Top 10 Stories of 2021 | No. 8: Biden restores three national monuments, including Bears Ears

Posted by Krista Allen | Jan 4, 2022 | 2021 in Review, News |

DÁ’DEESTŁ’IN HÓTSAA

President Joe Biden in October restored two national monuments in Utah and a marine monument off the New England coast, revising a decision by former President Donald Trump.

Biden announced on Oct. 8 that he would use his executive authority to restore Bears Ears, Grand Staircase-Escalante and the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts, which had been stripped away by Trump.

Biden reinstated and slightly expanded the original 1.3 million-acre boundaries of Shash Jaa’ and restored the original 1.8 million-acre boundaries of Grand Staircase.

Both monuments were created by Democratic administrations under the Antiquities Act, which allows U.S. presidents to protect sites considered historically, geographically or culturally important.

During a White House ceremony attended by Democratic lawmakers, tribal leaders, and others, Biden said restoring the monuments’ boundaries and protections restores integrity, upholds efforts to honor the federal trust responsibility to tribes and conserves the lands and waters for future generations.

Biden said Shash Jaa’ is a place of healing and a place of reverence and a sacred homeland that includes ancient cliff dwellings and petroglyphs.

In a 2017 decision, Trump had slashed the size of all three national monuments at the urging of ranchers, the fishing industry and many Republican leaders, opening them to mining, drilling and development.

He sharply reduced Shash Jaa’ by 85%, which alarmed conservationists, environmentalists and tribes, among others.

While Biden’s move on Indigenous Peoples’ Day this year pleased some people, it angered Utah officials.

“The president’s decision to enlarge the monuments again is a tragic missed opportunity,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said in a statement. “It fails to provide certainty as well as the funding for law enforcement, research and other protections which the monuments need and which only congressional action can offer.”

Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, said Biden “squandered the opportunity to build consensus.

“Yet again, Utah’s national monuments are being used as a political football between administrations,” Romney said.

Biden’s announcement indicates that his administration met with members of Congress, state and local government officials, tribal representatives, and a wide range of stakeholders before coming to a decision to restore the monuments’ original boundaries.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland in April was the third Interior secretary in less than five years to visit Shash Jaa’ and Grand Staircase to understand the significance of a landscape with a cultural heritage that goes back thousands of years. The Diné welcomed her home to Shash Jaa’.

In July, Natives from across the Four Corners gathered on the banks of the San Juan River in Bluff-Sand Island, Utah, to offer prayers and blessings to a totem pole on its way to Washington, D.C.

The 24-foot-long, 4,900-pound totem pole was carved from a 400-year-old western redcedar. It was carved by the Lummi people, the Lhaq’temish (pronounced Lock-tuh-mish), and is meant to raise awareness about Native issues and the need to protect water and sacred sites such as Shash Jaa’.

All in all, the fight for Bears Ears is complex and multilayered – from on-the-ground stewardship work to suing the Trump administration to restore the original boundaries and protecting the integrity of the Antiquities Act.