by Tim Peterson, Utah Wildlands Director
When President Trump traveled to Utah last month to carve up Bears Ears and Grand Staircase national monuments, he attempted to unprotect cliff dwellings contructed by some of Utah's earliest inhabitants.
When Trump took a hatchet to Bears Ears National Monument's original boundaries on December 4, 2017, many of these structures found themselves suddenly outside the monument. Here's a look at just a few of the sites Trump wants stripped of national monument protections:
Structure in western Cedar Mesa canyons stripped of monument protection, Bears Ears. JONATHAN BAILEY
Western Cedar Mesa canyons cliff dwelling stripped of monument protection, Bears Ears. JONATHAN BAILEY
Not only are these structures and dwellings objects of historic and scientific interest — precisely the kinds of objects the Antiquities Act of 1906 seeks to protect within national monuments — they are vital links to the past and the cultures of the tribes whose ancestors called the Bears Ears region home.
"The cultural resources here, the petroglyphs, the structures, all of this, is evidence of the Native people who lived in and passed through Bears Ears" says Zuni elder Octavius Seowtewa. "This cultural information is important for all Native people...if this information is lost, it's lost forever."
The Native American tribes who petitioned for Bears Ears to be protected as a national monument to begin with, the Grand Canyon Trust, and others are suing President Trump to protect ancient buildings like these and restore national monument protections to the over 1 million acres excised from the monument.
A small victory in the legal case challenging Daneros uranium mine, near Bears Ears National Monument.
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Find out how the Bureau of Land Management is planning to protect old-growth forests, creeks, canyons, fossils, and more in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.
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