Trump dramatically cuts size of two national monuments held sacred by tribes

Summary

Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah will lose ‘close to a million and a half acres each’ and open land to developers and oil industry Donald Trump has approved a sharp reduction in the size of two national monuments in Utah held sacred by many Native Americans , in the latest move to open US public land to corporate developers and the oil and gas industry. The two monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, will see a reduction of “close to a million and a half acres each”, Trump said during an executive order signing event on Monday, undoing protections established by former presidents. “They took the land from the people quite honestly,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday. “We’re giving it back.” The Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in southern Utah have ancient cliff dwellings, petroglyphs and scenic canyons, as well as coal and uranium deposits that state officials want made available for development. The executive order marked the second time Trump has made such an approval. In 2017, during his first term, the president also shrank the designations for the national monuments, an effort that was later reversed by the Biden administration. “We believe that under the Antiquities Act, it’s very clear that these monument designations are supposed to be the smallest area possible to protect the antiquities, and these multimillion-acre monuments that are bigger than the state of Delaware certainly do not fit that designation,” said Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah who joined Trump at the signing event on Monday. The Antiquities Act gives presidents the power to grant legal protections to sites considered historic, archaeologically significant or culturally important. Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was established by Bill Clinton in 1996. Barack Obama created Bears Ears National Monument in 2016 under the 1906 law. The downsizing, while expected, has prompted criticism from environmental advocates and tribal representatives who have fought for years to protect the monuments. Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, said it would take “legal action to maintain protections for these treasured landscapes”. “President Trump’s attack on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments is just as illegal today as it was in 2017,” said Heidi McIntosh, managing attorney for Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain office, in a statement. “The Antiquities Act authorizes presidents to designate national monuments, not to destroy them”. “Today’s proclamations are a slap to the face of public lands visitors across the country, as well as the local communities and tribes that have worked for years to protect these special places”, McIntosh added. Davina Smith-Idjesa, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, said tribal leaders had braced for a reduction since Trump was elected to a second term.