- Coalition of five American Indian tribes calls for President Obama to create a huge national monument in southeastern Utah.
Stating that they feel ignored by a broad-based Public Lands Initiative, a coalition of five American Indian tribes is calling for President Obama to create a huge national monument in southeastern Utah. Representatives of the Bears Ears Coalition held a press conference Thursday morning in Washington, D.C., to announce their proposal for a 1.9- million-acre monument. The coalition includes the Navajo, Ute Mountain Ute, Hopi, Uintah and Ouray Ute, and Zuni tribes. The monument would extend north from the San Juan River toward Moab and would encompass such areas as Grand Gulch, Cedar Mesa, part of the Manti-La Sal National Forest, and the Bears Ears Buttes. San Juan County, which is home to most of the proposed monument, has been conducting a public process to make recommendations on federal-lands management as part of an initiative started by Utah Congressman Rob Bishop in 2013. But in their written proposal, the Bears Ears Coalition charges that San Juan County ignored input from the nonprofit Utah Diné Bikéyah, which represented the Navajos and Utes, and wanted to designate much of the area an “energy zone”. They say the San Juan County Commission “has always been in favor of big, rapid development and indifferent at best to Indian and environmental concerns.” The coalition says the monument is needed because of threats from oil and gas drilling, potash mining and what they term “the gruesome, deeply painful robbery and vandalism of graves and villages” by pothunters. The coalition says this is the first time tribes have ever come together to ask the President to use the Antiquities Act to protect Native American artifacts on public lands. In a statement, Congressman Bishop and Utah Senators Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee responded that, “The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition is an important stakeholder in the Public Lands Initiative” and say that they “remain committed to reviewing each proposal and producing a final PLI bill that is balanced and broadly supported.” They also say that many Native American residents of Utah oppose the coalition’s proposal.
