BY ISOBEL LINGENFELTER
The Bears Ears area has a rich human history, incredible natural beauty and large untrammeled landscapes that deserve protection as a national monument by President Obama. And although it may surprise many people who have only recently heard about the national monument campaign, the desire to protect Bears Ears is not new; concerted efforts to permanently protect the area have been under way for 80 years.
The groundwork for protection began in 1906, when Congress passed the Antiquities Act in response to the looting and grave-robbing taking place in the Four Corners region, at places like Mesa Verde. The Ancestral Puebloan sites found there are intimately tied to the more than 100,000 archaeological sites found within the 1.9-million-acre Bears Ears National Monument proposal today...