"A major land-use decision still sits on the desk of President Barack Obama. An inter-tribal coalition of five Native nations is petitioning to use the Antiquities Act to create 1.9 million acres of southeastern Utah, around the Bears Ears butte, as a new National Monument.
The 1.9 million acre Bears Ears National Monument proposed for federal lands in southeastern Utah. View a detailed map of the proposed area.
It would include a museum-like center focused on both tribal knowledge and scientific knowledge. As proposed, a joint federal-tribal council would manage the monument. Tribal representatives would form a majority of the council — the first time since the United States was founded that Natives have formally controlled the lands where they originated, rather than the reservations where they were confined.
The proposal has reignited the long-standing anger of local residents and their representatives who deeply resent federal moves to take more control over the lands that they call home. There is no local official on the proposed monument council. Opponents include Navajos who live nearby.
As a recent issue of High Country News explained, people of many cultures call the region home. In the 1860s, Navajos were brutally evicted from the area by U.S. troops. Within the proposed monument lands are countless sites with a rich trove of rock art and artifacts left by the ancestors of modern Zuni and Hopi Natives — sites that have been looted for years. The area is also a touchstone for Mormon settlers descended from members of the Hole in the Rock expedition, who nearly died on their pioneering journey to the region in 1879. Its mineral resources have kept it on the radar of the mining industry. A rival proposal for state control of the area is pending in Congress."
