BY ROBINSON MEYER
In the final days of 2016, President Barack Obama made a final addition to the conserved lands of the United States.
He brought Bears Ears National Monument into existence, designating a new federally protected area of more than 1.3 million acres in southeast Utah. The park, Obama said, was chosen not only for its beauty—his proclamation spoke of “deep sandstone canyons, desert mesas, and meadow mountaintops”—but for its importance to local Native American tribes. The Navajo, the Hopi, the Ute, and the Zuni all hold the site as sacred...