Details are starting to come out regarding President Trump’s plans to reduce the size of two national monuments in Utah.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the current Bear’s Ears National Monument will be split into two monuments, and the current Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument will be divided into three.
The Trib says Bear’s Ears will be divided into Shah Jaa at 129,980 acres and Indian Creek at 71,896 acres. Those will total 201,876 acres, compared with the current 1.35 million acres that President Barack Obama named last December.
Grand Staircase will be divided into three monuments: Grand Staircase at 209,993 acres, Kaiparowits at 551,034 acres and Escalante Canyon at 242,836 acres, for a total of over 1 million acres, down from the current 1.9 million acres.
According to the Tribune:
Trump’s order will specifically authorize grazing in the Bears Ears area as well as motorized recreation and Native American gathering of wood and herbs, and it will ask Congress to pass legislation to mandate co-management by tribal leaders.
Interior pointed out that several key parts of the remaining monuments will include the Bears Ears buttes, Lime Ridge Clovis Site, Moon House Ruin, Doll House Ruin, Indian Creek Rock Art and Newspaper Rock. However, the Cedar Mesa area, home to tens of thousands of archaeological sites left by Ancestral Puebloans, is not included.
Let the lawsuits begin:
“This is nothing more than political score settling from an administration that doesn’t seem to comprehend the extraordinary value these lands hold for Native American communities and all Americans,” said Brian Sybert, executive director of the Conservation Lands Foundation. “Make no mistake: the near elimination of these national treasures is beyond belief. These lands belong to the people, not corporate polluters.”
The foundation, Sybert added, will head to court to stop Trump’s action. Other environmental groups and the five tribes who pushed for monument status for Bears Ears – Hopi, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni and the Ute Indian Tribe – are expected to sue as well.