In a previous post I mentioned the Bears Ears proposal to create a new national monument, and now Meteor Blades on The Daily Kos reports that President Obama has declared Bears Ears to be a new national monument. The proclamation is here, with this taste of it:
Source: Native News Online
Rising from the center of the southeastern Utah landscape and visible from every direction are twin buttes so distinctive that in each of the native languages of the region their name is the same: Hoon’Naqvut, Shash Jáa, Kwiyagatu Nukavachi, Ansh An Lashokdiwe, or “Bears Ears.” For hundreds of generations, native peoples lived in the surrounding deep sandstone canyons, desert mesas, and meadow mountaintops, which constitute one of the densest and most significant cultural landscapes in the United States. Abundant rock art, ancient cliff dwellings, ceremonial sites, and countless other artifacts provide an extraordinary archaeological and cultural record that is important to us all, but most notably the land is profoundly sacred to many Native American tribes, including the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah Ouray, Hopi Nation, and Zuni Tribe.
The area’s human history is as vibrant and diverse as the ruggedly beautiful landscape. From the earliest occupation, native peoples left traces of their presence. Clovis people hunted among the cliffs and canyons of Cedar Mesa as early as 13,000 years ago, leaving behind tools and projectile points in places like the Lime Ridge Clovis Site, one of the oldest known archaeological sites in Utah. Archaeologists believe that these early people hunted mammoths, ground sloths, and other now-extinct megafauna, a narrative echoed by native creation stories. Hunters and gatherers continued to live in this region in the Archaic Period, with sites dating as far back as 8,500 years ago.
The proclamation goes on for quite a while, describing the resources being brought under protection, and is the first such proclamation I’ve read – although I admit to not having a great deal of patience for it.
Meteor Blades is worried:
However, some foes of the designations hope to reverse them when the Trump regime takes office in January. They argue that Obama has abused the executive authority granted by the act. What they mean is they don’t like the law because it limits where and how private parties can make big bucks off public land.
No president ever has retracted a monument designated by a predecessor, and the courts have several times backed up executive authority in the matter, beginning with the case of Cameron vs. United States in 1920. But given the kind of renegade reinterpretation a Trumpian judiciary could take, there’s no certainty that stare decisis will keep an existing presidentially declared monument from being unproclaimed. …
Environmentalists—like the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) that has for decades been seeking protection for Bears Ears—and the five tribal governments of the Inter-Tribal Coalition are elated by the Bears Ears decision. But there is no joy in the all-Republican Utah congressional delegation or the governor’s mansion. That’s so even though the president reduced the monument from the 1.9 million acres backers had sought. Indeed, there are Republican plans—which were in the works well before the president’s announcement—to overturn monument status for the site once Obama leaves office.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens if Trump tries to withdraw the proclamation. Meanwhile, I missed this article from Utah Public Radio on dissenting Navajo chapters back in May 2016:
With help from the organization Sutherland Institute, members of two chapters of the Navajo Nation have released a video in opposition to a plan that asks President Obama to use the U.S. Antiquities Act to declare 1.9 million acres of tribal area lands as a national monument.
In a YouTube video, members of the Aneth and the Olijato chapter of the Navajo Nation said turning Bears Ears into a national monument could keep them from accessing roads and resources important to their traditions.
The report also comes with recorded interviews with native people against the then-proposed national monument. For context, Wikipedia tells me the Sutherland Institute is a conservative think tank opposed to bigger government.
Native News Online does not mention any native peoples opposition in their report:
There have been over 80 years of various efforts to protect the Bears Ears region, beginning with former Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes in 1936 and by Members of Congress, state, local and tribal leaders, and conservation groups in recent decades. Most recently the Hopi Nation, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah Ouray, and Zuni Tribe developed a proposal to protect the area, and U.S. Representatives Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz introduced the Public Lands Initiative, legislation that included a similar protection proposal for the Bears Ears landscape. Today’s action responds to both of these recent proposals, recognizing the areas where there is broad agreement about the need for protections, tribal engagement, and allowances for historical uses such as grazing. Today’s action also establishes a process for developing a management plan that will ensure robust opportunities for all interested stakeholders to provide input about how the monument should be managed.
Indeed, this rather bland report makes it seem as if Chaffetz’ proposal is much like the final national monument designation. I wonder how he’d feel about that. I know even less about Native News Online than I do about the Sutherland Institute.
