No time to waste in restoring our national monuments
Visit from Secretary Haaland showed strong support for protecting Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante
On his first day as president, Joe Biden directed the Interior Department to evaluate whether his administration should reverse or modify President Trump’s egregious decision to dramatically shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments in Utah. Last week, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland visited southern Utah to hear from local communities, Native American tribes, and elected officials as she prepares recommendations for President Biden. After her trip, it is clear there is strong support for restoring protections for both national monuments and that failing to act quickly will leave these landscapes vulnerable to looting, vandalism, and the pressures of increased visitation without sufficient management tools.
To properly assess Secretary Haaland’s visit to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, it’s important to revisit the last time an Interior Secretary visited these national monuments when providing recommendations to the president on whether to modify their boundaries or management practices. In 2017, then-Secretary Ryan Zinke whirled through Utah, meeting extensively with monument opponents while ignoring local supporters, touring a potential coal mining location, posing for photos on horseback, and famously telling a Native American woman asking him to meet with tribal leaders to “be nice.” On that trip, the uranium company Energy Fuels Resources handed out maps to Trump administration officials proposing areas surrounding their uranium mine and mining claims be carved from Bears Ears National Monument. The outcome was stark — based on Zinke’s recommendations, President Trump cut roughly 2 million acres from the two national monuments, including the lands identified for uranium and coal mining, as well as countless cultural sites and landmarks sacred to local tribes.
In her first major trip as Interior Secretary, Deb Haaland’s approach could not have been more different. Throughout her visit, Haaland took pains to meet with an extensive range of stakeholders, including Utah’s entire Congressional delegation, state leaders, local elected officials, conservation organizations, mining companies, ranchers, local business owners, paleontologists, and archaeologists. Notably, Haaland, the first ever Native American Interior Secretary, met with leaders of the five Native American tribes who first requested the Bears Ears area be protected as a national monument.
The feedback Haaland received on her trip was clear — tribes, local communities, and people around the country care deeply about Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments and want to see the areas protected. Indeed, elected leaders from the two counties closest to Bears Ears National Monument, business owners on the border of Grand Staircase-Escalante, and elected tribal officials all underscored the importance of restoring and expanding monument borders and protections.
In addition to the in-person feedback Haaland heard in Utah, recent polling and data analysis shows that shrinking Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments was wildly unpopular, and restoring protections to these landscapes has broad public support. An analysis of more than 2.5 million public comments submitted to the Trump Interior Department showed that 98% of respondents opposed reducing or eliminating national monuments. Further, 88% of self-identified Utahns who submitted comments supported maintaining Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante as is. Recent polling released by Colorado College’s State of the Rockies project showed that 77% of voters in eight Mountain West states support restoring protections for national monuments, including 74% of voters in Utah.
The consequences of failing to act swiftly are increasingly apparent. Last year an estimated 420,000 people visited the Bears Ears region, a sharp increase from previous years. At the same time, President Trump’s decision to shrink the monument by 85% removed tools from land managers to help mitigate the impacts from increased visitation, leading to more off-road vehicle damage, looting, and vandalism. As Tim Peterson from the Grand Canyon Trust put it, “Google is really managing the monument.”
By instructing his administration to consider reinstating protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments on his first day in office, it is apparent President Biden understands the importance of these two iconic landscapes. Similarly, taking her first major trip as Interior Secretary to southern Utah shows the significance Deb Haaland places on hearing from local communities, elected leaders, and Native American tribes when making her recommendations. As President Biden and his administration decide which actions to take, one thing is crystal clear — there is no time to waste in restoring protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. With skyrocketing visitation and increased pressure from development, the Biden administration must act quickly to protect these irreplaceable landscapes that are sacred to nearby tribes and that support local communities.
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