When President Obama designated Bears Ears National Monument in December 2016, protection for the region was long overdue. Monument protection for southeast Utah had been considered since the 1930s, but it took the coordination, persistence, and sovereign status of five Native nations (the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni, and Ute Indian Tribe) for the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition to ultimately gain protections for 1.35 million acres of their ancestral homelands.
Less than a year later, President Trump ignored overwhelming public support for Bears Ears and slashed the monument by 85 percent. We’re challenging his reductions in court and are committed to restoring Bears Ears National Monument’s original boundaries.
Bears Ears is a cultural landscape, home to Indigenous people since time immemorial. Now, it's threatened by drilling, mining, and irresponsible recreation. Urge decision-makers to restore and expand the monument and to incorporate Indigenous traditional knowledge and Indigenous science into monument management.
The original Bears Ears National Monument encompassed some of our country’s finest cultural resources, spanning 12,000 years of human history, as well as fragile historic sites and yet-to-be studied fossil sites. Now fragmented into two units, the shrunken boundaries leave more than a million acres of previously protected land vulnerable to mining, drilling, and irresponsible off-road vehicle use.
Radioactive waste produced in Estonia and Japan could soon be shipped around the globe to a uranium mill next to Bears Ears and on the doorstep of the White Mesa Ute community.
What were the real motivations behind shrinking Bears Ears? Mining. Government documents show that oil, natural gas, coal, and uranium deposits were central to the president’s boundary revisions.
The Daneros uranium mine lies three miles from the original boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument. Its owners are looking to expand the mine to more than 10 times its current size, increase uranium ore production by 400 percent, and extend the life of the mine by 13 years. We’re challenging the Bureau of Land Management’s decision to allow this expansion of the Daneros uranium mine without conducting an in-depth environmental review. More on the case ›
Bears Ears is a landscape of stories — they’re etched in stone, sculpted in pottery, and cemented in cliff dwellings. They also live in the hearts of modern Indigenous people whose cultural connections have spanned across the region for millennia. We have a lot to learn. It’s time to listen.
In 2015, the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition set aside their many differences and united to petition the Obama administration to protect public lands in southeastern Utah as Bears Ears National Monument. Led by the Hopi, Navajo, Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Zuni nations, and supported by more than 250 tribes across America, the coalition’s successful proposal marks the first Native-driven national monument campaign in history and acknowledges that tribes — and all Americans — have a shared responsibility to preserve this world treasure.
Bears Ears is a different kind of national monument — where Native American traditional knowledge is a value to be protected and a resource to be used in day-to-day land management. President Obama’s proclamation laid out a framework for an intertribal commission to inform how federal agencies manage the monument by incorporating Native American traditional knowledge and Western science. It's the strongest example of federal and intertribal collaborative management in American law. Read more about the historic designation ›
Poll after poll shows that Americans love national monuments. During Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke’s monument review in 2017, more than 2.8 million people wrote comments in defense of Bears Ears. A sampling of all comments received through the government’s portal found that 98.2 percent of people “expressed support for national monument designations, while less than 2 percent expressed opposition to monument designations.” Bears Ears is so loved because it's a place where everyone has a story to tell. Take a look at one of them ›
Cedar Mesa, Comb Ridge, and the Abajo Mountains offer truly unparalled opportunities to hike into rugged canyons, see archaeological sites, and enjoy solitude. See for yourself why Bears Ears deserves protection ›
Tribal elders and leaders share tips about how to visit cultural landscapes like Bears Ears respectfully.
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Secretary Haaland recently wrapped up a visit to southern Utah where she listened to all perspectives on the question of national monuments.
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The national monuments debate continues as Deb Haaland, now at the helm of the Interior Department, heads to Utah for a visit.
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