BY KRISTINA JOHNSON
Seven years ago, the Navajo tribal council in southeastern Utah started mapping the secret sites where medicine men and women forage for healing plants and Native people source wild foods. They wanted to make a case for protecting the landscape known as Bears Ears, a place sacred not only to their tribe but to many other tribes in the region, going back thousands of years. In one of his final acts in office, President Obama late last month created the 1.35 million-acre Bears Ears National Monument, a move that proponents say will safeguard the area's ecology and guarantee food sovereignty for the region's Native Americans.