by mfa-admin | Apr 29, 2020 | Uncategorized
In the midst of the uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, our partners continue to make moves on the ground to safeguard our special wild places. Today, we bring you updates from two treasured places that have remained at the heart of the national monuments conversation: Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante.
So what’s new? And what can you do?
“The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument’s vast and austere landscape embraces a spectacular array of scientific and historic resources. This high, rugged, and remote region, where bold plateaus and multihued cliffs run for distances that defy human perspective, was the last place in the continental United States to be mapped. Even today, this unspoiled natural area remains a frontier, a quality that greatly enhances the monument’s value for scientific study. The monument has a long and dignified human history: it is a place where one can see how nature shapes human endeavors in the American West, where distance and aridity have been pitted against our dreams and courage.” — From President Bill Clinton’s proclamation establishing Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument on September 18, 1996. Photo: The Cockscomb, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument courtesy Tim Peterson.
Monuments For All and Coronavirus: What You Need To Know
“With over a million acres of public land, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument might seem like the perfect place for social distancing right now. After all, its canyons are some of the most remote places in the country. However, it follows that remote places like southern Utah have extremely limited health care services,” Grand Staircase Escalante Partners wrote on Instagram. “In order to slow the spread of COVID-19 and therefore not overwhelm local resources and protect local vulnerable populations, we encourage potential visitors to stay closer to home and enjoy local parks this spring. We do not take this recommendation lightly, as our gateway communities depend on the tourism economy, but we feel strongly that it is incumbent upon each of us to act in the best interests of the immunocompromised and elderly in this unprecedented moment in history.”
Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition added on Instagram, “Outdoor adventures can wait. Help us protect our Indigenous and rural communities, as well as the Bears Ears cultural region, by simply staying home. We can all contribute to communal well being by supporting the needs of others during this time. Thank you for your understanding, and please help spread the word!”
With new information and regulations coming out daily, for southern Utah please check in with local organizations like Grand Staircase Escalante Partners,Utah Diné Bikéyah, and Friends of Cedar Mesa as well as the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and tribal governments to determine when it may again be appropriate to visit the region. For other monuments and national parks, please look up local organizations and local government entities for updated guidelines for safe and healthy recreation in the face of this pandemic.
You can also see Utah Diné Bikéyah’s website for more COVID-19 resources and links to ways you can help support indigenous communities in the region.
Photo: Bears Ears rock art panel courtesy Tim Peterson
Protecting Bears Ears and Grand Staircase National Monuments in the Courts
On April 10, sovereign tribal nations, local and national groups filed new documents in a pair of lawsuits challenging President Trump’s 2017 decision to cut more than 2 million acres of public lands from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase national monuments. The plaintiffs in the federal court cases argue that only Congress can reduce a monument’s boundaries and that Trump overreached his authority under the Antiquities Act of 1906.
Plaintiffs wrote, “Did the Antiquities Act authorize the President to dismantle an existing national monument … leaving countless objects of historic and scientific interest stranded outside its dramatically reduced boundaries? The answer is no.”
Keep up to date on the latest developments on the court cases with Native American Rights Fund and Grand Staircase Escalante Partners.
For an in-depth update on what is happening on the ground with Bears Ears, check out Tim Peterson, Grand Canyon Trust’s Cultural Landscapes Program Director’s blog post:
“Bears Ears is a place that challenges our perception of time, laying bare the bones of the Earth, holding the fossils of life long before humans, and bearing the crucible of cultures infinitely older than America. As the battle to restore the monument stretches into its third year, it helps to remember the 600 generations. We are well reminded of that sense of constancy to stay our ephemeral fears over the monument’s fate. I am often asked about Bears Ears, and I answer that it must and will be restored, and the true gifts that it has to give are not even yet known.”
“From earth to sky, the region is unsurpassed in wonders. The star-filled nights and natural quiet of the Bears Ears area transport visitors to an earlier eon. Against an absolutely black night sky, our galaxy and others more distant leap into view.” — From President Barack Obama’s proclamation establishing Bears Ears National Monument on December 28, 2016. Photo: Bob Wick // BLM
Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments are both world-renowned hotbeds of paleontological research, world-class destinations for outdoor recreation and natural beauty, and major economic drivers for small businesses in these regions. Bears Ears has been home to Hopi, Diné, Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Zuni peoples since time immemorial, and was designated as a national monument in 2016 to protect countless archaeological, cultural, and natural resources, including the wealth of traditional knowledge that Native people hold for this region. It is the first tribally requested national monument.
During the federal comment period in 2017, millions of Americans called out with a clear and powerful voice: We stand with our national monuments. We will continue to fight with them to safeguard Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante as they were rightfully designated.
by Amy Kenney | Apr 22, 2020 | Uncategorized
Like so many others, I find solace in nature during these uncertain and scary times. My family is so grateful to have access to hiking trails and a garden to tend. And my time in nature reminds me about the work I and so many others were focused on before the pandemic upended our lives: promoting the protection of at least 30 percent of our ocean.
On this Earth Day—on its 50th anniversary—the case for protecting nature has never been as relevant and urgent. What kind of world will we leave to our children and grandchildren? Can we recommit to better relationship with nature and wildlife?
We need a healthy ocean, clean air and rivers, our parks and wilderness areas. These are natural assets, not luxuries. It’s important that we view them as such given their important role to provide food, support jobs, unite communities, and give people needed sanctuary from the modern bustle, a place to find personal, familial, and even spiritual fulfillment.
This pandemic reminds us how important and threatened nature is. The evidence is sobering:
- A million species are at risk of extinction worldwide.
- Three-fourths of the planet’s lands and two-thirds of its ocean environments have been “severely altered” by human activity.
- Half of all freshwater and saltwater wetlands in the contiguous 48 states have succumbed to development.
- Only 12 percent of America’s lands and less than one percent of ocean areas around the continental United States are protected.
Although we haven’t exactly been here before, we have faced environmental challenges in the past and summoned the will to act decisively to address them.
This occurred most notably in the late 1960s and early 1970s, with the passage of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency and NOAA, and the advent of Earth Day. These actions and many more were part of a nationwide awakening to the widespread benefits of protecting nature and wildlife.
The intervening years have brought mixed news, including the creation of national monuments on land and at sea—by presidents from both parties. Then, a recent attempt to reverse two of those designations under the current administration.
Outside the U.S., government leaders are seizing the conservation mantle. The island nation of Palau, for example, has designated 80 percent of its ocean territory as a marine reserve, prohibiting large-scale fishing and other destructive activities. Chile, the United Kingdom and Canada, among many other nations, have also taken strides to better protect nature.
Today there is a growing global movement to protect at least 30 percent of the planet by 2030, a target based on a strong foundation of scientific studies.
The world is losing species to extinction at a rate not seen in millennia. Many experts believe we are in a ‘mass extinction’ period. A variety of factors are driving this crisis, including loss of habitat and climate change.
Research shows that protecting at least 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean areas would reduce extinctions and help keep global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a key threshold for limiting the negative consequences and immense costs of climate change.
Achieving 30 by 30 protection would also pay huge dividends for people by safeguarding global food supplies and helping preserve clean air and clean water. These benefits are vital to us all but especially to the billions of people on the margins. This includes tens of millions in the U.S. In meeting the 30 by 30 target, we must work toward a more equitable and inclusion vision for nature conservation.
Watching leaders around the country act swiftly and responsibly to flatten the COVID-19 curve gives me hope that we can come together to save our natural world. The clock is ticking and 2030 will arrive quicker than we imagine.
Now is the time to recommit to protecting nature, in our own yards and communities and across the globe.
by jocelyn | Feb 6, 2020 | Uncategorized
Management Plans Ignore Tribes, Courts and the Public
February 6, 2020 (SALT LAKE CITY, Utah)—Today, sovereign tribal nations, local and national groups, all plaintiffs in the federal court cases challenging the legality of the Trump Administration’s reduction of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, released a joint statement. This statement comes in response to the Bureau of Land Management’s Records of Decision finalizing resource management plans for the Monuments.
Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments are both world-renowned hotbeds of paleontological research, world-class destinations for outdoor recreation and natural beauty, and major economic drivers for small businesses in these regions. Bears Ears has been home to Hopi, Diné, Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, and Zuni peoples since time immemorial, and was designated as a national monument in 2016 to protect countless archaeological, cultural, and natural resources, including the wealth of traditional knowledge that Native people hold for this region. It is the first tribally requested national monument.
Below are statements from the plaintiff organizations.
Statements Regarding Bears Ears National Monument:
Shaun Chapoose, Ute Tribal Business Committee Member and Coalition Co-Chair
“The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition is united in opposition to the Administration’s Monument Management Plan. This is just another in a series of unlawful actions reducing and revoking the Bears Ears National Monument. The President’s action and this Management Plan eliminates protections for more than 1 million acres including hundreds of thousands of priceless and significant cultural, natural and sacred objects. The Administration is failing in its treaty and trust responsibilities to Indian tribes.”
Davis Filfred, Board Chairman, Utah Diné Bikéyah
“The Trump Administration’s final management plan for Bears Ears National Monument is an example of how the federal government continues to ignore Indigenous voices, and the sovereignty of the Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Pueblo of Zuni, who among many Indigenous governments and peoples, are in a lawsuit challenging the dismantling of Bears Ears National Monument. Our concern, among other things, is that the ROD fails to include proper cultural and environmental protections, and leaves out the voice of Tribes and the elders who hold the most knowledge for these ancestral, public lands.”
Bill Doelle, President and CEO, Archaeology Southwest
“The final management plan has serious inadequacies that the federal agencies have failed to address. The decision to retain these flaws is particularly insulting to the Tribes who led the effort to establish Bears Ears National Monument. Archaeology Southwest continues to stand with the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and our conservation partners in demanding proper management of these lands.”
Rose Marcario, President and CEO, Patagonia
“The Executive Order eliminating protections for Bears Ears National Monument was illegal and no management plan for these lands should proceed until the resolution of the lawsuits. If this administration’s reckless agenda is not stopped, it will lead to the destruction of a national treasure home to sacred artifacts and an area that enjoys support from hunters and hikers as well as local businesses and communities. And even more troubling, it sets a dangerous precedent for the future of all public lands and waters. These wild and wonderful landscapes should not be auctioned off to the highest bidder, and we have every confidence the courts will rule in favor of the plaintiffs and the original boundaries of the National Monument will be restored.”
Brian Sybert, Executive Director, Conservation Lands Foundation
“This reckless management plan is an attempt to circumvent the courts, plain and simple. It threatens one of America’s richest cultural landscapes, along with living indigenous cultures tied to it since time immemorial. The destructive plan not only ignores Tribes, it ignores a majority of Americans—both nationwide and in the West—who do not support the reduction of Bears Ears in the first place.”
Paul Edmondson, President and CEO, National Trust for Historic Preservation
“We believe this management plan fails to provide adequate protection for the irreplaceable prehistoric sites and cultural landscapes that led to President Obama’s designation of the Bears Ears National Monument. This management plan was developed on a rushed timetable that did not adequately consider the views of Native American tribes or the public. There is simply no rationale for rushing to complete this plan when litigation challenging the legality of the monument revocation is still pending.”
Sharon Buccino, Senior Director of Lands, The Natural Resources Defense Council
“These plans are atrocious, and entirely predictable. They are the latest in a series of insults to these magnificent lands by the Trump administration that began when Trump illegally dismantled Bears Ears and Grand Staircase at the behest of corporate interests two years ago. We stand with the five Tribes and the millions of Americas who vigorously oppose this degradation and giveaway of our public lands.”
Theresa Pierno, President and CEO, National Parks Conservation Association
“The administration is illegally gutting protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, and the repercussions will be felt far beyond the monuments’ boundaries. The administration’s reckless management plans set our worst fears in motion, leaving these treasured monuments and surrounding national parks needlessly vulnerable. The new plans put at risk the very things these sites were established to protect, including sacred spaces, adjacent national park landscapes and troves of cultural and scientific resources. Our national monuments and parks are meant to be protected for and enjoyed by all, and we will continue to fight until this landscape is protected as it was intended.”
Phil Hanceford, Conservation Director, The Wilderness Society
“Members of Congress, legal scholars, and more than a dozen groups who have filed lawsuits have made it clear that President Trump’s Executive Order and the use of taxpayer funds that led to these plans was illegal, yet the BLM continues to ignore the law. This is unacceptable. While the BLM may consider this a final decision for the future of public lands in Bears Ears, we will not slow our efforts to protect the cultural, historic, and treasured lands that their plan fails to do.”
Heidi McIntosh, managing attorney of Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountains office
“The Trump Administration has finalized their new plans for what’s left of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase National Monuments, but they built their plans on an unlawful foundation. This headlong spree to open up monument lands to extractive industries and development is illegitimate, and could only be done by turning a blind eye to the law and flat out ignoring the Native American Tribes for whom Bears Ears is sacred. But these monument lands were meant to be protected forever. We remain fully committed to defending these remarkable places.”
Tim Peterson, Cultural Landscapes Program Director, The Grand Canyon Trust
“It’s no coincidence that this administration’s terrible plan for Bears Ears comes on the heels of threats to bomb Iran’s cultural sites. While they can’t blow up cliff dwellings or drone strike rock art panels under this plan, the stage is now set to do far-reaching and long-lasting damage to the incomparable Bears Ears cultural landscape. It’s unconscionable.”
Shelley Silbert, Executive Director, Great Old Broads for Wilderness
“The fate of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments must be decided in court before any changes to management occurs. These lands are a treasure trove of natural and cultural history that will suffer serious and irreversible impacts if these management plans are implemented. The process has been conducted illegally and without regard for public input, and the lack of consultation with sovereign tribal nations adds insult to injury. These lands must be protected now and for the future!”
Carly Ferro, Interim Director, Utah Sierra Club
“The Trump administration’s management plan for Bears Ears is nothing more than a wholesale handout to extractive industry, one that is illegitimate since President Trump illegally shrunk Utah’s monuments to begin with. The administration served a plan that continues to ignore the Tribes of the Bears Ears region and is a disaster for climate. We will fight these illegal rollbacks and continue to support our Tribal allies in defending Bears Ears National Monument.”
Ryan Beam, Public Lands Campaigner, The Center for Biological Diversity
“Trump’s plan erodes vital protections for what’s left of Bears Ears. His illegal evisceration of the national monument is still being fought in court, so it’s appalling that the administration is rushing out a plan to trample the safeguards that remain. We won’t rest until all of this spectacular landscape is protected.”
Neal Clark, Wildlands Program Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance
“This management plan represents the lowest common denominator for BLM stewardship of public lands, and sets the stage for destructive chaining of native vegetation, unmanageable recreation, and increased off-road vehicle use. This plan is the fruit of the poisonous tree, stemming as it does from President Trump’s illegal rollback of the original 1.35 million-acre monument, and fails to protect the cultural resources that the monument designation was intended to conserve.”
Jamie Rappaport Clark, President & CEO, Defenders of Wildlife
“The Bears Ears and Grand Staircase landscapes are like no other. They deserve reverence and protection, but instead the Trump administration is abandoning the vast majority of these monuments to drilling, mining and other destructive uses. Exposing these lands to such irreparable damage is beyond shameful. We will never stop fighting for the protection of lands within national monuments and for the eagles, elk, owls and all the other wildlife that call it home.”
Erik Molvar, Executive Director, Western Watersheds Project
“Bears Ears deserves the strongest possible protections for its spectacular natural and cultural features. The Trump administration’s plan allows livestock grazing, off-road vehicle use, and road construction that will result in the loss or degradation of these priceless and irreplaceable features, so we plan to keep fighting to protect them in court.
Chris Krupp, Public Lands Guardian, WildEarth Guardians
“This management plan, like the declaration gutting Bears Ears, was devised to wring private profit from a national treasure. Interior lawyers know the 2017 declaration is unlikely to survive a court’s review, which makes it all the worse the Trump administration is fast-tracking the new plan.”
Statements Regarding Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument:
Sarah Bauman, Executive Director, Grand Staircase Escalante Partners
“Grand Staircase is essential to our ability to understand the role biodiversity plays in climate change. As a result of its physical isolation and areas of minimal human impact, as well as its enormous ecological diversity, it provides mankind with rare opportunities for unique comparative climate change studies. Without protections, these opportunities will be lost and with them our ability to build essential knowledge and resources for mitigating climate change.”
- David Polly, President, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology
“For 25 years Grand Staircase has been America’s top spot for paleontology. Dr. Scott from Dino Train, Lythronax the King of Gore, and the coolest new ceratopsians are all brought to us by Grand Staircase. That’s all been thrown out the window by these cuts.”
Brian Sybert, Executive Director, Conservation Lands Foundation
“Grand Staircase was designated more than twenty years ago, and its boundaries were later ratified by Congressional action. This plan is an attempt to further this administration’s reckless push to open treasured, irreplaceable lands to destructive mining and drilling—despite public outcry and before the courts have a chance to weigh in.”
Phil Hanceford, Conservation Director, The Wilderness Society
“Stripping decades worth of protections away from a national monument shows how out of touch the Interior Department is with reality, and the rule of law. The final plans are not worth the wasted taxpayer dollars and legal challenges that are to come.”
Mary O’Brien, Utah Forests Programs Director, Grand Canyon Trust
“There is nothing to be gained from this plan except the destruction of fossils, the expansion of scorched-earth cattle grazing and non-native forage seeding, the loss of dark skies, more roads and unenforced off-road motorization, more extraction from dwindling springs, and more unrecorded wildlife losses – all for what? To show what one president can do to any of our country’s national monuments, at any time, for any self-serving political reason?”
Carly Ferro, Interim Director, Utah Sierra Club
“The bottom line is that the Trump administration acted illegally when it stripped Grand Staircase-Escalante of national monument status. With this plan, Bernhardt’s Interior is clearly trying to let in mining and drilling before a court can overturn the rollbacks. We’ll continue to fight for the protection of Grand Staircase-Escalante—and all of the culture, resources and history this place holds.”
Randi Spivak, Public Lands Program Director, The Center for Biological Diversity
“It’s the height of arrogance for Trump to rush through final decisions on what’s left of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante while we’re fighting his illegal evisceration of these national monuments in court. Trump is eroding vital protections for these spectacular landscapes. We won’t rest until all of these public lands are safeguarded for future generations.”
Chris Krupp, WildEarth Guardians
“The Trump administration’s tactic with Bears Ears and Grand Staircase is pretty clearly ‘act first, answer questions later,’ well aware those acts will cause irreparable damage to the monuments.It’s insulting to the people all across the nation who value these places, but it doesn’t come as a surprise.”
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