Cultural Resources Officers and subject-matter experts on staff, Tribal archaeologists, Tribal Elders, and other Traditional knowledge-holders from each of the five Tribes. In addition to these Tribal members sharing their cultural expertise, each of the Tribal governments ratified the LMP before it was submitted to federal agencies and released to the public.

The Tribal LMP expresses the goals and values of the five Tribes for the Bears Ears National Monument. The plan is grounded in a holistic, earth-to-sky approach to both land and cultural resources management. We are working hard to ensure that the Tribes’ Traditional Knowledge is included in the final Monument Management Plan for the BENM. While the Coalition recognizes that this is not the final management plan for Bears Ears, we hope that it is the beginning of a new chapter in collaborative management.

Find the Summary of the Tribal Land Management Plan

Community-building, Education, and Partnerships

In addition to our major accomplishments, the Coalition also completed many smaller projects and participated in various community-building activities. We compiled a list just to name a few:

In January, former BEITC Cultural Resource Manager, Brandy Hurt, spoke as a panelist for World Monuments Fund’s On My Watch Event. The panel centered the Bears Ears cultural landscape and Indigenous-informed Conservation Strategies.
In March, the Committee on Natural Resources hosted a remote oversight hearing entitled: Examining the History of Federal Lands and the Development of Tribal Co-Management. The honorable Carleton Bowekaty (former) Lieutenant Governor, Pueblo of Zuni and BEITC Co-Chair, spoke at the hearing and provided testimony.
In April, our Communications and Partnerships Director, Ruben Pacheco attended and volunteered at Utah Dineh Bikeyah’s (UDB) 10 Year Anniversary/BENM Restoration Celebration in Bluff, UT.
In July, we welcomed new staff including our Co-Director, Hillary Hoffmann; our Administrative Assistant, Liberty Kinsel (Diné); our Collaborative Management and Tribal Support Specialist, Lauren Henson; and we hired a Summer Intern, Tristen George (Diné).
In September, our Co-Director, Hillary Hoffmann participated as a panelist on a Virtual Dialogue on Intergovernmental Relations in NEPA Processes organized by the Udall Foundation.
In November, our Co-Director, Charissa Miijessepe-Wilson participated as a panelist exploring topics related to Native Land Stewardship for The Wilderness Society.
In November, our Collaborative Management and Tribal Support Specialist, Lauren Henson, organized a meeting with leaders from the Hopi Nation and land managers from the BLM and the USFS. They visited Hopi villages, benefited from cultural literacy training, and learned about the Hopi’s historical and cultural connections to the Bears Ears region. This meeting explored ways for the community to benefit from collaborative management, including the potential for providing access to fire wood to Hopi communities from vegetation treatment projects within the Monument and possibilities for youth to spend time on the landscape.
In November, Scholastic News, a kid-friendly learning resource, published an article, video and learning materials for fourth and fifth graders about the history and background of the BENM. The materials for this lesson plan were informed by an interview with BEITC Co-Chair and (former) Lieutenant Governor of Zuni, Carleton Bowekaty.
Throughout the year, the Coalition provided financial support to various organizations for community outreach projects, including the Utah Diné Bikéyah Summer Gathering in Bear Ears, the Pikinuiv Wood Haulers, the Salt Lake City Air Protectors, the White Mesa Spiritual Walk, Elevate Conservation, and more.

The Coalition wants to thank you for the continued support. We accomplished a lot in 2022 and we’re excited to embark on this path towards building meaningful relationships with our community, partners, and federal agencies. As always, thank you, and we pray for health and well-being for you and your loved ones.

Copyright © 2023, Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
2632 Mesilla St NE, Suite 3, Albuquerque NM 87110

Want to change how you receive these emails?
You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.