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Certain sandstone arches in Utah emit a steady hum. Shown here: Metate Arch in Devil's Garden, Utah. raphoto / iStock / Getty Images Plus
By Zoe Woodcraft
The sound is like a low, steady rumble, soothing yet powerful. Imperceptible to the human ear, the hums of red rock arches in Bears Ears and Grand Staircase National Monuments carry with them the deep patterns of the earth's plates sparked by events like ocean currents colliding in the open Pacific that pump the ocean floor. On the surface, wind spilling over the arches amplifies the vibrations, giving voice to movements in the earth that began thousands of miles away.
<p>
Scientists like Jeff Moore have only recently discovered the arches' hum. We are one year into the legal battle to defend Bears Ears and Grand Staircase, and while we fight in the courts, life and discovery continue in these special places. Now, more than ever, the arches need our voices to protect them.
</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-soundcloud">
Moore, a professor at the University of Utah, has always been fascinated by what makes rocks break and move. That's how he describes his particular niche in geology, geohazards.
</p><p>
"The earth is teeming with these sorts of mysteries, and it's my job to uncover them," said Moore.<br>
</p><p>
Hardy sandstone gives Utah its famous rock formations. Its layers can split open like an accordion and gently erode over millennia into shapes nearly impossible in earthquake country. Moore began to log the swelling and contracting of Utah's arches as temperatures rose and fell during the day. He wanted to understand their stresses, and know how long their spans will extend out over open air before inevitably collapsing.
</p><p>
"Most people are in awe of these geological wonders, but they don't recognize how fragile they are," said Moore. "They think rock is strong. But if you lay your hand on an arch, you get a sense that it is just hanging on. You can see the cracks … and you quickly realize how tenuous the structure is."
</p><p>
Soon, Moore got to wondering if the ear would be better than the eye at measuring the arches' movements. He spent hours recording the vibrations of the rocks with seismometers the size of camping thermoses. In the lab, he sped up his recordings to make them audible to humans.
</p><p>
[<em>Listen to Soundcloud clips posted at the bottom of this story</em>. <em>Headphones recommended.</em>]</p><p>"It sounded like nothing I'd heard before," said Moore, adding that the arches' hum is dependent on factors like their size. "Some of the smaller arches have a higher tone, and are a little squeaky." <br></p><p>In several arch recordings, a mysterious tapping appears on the soundtrack. Asked about the sound, Moore laughed. "It's probably my team walking as we backed away from our equipment. It's humans scurrying from the perspective of the arch."
</p><p>
In late 2017, President <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch/">Trump</a> threatened to silence the arches' hum after shrinking Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments by roughly 2 million acres. Mining companies started eyeing monument lands. Earthjustice
<a href="https://earthjustice.org/features/inside-the-legal-case-saving-national-monuments" target="_blank">went to court</a>.
</p><p>
Within those evicted 2 million acres are ancient cliff dwellings and living ceremonial sites sacred to more than five Native American Tribes fighting for these lands. It's places like Valley of the Gods, where no one can travel without getting a crick in their neck staring up at red rock spires. It's dinosaur fossil beds in the Kaiparowitz Plateau of Grand Staircase, where scientists
<a href="https://earthjustice.org/features/monumental-discoveries" target="_blank">discover new species</a> almost every year. It's the steep habitat for Utah's only native herds of cliff-happy bighorn sheep.
</p><p>
It's also 115 unique arches stripped of their <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/national-monuments">national monument</a> protections.
</p><p><strong>Arch Hunting in the Monuments</strong><br></p><p>
Jeff got to work with his research team planning expeditions in the monuments for the summer of 2018. Aamon Hatch, a local high school science teacher on break, joined. They pored over arch hunting websites where amateur geology enthusiasts share their discoveries by dropping coordinates.
</p><p>
"I began to call them 'the abandoned arches of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase,'" said Moore. "Grand Staircase's arches had been protected for the last 20 years. Bears Ears' arches were newly protected. Now they're left high and dry."
</p><p>
Determined to document as many abandoned arches as they could, the team ventured into the gutted national monuments. It was like no place Moore had been before. The Henry Mountains in Grand Staircase were the
<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20121006155725/http:/www.blm.gov/pgdata/etc/medialib/blm/ut/grand_staircase-escalante/science___research/1997_symposium.Par.22079.File.dat/general01.htm" target="_blank">last mountains to be mapped</a> in the lower 48. The Escalante River, which feeds into the Colorado, was one of the last rivers to be mapped. In Navajo, the range is called <em>Dził Bizhiʼ Ádin</em>í or "mountain whose name is missing."
</p><p>
Moore worries about the impact of human development near these lands—like mine blasting, or the heavy truck traffic new mining roads would bring. The arches evolved in southern Utah partly because the land experiences little seismic activity.
</p><p>
"I worry about them in the way you worry about something you love," he said.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xODk2OTAzNC9vcmlnaW4uZ2lmIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzODE2MTQ2NH0.ReSjdqnHR9s-HxmDe_hNF3wlLYpXsTBIBIyqPc63nEc/img.gif?width=980" id="54ced" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="0a0db673b68d37906e77e6623c4767f2" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
</p><p>He isn't wrong to worry. The Trump administration is rushing through new plans that could open roughly 700,000 acres of Grand Staircase to mining and drilling. It's a cynical strategy to speed along plans for industrial exploitation that's often worked against <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands">public lands</a>. Earthjustice attorney Heidi McIntosh is fighting to hit the brakes on those plans in court.</p><p>While Trump's executive branch is trying to outrace the courts, <a href="https://earthjustice.org/" target="_blank">Earthjustice</a> will also be defending our monuments lawsuits against the Justice Department's motion to dismiss them this month. (The weighty question of whether President Trump had the authority to dismantle Bears Ears and Grand Staircase under the Antiquities Act may well be decided, at least preliminarily, at this point.)</p><p>Moore's team ultimately found 37 arches in Grand Staircase and 78 in Bears Ears in the territory stripped out of the monuments. Though their initial project is done, Moore suspects there are many more arches in these wild lands.</p><p>"When you stand out there today, you have the feeling 'this is where the road ends,'" he said. "In between you and the mountain there are no roads. You can feel the vastness."</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-soundcloud">
<iframe src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https://soundcloud.com/earthjustice/sunset-arch" width="100%" height="480" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ef72783f329d23e41eb0c1d7a6712d37"></iframe>
</p>
<div class="rm-embed embed-media"><p><strong>Headphones may be needed to hear the lowest tones in this recording of Sunset Arch.</strong></p><p class="caption">Courtesy of University of Utah Geohazards Research Group</p><p><br></p><iframe frameborder="no" height="166" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/539334204&color=ff5500" width="100%"></iframe></div><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://earthjustice.org/blog/2018-december/national-monuments-bears-ears-grand-staircase-humming-arches" target="_blank">Earthjustice</a>.</em><br></p>
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A man holds up a sign in protest during a Utah visit by Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. George Frey / Getty Images
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke did not draw the reduced boundaries of the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah to benefit a political ally, The Associated Press reported Monday.
<p>The Department of Interior's (DOI) Office of Inspector General (OIG) was investigating whether or not Zinke had altered the monument's boundaries specifically to benefit Utah Republican Congressman Mike Noel. Noel had petitioned for the monument to be shrunk and also owned property nearby, including 40 acres that fell inside the old monument boundaries and outside the new ones. The OIG, however, ruled there was no evidence that Zinke knew of Noel's interest in the area or redrew the boundaries with him in mind.</p><p>The OIG report "shows exactly what the secretary's office has known all along - that the monument boundaries were adjusted in accordance with all rules, regulations and laws," Zinke spokeswoman Heather Swift told The Associated Press.</p><p><a href="https://westernvaluesproject.org/" target="_blank">Western Values Project</a> Executive Director Chris Saeger was skeptical that Zinke had done nothing wrong. He told The Associated Press that photos taken of Zinke and Noel together during a tour of the shrunken monument last year "seem to contradict" Zinke's innocence and urged the OIG to release the report "and let the public judge the merits of the findings."</p><p>Environmental groups like the Western Values Project have criticized Zinke for shrinking <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands" target="_self">public lands</a> like Grand Staircase to benefit <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/fossil-fuels" target="_self">fossil fuel</a> and mining interests. Even if Grand Staircase was not redrawn with Noel in mind, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/national-monuments-drilling-mining-2541783065.html">DOI documents obtained by The New York Times in March</a> did show that the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/donald-trump" target="_blank">Trump</a> administration decided to reduce it and fellow Utah National Monument <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bears-ears" target="_self">Bears Ears</a> in order to increase access to deposits of oil, <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/natural-gas" target="_self">natural gas</a>, uranium and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" target="_self">coal</a>. </p><p>Democratic Representative Raul Grijalva of Arizona, who will chair the House Natural Resources Committee in January now that the Democrats have taken the House, said he would investigate the controversial decision to shrink the two monuments. </p><p>"Secretary Zinke should have known the people he was listening to while destroying our national monuments had disqualifying conflicts of interest," he told The Associated Press, while saying he accepts the reports findings. </p><p>Zinke is still facing <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/ryan-zinke-doi-investigation-2616779372.html" target="_self">other investigations</a> into his conduct in office. One involves a real estate development owned by the son of the chairman of oil giant Halliburton, which the DOI regulates. Another concerns claims that Zinke met only with opponents of a Native American casino project in Connecticut and might have given false information to the tribes behind the project. </p><p>A third investigation looks whether Zinke reassigned a former DOI official for criticizing him, The Associated Press reported. </p>
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Drilling and Mining Interests Pushed to Shrink Utah National Monuments, Documents Reveal
02 March 2018
Popular
The Citadel Ruins at the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. Bob Wick / Bureau of Land Management
Even though Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke insisted "this is not about energy," environmentalists and public lands advocates have long suspected the Trump administration's cuts to national monuments were driven by its push for more drilling, mining and other development.
Now, internal Interior Department documents obtained by the New York Times show that gaining access to the oil, natural gas and uranium deposits in Bears Ears and coal reserves in Grand Staircase-Escalante were indeed key reasons behind President Trump's drastic cuts to the two monuments in Utah.
<p style="">
In March 2017, an aide to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) asked a senior Interior Department official to consider reduced boundaries for Bears Ears to remove land that contained oil and natural gas deposits. Hatch's office sent a map depicting a boundary change for the southeast portion of the Bears Ears monument to "resolve all known mineral conflicts," <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4391967-National-Monuments-a-Look-at-the-Debate-From.html#document/p55/a407696" target="_blank">the email said, referring to oil and gas sites</a> on the land that the state's public schools wanted to lease out to increase state funds.
</p><p style="">
As the Times reported, the map that Hatch's office provided—and notably sent about a month before Sec. Zinke publicly initiated his review of national monuments in April—was incorporated almost exactly into the much larger reductions President Trump would later announce.
</p><p style="">
<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-utah-national-monuments-2514759911.html">In December</a>, despite <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/oppose-national-monuments-review-2476207979.html">widespread public support</a> to preserve protections for <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands">public lands</a>, Trump announced he was gutting the 1.35 million-acre Bears Ears to only 201,397 acres and the 1.87 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante to just 997,490 acres. The move was the largest elimination of protected areas in U.S. history.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
<iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" id="twitter-embed-966812382529052672" src="/res/community/twitter_embed/?iframe_id=twitter-embed-966812382529052672&created_ts=1519341009.0&screen_name=EcoWatch&text=Rare+Fossils+Discovered+on+Lands+Cut+From+Bears+Ears+National+Monument+https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2F21fa1isi4d+%40Sierra_Magazine+%40greenpeaceusa&id=966812382529052672&name=EcoWatch" frameborder="0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="KIZHZS1576662803"></iframe>
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The Interior Department documents also revealed concerns over gaining access to coal reserves in Grand Staircase-Escalante.
</p><p style="">
"The Kaiparowits plateau, located within the monument, contains one of the largest coal deposits in the United States," an Interior Department memo issued in the spring of 2017 stated. Nearly 11.36 billion tons are "technologically recoverable," it estimated.
</p><p style="">Zinke has cited past presidential abuses of the Antiquities Act as the rationale behind his recommendations to Trump to shrink national monuments.<br></p><p style="">
"No President should use the authority under the Antiquities Act to restrict public access, prevent hunting and fishing, burden private land, or eliminate traditional land uses, unless such action is needed to protect the object," Zinke <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/secretary-zinke-sends-monument-report-white-house" target="_blank">said</a> in August. </p><p style="">
He has also insisted that resource extraction was not a reason behind the reductions.
</p><p style="">
"This is not about energy. There is no oil and gas assets. There is no mine within the Bears Ears monument before or after, so the argument that President Trump stole land is false, nefarious and a lie," Zinke <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/2017/12/13/uranium-mill-pressed-trump-officials-for-bears-ears-reductions-records-show/" target="_blank">told</a> reporters in December.</p>
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ksblack99 / Flickr
by Jessica Corbett
Despite protests from conservationists, local tribe leaders, Democratic lawmakers and even the United Nations' expert on Indigenous rights, at 6 a.m. on Friday the Trump administration will allow citizens and companies to start staking claims on sections of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah so the new stakeholders can conduct hard rock mining on the formerly protected lands.
<p><span></span>"It is outrageous to witness the dismantling of the Bears Ears national monument, in what constitutes a serious attack on Indigenous peoples' rights in the United States," said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples.</p><p>Tauli-Corpuz noted that the previous administration's decision to create the monument "protected thousands of sacred sites which are central to the preservation of regional Native culture." He warned that Trump's decision to reduce Bears Ears by about 85 percent "exposes thousands of acres of sacred lands and archaeological sites to the threats of desecration, contamination and permanent destruction."</p><p>Critics have turned to social media to denounce the "<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-utah-mining/a-modern-land-run-trump-move-opens-utah-to-mining-claims-under-1872-law-idUSKBN1FK1MA" target="_blank">modern land run</a>."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
<iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" id="twitter-embed-958341485354737665" src="/res/community/twitter_embed/?iframe_id=twitter-embed-958341485354737665&created_ts=1517321389.0&screen_name=savebearsears&text=%22Diminishing+the+size+of+the+monument+puts+hundreds+of+archeological+and+cultural+sites+at+risk%2C+and+threatens+our%E2%80%A6+https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FdB0j1HNxsI&id=958341485354737665&name=Bears+Ears+Inter-Tribal+Coalition" frameborder="0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="GJDP291576662586"></iframe>
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<iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" id="twitter-embed-955863312851525632" src="/res/community/twitter_embed/?iframe_id=twitter-embed-955863312851525632&created_ts=1516730547.0&screen_name=MonumentsForUSA&text=RT+to+%23SaveGrandStaircase+%26amp%3B+%23StandWithBearsEars%21+Proclamations+dismantling+%23MonumentsForAll+allow+for+more+mining+%26amp%3B%E2%80%A6+https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FJAdjqLl7xK&id=955863312851525632&name=Monuments+For+All" frameborder="0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="WE8ZM91576662586"></iframe>
</p><p>In response to the attacks on <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands">public lands</a> and a proposal from Rep. John Curtis (R-Utah) that purports to give management control of the remaining land to Indigenous leaders—who <a href="https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2018/01/30/tribal-leaders-slam-utah-rep-curtis-bill-to-redraw-of-bears-ears-say-his-management-plan-is-tribal-in-name-only/" target="_blank">said</a> the measure "is tribal in name only"—a group of Democratic senators has introduced a bill to fight back against Trump and Republicans in Congress:</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
<iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" id="twitter-embed-958422255649939456" src="/res/community/twitter_embed/?iframe_id=twitter-embed-958422255649939456&created_ts=1517340647.0&screen_name=SenatorTomUdall&text=We%E2%80%99re+introducing+the+%23ANTIQUITIESActOf2018+today+to+protect+our+%23MonumentsForAll+from+the+Trump+administration%E2%80%99s+u%E2%80%A6+https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FyuTRVHKdrV&id=958422255649939456&name=Tom+Udall" frameborder="0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="IWYSBP1576662586"></iframe>
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<iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" id="twitter-embed-958790132663975936" src="/res/community/twitter_embed/?iframe_id=twitter-embed-958790132663975936&created_ts=1517428355.0&screen_name=MartinHeinrich&text=Pres+Trump%E2%80%99s+move+to+eliminate+2M+acres+of+protections+for+%23BearsEars+%26amp%3B+Grand-Staircase+Escalante+is+largest+attack%E2%80%A6+https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FSe3noZUDlM&id=958790132663975936&name=Martin+Heinrich" frameborder="0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="4JCB7A1576662586"></iframe>
</p><p>In spite of widespread opposition, the Trump administration's Bureau of Land Management (<a href="https://www.blm.gov/" target="_blank">BLM</a>) plans to move forward with allowing stakeholders to claim plots of land on Friday, and has determined the process will be governed by the General Mining Law of 1872, which covers mining for metals such as copper, gold, silver and uranium (but not coal and petroleum).</p><p style="">"The process for staking a claim remains much as it did during the Gold Rush," Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-utah-mining/a-modern-land-run-trump-move-opens-utah-to-mining-claims-under-1872-law-idUSKBN1FK1MA" target="_blank">reported</a>:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">A prospector hammers four poles into the ground corresponding to the four points of a parcel that can be as big as 20 acres, and attaches a written description of the claim onto one of them. A prospector then has 30 days to record the claim at the local BLM office ...</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">The costs of claiming are low: a $212 filing fee, and an annual maintenance fee of $150. Unlike laws governing petroleum extraction, there are no environmental guidelines specific to hard rock mining, and no requirement to pay a royalty. The claims provide prospectors mineral rights but not ownership of the land.</p><p style="">Lauren Pagel, the policy director of the nonprofit Earthworks, criticized the law as outdated, telling Reuters, "It's really the last law still on the books from that Manifest Destiny era encouraging a resources free-for-all."</p><p style=""><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/01/31/outrageous-gold-rush-style-grab-public-lands-begin-less-48-hours" target="_blank">Common Dreams</a>.</em></p>
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Gage Skidmore
By John Dougherty
Shock, disappointment and warnings of potential for more armed standoffs over U.S. public lands were among the reactions Monday from two academic experts and a former Oregon county judge to a federal judge's order dismissing the government's criminal charges against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and a fourth man linked to militia groups.
<p style="">"This is a very sad day for America's public lands," said Peter Walker, a University of Oregon geography professor who studies the social and political environmental aspects of the American West and is writing a book on the Bundy family's conflicts with the federal government.</p><p style="">"Even though this was a procedural decision based on mistakes made by the prosecution, the Bundy family and their supporters will spin it as validation of their ideology," said Walker.</p><p style="">The Revelator published an <a href="http://therevelator.org/cliven-bundy-trial/" target="_blank">investigative report</a> in November detailing the Bundy family's far-right Mormon extremism in the family's effort to instigate an armed rebellion to force the federal government off public lands in the West.</p><p style="">On Monday U.S. District Court Judge Gloria M. Navarro dismissed the case against the men in a ruling from the bench in her Las Vegas courtroom. The decision could be appealed by prosecutors. But they would only be able to bring charges again if they won the appeal and the ruling was reversed—and they then got a new indictment from a new grand jury, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/us/bundy-ranch-standoff-case-charges-dismissed.html?_r=0" target="_blank">the New York Times reported</a>.</p><p style="">The four defendants—Cliven Bundy, his sons Ammon and Ryan, and militia leader Ryan Payne—were charged with threatening a federal officer, carrying and using a firearm, and engaging in conspiracy stemming from a 2014 showdown with federal officers near Bunkerville, Nevada. The government was attempting to remove patriarch Cliven Bundy's cattle from federal land after more than 20 years of trespassing and failing to pay more than $1 million in grazing fees.</p><p>Hundreds of Bundy supporters rallied to their call for assistance, many of them armed. Several Bundy supporters pointed high-powered rifles at federal law-enforcement officers who were trying to execute a court order to remove the trespassing cattle from <a href="https://www.blm.gov/" target="_blank">U.S. Bureau of Land Management</a> property northeast of Las Vegas. The government withdrew from the armed confrontation.</p><p>Ammon and Ryan Bundy, along with Ryan Payne, later led an armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in south-central Oregon in January 2016. The armed standoff eventually ended but only after the group's spokesman, LaVoy Finicum, was shot and killed by police after appearing to be reaching for a gun.</p><p>Cliven Bundy wasted no time in declaring victory after Navarro's ruling Monday as he walked out of the courtroom a free man for the first time in 700 days.</p><p>"My defense is a 15-second defense: I graze my cattle only on Clark County, Nev., land and I have no contract with the federal government," he said according to the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-bundy-mistrial-2018-story.html" target="_blank">Los Angeles Times</a>. "This court has no jurisdiction or authority over this matter. And I've put up with this court in America as a political prisoner for two years."</p><p>Bundy's claims were never put to a test in the courtroom because Judge Navarro ruled the prosecution's failure to share evidence with the defense made it impossible for the defendants to receive a fair trial.</p><p>Walker said the Bundy religious ideology is drawn from fringe Mormon theologians including W. Cleon Skousen, as well as mainstream church leaders including former Mormon Church President Ezra Taft Benson, who was agriculture secretary in the Eisenhower administration.</p><p style="">The Bundy family, said Walker, believes the U.S. Constitution does not allow the federal government to own land outside of Washington DC and, that under the Second Amendment, citizens have an obligation to force the federal government off public land.</p><p>"This court decision will cause every person who agrees with the Bundy ideology to believe they can threaten federal employees on public land with firearms and pay no cost," Walker said. "Every hardworking federal employee on federal public lands now has a huge target painted on their back."</p><p>In Burns, Ore., former Harney County Judge Steve Grasty told The Revelator he is "very disappointed" that the case ended before it was presented to a jury. Grasty tangled with Ammon and Ryan Bundy and Ryan Payne when the men led the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County in January 2016.</p><p>Grasty said the Bundy family's efforts to trigger an armed insurrection against the federal government in Harney County was a terrorist act that drew overwhelming opposition from most of the rural, ranching community.</p><p>"No matter what the outcome of the trial was, I think it would have been beneficial, even to the Bundys, to have gotten all the way through the trial and have all the evidence out in front … and have jurors make a decision," Grasty said.</p><p>Betsy Gaines Quammen, an expert on the impact of Mormonism and public lands, said the court ruling "will glorify Cliven Bundy" in the minds of his followers.</p><p>"It could well convince his supporters that the Bundy family stands in God's favor," she said. "He has always said that he was waging a religious war and with that rationale, this mistrial makes it appear as if Bundy has heavenly approval."</p><p style="">Quammen wrote a doctoral thesis at Montana State University entitled <em>American Zion: Mormon Perspectives on Landscape, from Zion National Park to the Bundy Family War. </em>She is currently writing a book about Mormon worldview and U.S. public lands called <em>American Zion</em>.</p><p style="">She predicts that the mistrial will provide "momentum to the current agenda of developing federal lands and the push towards privatization."</p><p>Quammen said a potential flashpoint in the near future could be related to ongoing litigation to stop <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/trump-watch">President Donald Trump's</a> executive order sharply reducing the size of two national monuments located in southwest Utah, <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/bears-ears">Bears Ears</a> and <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/grand-staircase-escalante">Grand Staircase Escalante</a>.</p><p>"If there is litigation that puts a 'stay' on national monument reduction, I wouldn't be surprised if guys with guns show up on public lands," she said. "Ranchers have fought on the ground. Dark money has fought in Washington. And public lands are more vulnerable than they have ever been."</p><p>Walker said the Bundy family has been very skillful focusing the public's attention on government overreach, while keeping the religious roots of their opposition to the federal government out of public debate.</p><p style="">Their deep ties to extreme Mormon teachings, however, generated widespread media coverage during the Las Vegas trial when Bundy supporters distributed a 200-page manuscript called <em>The Nay Book</em> outlining their philosophy.</p><p>The booklet starts with a letter from Bundy posing the document's central question: "What is the constitutional duty of a member of the Lord's church?" Bundy found answers in the scripture that he believed directed and justified him in "defending my rights and my ranch against the federal government's tyrannical" usurpation of his land, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/cliven-bundys-fight-against-the-feds-has-roots-in-interpretation-of-mormon-scripture/2017/12/07/0ef8fea6-d93b-11e7-a841-2066faf731ef_story.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.22a4321a5788" target="_blank">The Washington Post reported</a> in December.</p><p>"Bundy represented himself as peacefully protesting government overreach. Who wouldn't go along with that?" Walker said. "In reality, he was talking about an armed religious crusade to overthrow the federal government. If he said that honestly, a lot fewer people would support him."</p><p><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="http://therevelator.org/bundy-trial-dismissed/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>
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The famous Wahweap Hoodoos at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument are no longer protected as a national monument. Mark Stacey / NOAA
By John Gilroy
Just a day after President Donald Trump significantly diminished the boundaries of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT) introduced legislation that would reduce the protections on this unique landscape even further.
The Grand Staircase-Escalante Enhancement Act (H.R. 4558) mirrors President Trump's proclamation by creating three smaller national monuments and one national park that together would preserve roughly 60 percent of the landscape that has been safeguarded by the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument since its inception in 1996.
<p style="">All major management decisions about the park and the monument would not be made by the National Park Service or other professional federal land managers. Instead, the management plans for each would be developed and implemented by a newly created "management council" of seven people, including four local county commissioners and one Utah state representative.</p><p style=""><strong>Most Utahans backed the national monument</strong></p><p style="">The two-decades-old Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was supported by local business owners, science communities, sportsmen and Utahans across the state. According to a bipartisan <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/analysis/2016/08/11/new-poll-utahans-support-protections-for-bears-ears-area" target="_blank">2016 poll</a>, residents believe—by a margin larger than 2-to-1—that Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was good for their state. During the Trump administration's national monument review, <a href="http://keylogeconomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/PublicSupportForPublicLands_FINAL_20170822.pdf" target="_blank">99 percent</a> of the <a href="https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=DOI-2017-0002-0001" target="_blank">nearly 3 million comments</a> submitted expressed support for maintaining or expanding national monuments, including Grand Staircase-Escalante.<span></span></p><p style=""><span></span><strong>The monument is good for Utah's economy</strong><br></p>The Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument has become a world-class tourist destination, with visitors coming to squeeze through its slot canyons, marvel at southern Utah's cliffs and plateaus, and explore colorful hoodoos and other geologic wonders. The 2016 poll found that 70 percent of voters surveyed felt the national monument had resulted in a beneficial impact on the state's tourism industry. That belief is supported by a 32 percent jump in personal income and a 24 percent increase in jobs in communities neighboring the national monument between 2001 and 2015, according to <a href="https://headwaterseconomics.org/wp-content/uploads/Escalante.pdf" target="_blank">research</a> from Headwaters Economics. Citing its importance to the vitality of nearby communities, <a href="http://monumentsforall.org/chambers-commerce-tell-trump-administration-leave-national-monuments-alone/" target="_blank">local businesses and the Escalante & Boulder Chamber of Commerce urged the Trump administration</a> to keep the national monument intact. <span></span><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzAxNTcwMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5NDU5NDc4M30.T1peg454bxyhYKH567by6MeSL0oy1BE9goXqHO7IkKY/img.jpg?width=980" id="0a08b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ed04839b2af5352ca7ccbc55a955fbd4" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption..."> Calf Creek Falls at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Bureau of Land Management Utah</small></p><p style=""><strong>Future discoveries lost</strong><br></p>Cutting the size of Grand Staircase-Escalante by roughly 40 percent will be a significant loss for <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/science/">science</a>. Last month, 146 scientists, researchers, and academic organizations <a href="http://monumentsforall.org/eve-announcement-ut-monument-hundreds-scientists-tell-administration-changes-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monument-harm-research-discovery/" target="_blank">expressed concern</a> over fragmenting this "important living laboratory," where significant research and discovery has happened, sending a letter to the president asking him to leave this monument unaltered.<p style="">Following President Trump's action on the Utah monuments, Tom Wathen, a vice president at <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/" target="_blank">The Pew Charitable Trusts</a> responsible for conservation projects in the U.S., <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/about/news-room/press-releases/2017/12/04/utah-monuments-should-remain-as-designated" target="_blank">said</a>:</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">"The Kaiparowits Plateau in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/science/utah-grand-staircase-dinosaurs-kaiparowits-plateau-fossils.html" target="_blank">has been called</a> 'the Shangri-La of dinosaurs' for the many skeletons of these enormous creatures that have been unearthed, including 21 previously unknown species. The remains of the oldest, an 81 million-year-old tyrannosaurus—<em>Lythronax argestes</em>—were recovered from the plateau just four years ago. Reducing this monument's boundaries by more than 40 percent to allow for development will do serious harm not only to scientific exploration but also to the livelihood of the local community, which has grown and thrived from tourism since the monument was designated in the red rock countryside of southern Utah more than 20 years ago."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNzAxNTcwOS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyMzMyMzQyNX0.1wpdTgwpmx16xXWKf1oA_ncsU1cxvnto4R3uwvyrLnA/img.jpg?width=980" id="b69a3" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="79e56fd3a1584e7cb5680c0dd4598509" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Under H.R. 4558, Devil's Garden would be located in the new Kaiparowits National Monument and overseen by the new management council consisting of just seven people.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Bob Wick</small></p><p style=""><strong>De facto transfer of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands">public lands</a></strong></p>The management council that this legislation proposes would take land management decisions out of the hands of the public and give it to just seven people—four county commissioners from Utah's Kane and Garfield counties, a Utah state legislator who represents those counties, an Interior Department employee, and an appointee of the president. It would set a disturbing precedent for the management of federal land by handing all major management decisions in the national monuments and a national park over to a management council that is heavily weighted with a majority of local and state elected officials.<p>The Pew Charitable Trusts opposes H.R. 4558 and is urging members of Congress to reject this legislation.</p><p style=""><span></span><em>John Gilroy directs The Pew Charitable Trusts' U.S. public lands program</em>.</p>
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MUST-SEE VIDEO: 5 Threats Today to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante After Trump's Decision
14 December 2017
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While we fight to defeat President Trump's attacks on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, these are some of the real, on-the-ground threats we must keep at bay.
Following the lead of Native American tribes, The Wilderness Society and other groups have filed lawsuits against President Trump for violating the Antiquities Act when he essentially eliminated Bears Ears and greatly reduced Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
<p style="">An intense and <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/12/4/16733798/utah-national-monument-trump-bears-ears-staircase-escalante" target="_blank">precedent-setting</a> legal battle is ahead, and it could drag on for a while. With the support of our members and other <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands">public lands</a>-loving Americans, we expect to win. </p><p style="">But while we battle it out in court, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante will be opened to the scourges of development and visitor misbehavior, among other things. Moving beyond the rhetoric and political gestures, here are a few of the actual, on-the-ground threats to these public lands, beginning with the most imminent.</p><p style=""><strong>1. More roads and reckless motorized use </strong></p><p>The land cut out of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments will remain public, but it will not enjoy as high a level of protection as before Trump's decision. One of the most immediate concerns in these areas is re-opened roads and reckless all-terrain vehicle (ATV) use. Motorized vehicles will now be allowed on <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/what-happens-now-that-trump-has-said-hell-scale-back-bears-ears-and-grand-staircase-escalante" target="_blank">any road that existed prior to the establishment</a> of the monuments. </p><p style="">That may end up being <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2017/11/20/what-does-kane-county-want-in-a-redrawn-grand-straircase-escalante-monument/" target="_blank">hundreds of roads</a>, thanks to an oft-exploited <a href="http://www.hcn.org/issues/49.14/latest-utah-road-claims-on-public-lands" target="_blank">law passed in 1866</a>. Utah county governments have used the statute to claim that derelict or disused old settler trails count as current roads. This has included more than <a href="https://suwa.org/issues/phantom-roads-r-s-2477/" target="_blank">1,400 miles of routes claimed within Bears Ears</a> and 2,000 miles of routes within Grand Staircase-Escalante. So we could see huge swaths of wildlands suddenly overrun by vehicles now that the monument boundaries have been drastically contracted, isolating the still-protected sites as small, disconnected islands amid oceans of disruptive traffic.</p><p style=""><strong>2. Increased destructive "treatments" that tear up the land </strong></p><p style="">The Trump administration's new declarations specify they "may allow for active, science-based vegetation treatment" in both Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. This will likely lead to a range of destructive activities meant to replace native plants with perennial grass cover. One of the most viscerally upsetting is so-called "chaining," in which bulldozers drag enormous chains across the desert to uproot trees.</p><p style="">Research suggests this practice—which is likely to be among the first undertaken in the newly un-protected landscape—can <a href="http://www.greatoldbroads.org/wp-content/uploads/formidable/44/Redmond-et-al.-2013-Effects-of-chaining-in-GSENM-less-pinyon.pdf" target="_blank">suppress tree growth in the area</a> for decades after the fact, especially impacting the piñon pine. <a href="http://www.greatoldbroads.org/wp-content/uploads/formidable/44/Redmond-et-al.-2013-Effects-of-chaining-in-GSENM-less-pinyon.pdf" target="_blank">Chaining also reduces biocrust</a>, a thin layer of organisms on the soil surface that help maintain the desert ecosystem, and leads to <a href="http://www.greatoldbroads.org/wp-content/uploads/formidable/44/Redmond-et-al.-2013-Effects-of-chaining-in-GSENM-less-pinyon.pdf" target="_blank">increased wind and water erosion</a>. </p><p style=""><strong>3. Damage to Native American cultural sites </strong></p><p style="">With Trump's decision, priceless archaeological and cultural sites in <a href="http://wilderness.org/blog/looters-vandals-threaten-some-americas-great-archaeological-sites-bears-ears" target="_blank">Bears Ears will be vulnerable to looting and vandalism</a>, as they were for years prior to monument designation. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/08/climate/bears-ears-monument-trump.html" target="_blank">Rock art, cliff dwellings and other cultural sites now fall</a> outside the monument boundaries, meaning less oversight for a piece of public land already extremely short on staff. A similar situation faces Grand Staircase-Escalante.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjg5NjM2NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNDk5MDc2N30.g_ew5LPX4UDHjWj9nMy6QLdqyO-6yMjQW4_4sNBOV70/img.jpg?width=980" id="28911" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="eb272a57ded6757986dbf47624fa63d7" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Bob Wick (BLM) / Flickr</small></p><p style="">The proclamation for Bears Ears also called for changes in the commission overseeing the monument that <a href="https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900005561/tribes-monument-co-management-proposal-is-slap-in-the-face.html" target="_blank">tribes say excludes key voices while elevating those hand-picked by anti-public lands interests</a>. An attorney with the Native American Rights Fund characterizes a bill that more or less codifies Trump's decision as an attempt "to dilute and silence the tribal voice." It is unclear what exactly this will mean for the monument, but it's safe to say it won't involve more buffers and protection for critical tribal sites.<br></p><p style=""><strong>4. Fossils exposed to vandalism (and important research halted)</strong></p><p style="">There are estimated to be more than 3,000 "scientifically important" fossil sites in the full Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and Trump's cuts would <a href="http://vertpaleo.org/Society-News/SVP-Paleo-News/Society-News,-Press-Releases/Grand-Staircase-Escalante-and-Bears-Ears-National.aspx" target="_blank">leave out more than 400 of them</a>, including many potential <a href="https://medium.com/westwise/meet-the-dinosaurs-of-grand-staircase-escalante-a-national-monument-president-trump-is-threatening-852822ac8ae6" target="_blank">dinosaur</a> finds and a large section of <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=51948" target="_blank">Triassic petrified forest mentioned in President Bill Clinton's original proclamation</a> establishing the monument. Bears Ears has not been studied as extensively by paleontologists, but is considered ripe with potential; Trump's virtual elimination of that monument will strip protected status from a <a href="http://vertpaleo.org/Society-News/SVP-Paleo-News/Society-News,-Press-Releases/Grand-Staircase-Escalante-and-Bears-Ears-National.aspx" target="_blank">major Triassic bone bed, among other sites</a>. </p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjg5NjQwMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxODM3MTI4Mn0.5H0-pSUw6qMV0BooUYJoIhEzzk3bnD_IUmZL1s-w3is/img.jpg?width=980" id="3a368" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d9adc7fa633c376b61069c25bd1f5851" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">A dinosaur skeleton unearthed at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, now exhibited at the Natural History Museum of Utah.</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Charles (Chuck) Peterson / Flickr</small></p><p style="">This is why, in addition to Native American groups and The Wilderness Society, the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology is among those groups suing Trump over his monument cuts. Paleontologists worry that with former monument-protected land <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/qa-why-fossil-scientists-are-suing-trump-over-monuments-downsizing" target="_blank">reverting to a less protective level of "multiple use"</a> management, <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2017/12/10/scientists-decry-trumps-move-to-strip-fossil-treasures-from-utahs-grand-staircase-monument/" target="_blank">mining and other activities will come to take precedence</a> over fossils. In the meantime, fossils will be exposed to vandalism, which is <a href="http://wilderness.org/blog/dinosaur-national-monument-vandalized-public-lands-still-risk" target="_blank">already a huge problem at some national monuments</a> and would be even more so for tracts of land that lack that level of staff and resources.<br></p><p>Cuts will also <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pol-trump-national-monuments-20171026-htmlstory.html" target="_blank">interfere with research</a> and perhaps even halt some projects entirely (a great deal of funding that led to major fossil finds in Grand Staircase-Escalante <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/12/qa-why-fossil-scientists-are-suing-trump-over-monuments-downsizing" target="_blank">came through the monument</a>, including the resources to airlift a rare, <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2017/10/15/nearly-complete-tyrannosaur-fossil-airlifted-from-utahs-grand-staircase/#gallery-carousel-8175144" target="_blank">nearly complete tyrannosaur skeleton</a> out of a now de-designated monument area earlier this year). </p><p style=""><strong>5. Uranium and coal mining in formerly protected lands </strong></p><p style="">As has been extensively reported, Trump's monument attacks are likely motivated by a push to drill and mine in and around Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. In the case of Bears Ears, a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/uranium-firm-urged-trump-officials-to-shrink-bears-ears-national-monument/2017/12/08/2eea39b6-dc31-11e7-b1a8-62589434a581_story.html?utm_term=.a7e66f61a35f" target="_blank">uranium company lobbied the Trump administration</a> to exclude potentially ore-rich areas from the new monument boundaries, as becomes glaringly obvious with a glance at the map:</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjg5NjUzMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTU5MTYzMjY0NX0.csFosRVbHdkS80LeIId9h3u9uEIlTmQaJmM--kSNR24/img.jpg?width=980" id="d5a33" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="19b2e8fca00851800ed550a11c6880d1" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
</p><p>The price of uranium is currently too low to expedite mining on the land, but that is not a permanent state. Similarly, while the area formerly protected as Bears Ears is not considered a high-potential spot for oil and gas drilling at the moment, that could easily change with <a href="http://www.hcn.org/articles/monuments-what-national-monument-protections-do" target="_blank">market fluctuations and the development of new technologies</a>. </p><p style="">Meanwhile, Trump's contracted borders for Grand Staircase-Escalante carefully tiptoe around <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a> deposits (see below), opening the door for coal mining operations on former monument lands. That could mean thousands of acres dug up and stripped, waterways polluted with soil and contaminants and <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/wildlife">wildlife</a> driven away by dust and noise pollution. </p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
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How Trump’s Dismemberment of Bears Ears Was Driven by Racism, Grave Robbery and Mormon Beliefs
06 December 2017
Popular
Bears Ears National Monument Valley of the Gods. Bob Wick / BLM
By John Dougherty
President Trump's visit to Salt Lake City Monday to sign two orders slashing the size of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments also included a meeting with Mormon religious leaders who shared "Church doctrine" with the president before he signed the controversial proclamations.
Trump's unprecedented, two-million-acre cut in public land protection was spurred by Mormon political leaders, including Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, and supported by the entire Utah congressional delegation, Utah governor and Utah legislature.
<p style="">It remains unknown what was discussed when Trump met with the top leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints during the closed meeting.</p><p>But if Trump had also chosen to sit down with experts such as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_W._Murphy_(anthropologist)" target="_blank">Thomas Murphy</a> and <a href="https://shashjaa.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Angelo Baca</a>, two scholars of American Indian descent who were raised Mormon, he surely would have heard a different perspective on Mormon doctrine from the one offered by church leaders.</p><p style="">Trump would have heard how latent racism, a history of grave robbery beginning with LDS founder Joseph Smith, disrespect of tribal sovereignty and a belief in divine right to the land are at the heart Utah's relentless drive to seize control of federal <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/public-lands">public lands</a>, particularly Bears Ears.</p><p style="">Murphy and Baca co-authored a 2016 academic paper, "<a href="https://www.degruyter.com/downloadpdf/j/opth.2016.2.issue-1/opth-2016-0054/opth-2016-0054.pdf" target="_blank">Rejecting Racism in Any Form: Latter-day Saint Rhetoric, Religion and Repatriation</a>," on the history of Mormon theology and its impact on indigenous people.</p><p style="">The paper provides an indigenous interpretation of Mormon history and details how religious scripture has been used to marginalize American Indians, justify the looting of artifacts, and reject tribal sovereignty and rights to petition the federal government to create <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/national-monuments">national monuments</a> such as Bears Ears.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjUyNzUxNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxMTQ0OTA2NX0.Bc_QW57THF9PJTYZUc-aMOpTr-SvTXqxWe4rq-1UFB4/img.jpg?width=980" id="24c63" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="bf239a271ed56830356d4160a8712f02" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Bob Wick / BLM</small></p><p style="">The paper acknowledges that the LDS Church has <a href="https://www.lds.org/church/news/church-statement-against-racism-encourages-tolerance-and-love-following-violence-in-virginia?lang=eng" target="_blank">issued statements</a> condemning all forms of racism. But the scholars argue that until the church takes tangible steps to compensate for the racist tenets it held to in the past—steps like returning indigenous artifacts and body parts taken from grave sites—its rejection of racism will continue to ring hollow.</p><p>"A fundamental problem for the Latter-day Saint aspiration to move beyond all forms of racism is that the foundation events of this new world faith began with looting indigenous artifacts and graves made possible through the theft of indigenous lands," they wrote in the paper.</p><p>"Racism, as experienced by indigenous peoples under colonialism, has often included differential standards in the treatment of the dead and the artifacts they left behind as well as religious justifications for the usurpation of lands," the paper continues. "Mormon scriptures produced in part through the desecration of graves continue to denigrate American Indians and Africans cursed by God with dark skin, while paradoxically claiming that God is 'no respecter of persons.'</p><p>"For nearly two centuries these sacred texts have been central to the acquisition of wealth and power in the LDS Church, much of it gained at the expense of indigenous peoples. If racism is truly to be rejected in all of its forms then the LDS Church needs to consider repatriation of indigenous body parts, burial goods, sacred artifacts and stolen lands as an active way to change the current structures of domination and realize its egalitarian aspirations."</p><p style="">The paper chronicles the early history of Mormon founder Joseph Smith in the "money-digging business" in and near Palmyra, New York, in the early 19th century. The business included looking for artifacts in indigenous burials. In 1823 an angel purportedly guided Smith to gold plates, which have never been presented, buried in a hillside near Palmyra.</p><p style="">The gold plates, according to Mormon doctrine, were inscribed with the history of the former inhabitants of North America written in an unknown language described as "reformed Egyptian." The purported translation, said by Smith to have been conducted with a "seer stone"—rocks considered sacred gifts from God—placed in the bottom of a hat, became the Book of Mormon.</p><p>Smith would later similarly translate Egyptian papyri that LDS members in Kirkland, Ohio, purchased in 1835 from a businessman who was touring the country displaying mummies and other artifacts. The translation, completed in 1842, became the canonical Mormon text, the Book of Abraham, <a href="https://www.lds.org/topics/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham?lang=eng" target="_blank">according to the LDS church</a>.</p><p>"The Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham both owe their origins to the practice of grave-robbery, an offense not just today but also at the time of their production," stated Murphy's and Baca's paper.</p><p style="">Murphy is chairman of the anthropology department at Edmonds (Washington) Community College and gained national prominence in 2002 when he published a <a href="http://www.academia.edu/11588731/Lamanite_Genesis_Genealogy_and_Genetics" target="_blank">research paper</a> on DNA analysis that debunked a fundamental Mormon belief that American Indians <a href="https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1659&context=msr" target="_blank">descended from Israelites</a>. The church ordered him to renounce his paper or face excommunication. He refused, and the church backed down and suspended its excommunication proceedings.</p><p><a href="http://therevelator.org/american-indians-unite-bears-ears/" target="_blank">Baca is a filmmaker</a> and doctoral student at New York University who produced a <a href="https://shashjaa.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">documentary</a> on Bears Ears.</p><p style="">Murphy is of Mohawk descent and Baca is Navajo and Hopi.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjUyNzU4Mi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzA0MTI0OX0.g18Yyuqd9hN1Hh-J8xoY7e553rnDC_ljPfsz0cz0ySw/img.jpg?width=980" id="b5e99" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="52d6481daad6a563d5cd2a3135ffba23" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Thomas Murphy</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">John Dougherty</small></p><p style="">"The presumption of the right of the settler colonists (to the land) is not unique to Mormons," Murphy told The Revelator. But, he said, what's unique to Mormon settler colonists is that they use scripture to justify their actions.</p><p style="">"When you add a divine sanction to it you get an element of righteous zeal that I think is playing out" in the intense opposition to Bears Ears National Monument from Utah's elected leaders, nearly all of whom are Mormons, he said. "There's not just a righteous zeal, but there's a righteous fury."</p><p>The anger is rooted in the fact that the tribes bypassed state and local government and requested President Obama make Bears Ears a national monument. This action came only after years of being closed out on discussions in Utah Rep. Rob Bishop's <a href="https://www.utahpli.com/" target="_blank">Public Land Initiative</a> that failed to get out of the House Natural Resources Committee in 2016.</p><p style="">"When the tribes tried to protect these cultural and natural resources by bypassing the local governments and going to the federal government, the Mormons were able to see this as federal overreach instead of seeing it as a tribal sovereignty issue," Murphy said.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjUyNzYxMi9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMzYxMjc1NH0.YBpay7LNk0SuTO878YrUs7kEx-nZzd_tJq1eO8udwuM/img.jpg?width=980" id="df9e7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="f8ef10db9314f01b3cdf678d95480b32" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">Bob Wick / BLM</small></p><p style="">Trump and his Interior Sec. <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ryan-zinke">Ryan Zinke</a> seized on the Utah political leaders' rhetoric of the monument designations as a "federal land grab" meant to "lock up" economic resources. Both monuments include lands that were already controlled by U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, undercutting the federal overreach claim.</p><p style="">When viewed from the American Indian perspective, Trump's decision to gut Bears Ears is another ugly chapter beginning with the white settler colonists who stole their land and killed and displaced millions of their people. The indigenous people that were left after the genocide were confined to reservations where their languages were banned, children sent away to boarding schools, and their indigenous societies were isolated and cut off from commerce and communication with other tribes.</p><p>And now, after five tribes (Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute and Unitah Ouray Ute) with a history of conflict came together to successfully petition the federal government to create Bears Ears to protect significant cultural resources, Trump has reneged on a previous president's pledge to preserve the land.</p><p>"I'm approving the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase recommendation for you, Orrin," Trump told Hatch in an October phone call, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/27/politics/trump-bears-ears-hatch-utah/index.html" target="_blank">according to CNN</a>. According to Hatch the majority of Utah residents, including American Indians, supported reducing the size of Bears Ears.</p><p>Murphy said Hatch is "lying" about tribal support, which is supported by the fact that at least five tribes are preparing to file a joint lawsuit seeking to block Trump's downsizing of Bears Ears.</p><p style="">"(Hatch) seems to be taking on sort of Trumpesque political move of claiming native support for his actions" while ignoring opposition from non-Mormon Indian leaders, Murphy said. "They are being entirely dismissed in favor of one or two Navajo that happened to be Mormon that are supporting this."</p><p>Murphy is referring to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xx1wS23yj0" target="_blank">San Juan County, Utah Commissioner Rebecca Benally</a> who is also a Navajo and is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xx1wS23yj0" target="_blank">a vehement opponent</a> of Bears Ears. Six of the seven Utah Navajo chapter houses support Bears Ears, as does <a href="http://utahdinebikeyah.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/NNChapter-Resolutions-Letters-to-Zinke-9-28-17.pdf" target="_blank">the Navajo Utah Commission</a> and the Navajo Nation.</p><p style="">Murphy said some Mormons tend to dismiss the legitimacy of non-Mormon American Indians positions because they are often associated as descendants of the Lamanites, who were <a href="https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/book-mormon-second-nephi-doctrinal-structure/7-lamanite-mark" target="_blank">"cursed" by God with dark skin</a> because they had become wicked, according to LDS teachings. The Lamanites, according to LDS teachings, are the Israelites who are said to have colonized North America around 600 B.C.</p><p style="">"The book of Mormon story gives Mormons license to dismiss native voices and their legitimacy because they see that indigenous people of once having a right to the land, they lost through their own wickedness," Murphy said. Not only were the Lamanites considered wicked, they also annihilated a subset of the original Israelite colonists called Nephites, who were white. LDS teachings assert that "there was an ancient white civilization that was destroyed by the ancestors of the American Indians."</p><p style="">Murphy said Mormon founder Joseph Smith attributed the great cultural artifacts found in North America, including the earthen mounds built by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mound_Buildershttps:/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mound_Builders" target="_blank">the Mound Builders</a>, to the white Nephites rather than to the ancestors of American Indians. Combine this with Smith's history of grave robbing and Murphy said it's not surprising that some Mormons don't see anything wrong with collecting ancient artifacts off public land, even if it violates federal law.</p><p style="">"They don't see themselves as stealing from Native Americans because they see Native Americans as usurpers of what once belonged to white people," Murphy said. "And that's the story that comes out of the Book of Mormon."</p><p style="">Bear Ears is estimated to have more than 100,000 significant cultural sites. Many sites have already been looted as part of a lucrative <a href="http://therevelator.org/fight-bears-ears-two-towns/" target="_blank">trafficking business</a> that has proliferated in southern Utah for more than a century. Some of the most notable artifacts are on display at the <a href="https://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/edge-of-the-cedars/" target="_blank">Edge of Cedars State Park and Museum</a> in Blanding, Utah.</p><p style="">In a written statement to The Revelator, Baca said: "American Indians are not cursed with a dark skin. We are not morally and ethically cursed by God because we are brown and indigenous." He called on Mormons to "educate themselves on American Indian history, culture and language."</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image" style="">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjUyNzYxNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNDQ5OTg5MH0.EfDFaPbwGvDCLG-AivNB9eIprgCqD4TedCsa0OO2MCQ/img.jpg?width=980" id="1f88a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="aadf71b7115294e7c8db7e3230f39c4d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="add caption...">Angelo Baca</small><small class="image-media media-photo-credit" placeholder="add photo credit...">John Dougherty</small></p><p style="">Baca asked Mormons to truly move past the "racism and discrimination coded as law and order in a deeply unjust-settler-historical system."<br></p><p style="">He sharply criticized Mormon leaders for hosting Trump. "I believe they have sacrificed their own Mormon values and beliefs in supporting a morally and ethically questionable man."</p><p style=""><em>Reposted with permission from our media associate <a href="http://therevelator.org/trump-bears-ears-indigenous-scholars/" target="_blank">The Revelator</a>.</em></p>
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'A Terrible Violation of America's Public Lands and Heritage': Lawsuit Targets Trump's Slashing of Protections at Grand Staircase-Escalante
05 December 2017
Popular
Hoodoos at sunrise in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. Bob Wick / BLM / Flickr
Hours after President Donald Trump issued a proclamation taking an axe to Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah on Monday, conservation organizations filed a lawsuit attacking the order as an abuse of the president's power.
Earthjustice is representing eight organizations in a suit charging that the president violated the 1906 Antiquities Act by stripping monument protections from this national treasure: The Wilderness Society, the Grand Canyon Trust, the Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, Great Old Broads for Wilderness, Center for Biological Diversity, WildEarth Guardians and Western Watersheds Project. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and Natural Resources Defense Council are co-plaintiffs in the lawsuit and represented by in-house counsel.
<p style="">"If the Trump administration thinks Grand Staircase-Escalante can be sold out without a fight, they're in for a huge surprise," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, president and CEO of Defenders of Wildlife.</p><p style="">The Grand Staircase-Escalante contains dinosaur fossils found nowhere else in the world. Since its designation, 21 new dinosaur species have been unearthed by scientists in the monument, leading some to call these lands a "Dinosaur Shangri-la," and a "geologic wonderland." Grand Staircase holds one of the richest collections of fossils from the Late Cretaceous Period, which gives scientists and the public alike an unparalleled window into the dinosaurs that lived in these lands 10 million years ago. In mid-October, scientists <a href="http://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2017/10/15/nearly-complete-tyrannosaur-fossil-airlifted-from-utahs-grand-staircase/" target="_blank">airlifted</a> one of the most complete tyrannosaur skeletons ever found out of Grand Staircase. These fossils are largely found in the Kaiparowits Plateau, where the <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a> industry has long <a href="http://files.geology.utah.gov/online/c/c-93/gsekcoal.htm" target="_blank">coveted access</a> for coal mining that would wreak havoc on this dinosaur treasure trove that belongs to the American people.</p><p style="">"President Trump has perpetrated a terrible violation of America's public lands and heritage by going after this dinosaur treasure trove," said Heidi McIntosh, managing attorney in Earthjustice's Rocky Mountains office. "While past presidents have used the Antiquities Act to protect unique lands and cultural sites in America, Trump is instead mangling the law, opening this national monument to coal mining instead of protecting its scientific, historic and wild heritage. We will not let this stand. We will use the power of the law to stop Trump's illegal actions."</p><p style="">Trump's executive order to revoke and replace Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument came on the heels of a review conducted by Interior Sec. <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ryan-zinke">Ryan Zinke</a>. More than <a href="http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2017/senators-join-public-lands-groups-to-call-on-trump-administration-to-listen-to-overwhelming-public-support-for" target="_blank">2.7 million Americans</a> voiced their support for national monuments across the country, and public participation in the comment period was overwhelmingly in favor of keeping these public lands and waters protected just as they are.</p>
<p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-twitter_embed">
<iframe width="100%" height="150" scrolling="no" id="twitter-embed-937690108354093058" src="/res/community/twitter_embed/?iframe_id=twitter-embed-937690108354093058&created_ts=1512397717.0&screen_name=EcoWatch&text=%27Theft+Of+Our+Heritage%27%3A+Thousands+Protest+Trump%27s+Cuts+to+Utah%27s+National+Monuments+https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2FvaqdtDaAu0+%40NRDC%E2%80%A6+https%3A%2F%2Ft.co%2F4eviDwn8hp&id=937690108354093058&name=EcoWatch" frameborder="0" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="LUP2661576663086"></iframe>
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<p style="">"Despite the call for public comments, Trump never cared that we, the public, wanted him to keep his hands off our monuments," said Chris Krupp, public earth guardian at WildEarth Guardians. "He's not concerned with those of us that camp, hike, fish and hunt. He'd rather give another handout to oil, gas and coal companies."</p><p style="">"The Trump administration's effort to sell out our public lands is deeply unpopular and goes against American values," said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. "We will work to ensure our lands and waters remain open to the public and protected for future generations to explore and enjoy."</p><p style="">President Bill Clinton protected the lands of Grand Staircase <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=51948" target="_blank">as a national monument</a> on Sept. 18, 1996 using the Antiquities Act, a century-old law that has been used by 16 presidents since Theodore Roosevelt to protect some of our nation's most cherished landscapes and cultural heritage. Congress enacted the law in 1906, granting presidents the authority to create national monuments on federal lands to protect significant natural, cultural, historic or scientific features. The Antiquities Act does not, however, grant presidents the authority to diminish or rescind the monument designations of their predecessors.</p><p style="">"President Trump is attempting an unauthorized remodel of the Grand Staircase, knocking out not only geologic steps but cornerstones of the evolution of species, human history, and our cultural heritage as well," said Tim Peterson, Utah Wildlands program director with the Grand Canyon Trust.</p><p style="">"Grand Staircase is a cradle of biodiversity and losing even an acre would be a crime," said Taylor McKinnon of the Center for Biological Diversity. "Scientists have identified nearly four dozen new species of butterflies here. We must protect this monument's wildlife, stunning landscapes and cultural treasures for future generations. Trump and the fossil-fuel industry have picked the wrong battle."</p><p style="">After President Clinton designated Grand Staircase, an intricate land swap between the state and federal government was completed. Congress passed legislation modifying the monument's boundaries in 1998 and then approved a land swap in which the state of Utah received 145,000 acres of mineral-rich federal lands and $50 million from the federal treasury. That $50 million has since gone to support Utah's public schools, and the swap would be <a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060053899" target="_blank">incredibly difficult to unravel</a>. The Utah School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration established the Land Exchange Distribution Account to dole out the proceeds from these state-federal trades. At least <a href="https://trustlands.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/SITLA-stewardship-0615.pdf" target="_blank">27 Utah counties</a> have since received a total of $441 million.</p><p style="">Grand Staircase-Escalante has proven a <a href="https://headwaterseconomics.org/wp-content/uploads/Escalante.pdf" target="_blank">tourism and economic boon</a> for Southern Utah since its designation. Between 2001 and 2015, the population in the two counties bordering Grand Staircase grew by 13 percent, jobs increased 24 percent and real personal income grew 32 percent. Travel and tourism boomed in the region, offering 1,630 jobs around Grand Staircase. In the big picture, recreation from adventure-seekers, hikers, amateur geologists and families simply getting outdoors now funnels more than <a href="http://archive.sltrib.com/article.php?id=5553785&itype=CMSID" target="_blank">$12 billion</a> into Utah's economy.</p><p style="">"I'm a resident of Kanab, and there are a lot of local businesses that are completely dependent on tourism related to Grand Staircase-Escalante," said Laura Welp of Western Watersheds Project, and a former Bureau of Land Management botanist at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. "The entire 'staircase' of spectacular geological layers, with its world-class fossil resources, deserves to be protected intact from the threat of coal mining and other types of commercial exploitation."</p><p style="">"Americans from across the nation should be outraged by President Trump's unlawful attempt to eviscerate the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, one of our country's wildest and most scientifically significant federal public landscapes," said Stephen Bloch, legal director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance<strong>,</strong> Utah's largest conservation organization. "No one will look back on this decision in 15, 25 or 50 years and say Trump did the right thing by protecting less of this magnificent place. And by promoting this illegal act, Utah's parochial congressional delegation and local politicians have firmly come down on the wrong side of history."</p>
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great old broads for wildnerness
center for biological diversity
wildearth guardians
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southern utah wildnerness alliance
nrdc
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ryan zinke
'Theft Of Our Heritage': Thousands Protest Trump's Cuts to Utah's National Monuments
04 December 2017
Popular
Saturday rally at Utah State Capitol against President Trump's anticipated cuts to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments. League of Conservation Voters
President Donald Trump will visit Utah today to announce dramatic cuts to two national monuments in the state.
Trump is expected to speak at the Utah State Capitol in Salt Lake City at 12:30 p.m. According to reports, he will announce the gutting of the 1.3 million acre Bears Ears National Monument by 85 percent and the slashing of the 1.9 million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by 50 percent. The move will be the largest elimination of protected areas in U.S. history.
<p>
National monuments can be designated by presidents under the Antiquities Act, which puts the lands off limits to drilling, mining, logging and ranching. Trump says former presidents abused the act.
</p><p style="">
Bears Ears was designated in 2016 by President Barack Obama. Grand Staircase-Escalante was created by President Bill Clinton in 1996.
</p><p style="">
<span></span>Trump's plan to shrink the two monuments came after a review by Interior Sec. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ryan-zinke">Ryan Zinke</a> that the president ordered in April. Fossil fuel-linked advocates have long targeted the areas for oil, gas and coal resources within and around the monuments' boundaries. According to Zinke's <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4052225-Interior-Secretary-Ryan-Zinke-s-Report-to-the.html" target="_blank">leaked memo</a>, Grand Staircase-Escalante sits atop "several billion tons" of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal" target="_blank">coal</a>. Coal and oil reserves also surround Bears Ears.
</p><p style="">
Trump's decision was made despite widespread public support of the designations.
<a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/oppose-national-monuments-review-2476207979.html">M</a><a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/oppose-national-monuments-review-2476207979.html">ore than 2.8 million</a> people submitted comments to the Interior Department urging the administration to preserve protections for the lands.
</p><p style="">
Over the weekend, more than 5,000 people rallied at the Utah State Capitol to protest Trump's decision.
</p><p style="">
"Flatly, Trump does not have the legal authority to gut our national monuments nor does he have the support of the people of Utah to do so. Thousands of Utahns raised their voices today, in recognition of the cultural, archaeological, and environmental significance of these areas," <a href="https://www.sierraclub.org/" target="_blank">Sierra Club</a> Utah Chapter Director Ashley Soltysiak said of Saturday's demonstration. "Today's rally showed the strength of support for Tribal sovereignty and Utah's public lands."</p><p style="">
A protest is also planned at the State Capitol during the president's visit today.
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Monument supporters warn that reducing the land's borders and opening them up to drilling, mining and other development would destroy Native American cultural and archaeological sites and lead to loss of wildlife.
</p><p style="">
As Bruce Babbitt, the Secretary of Interior from 1993 to 2001 and the Democratic governor of Arizona from 1978 to 1987, eloquently wrote in a
<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/opinion/trump-national-monuments-bears-ears.html?_r=0" target="_blank">New York Times</a> op-ed published Friday:
</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">
Mr. Trump's plans add up to the largest elimination of protected areas in American history. He is a vandal in our midst, coming in person to lay waste to the land. This theft of our heritage should awaken us to the damage being piled up across our public lands under this administration.
</p><p style="margin-left: 20px;">
If he succeeds, tens of thousands of Native American sacred sites in southern Utah will be at renewed risk of looting. Red rock canyon lands will face the prospect of being stripped for coal and drilled for oil and gas. And the wild places where we hike and hunt and find solitude may not be there for future generations to do the same.
</p><p style="">
Native American tribes such as the Navajo, Hopi, Pueblo of Zuni, Ute Mountain and Ute Indians that consider Bears Ears sacred territory have vowed legal action.
</p><p style="">
"We will be fighting back immediately. All five tribes will be standing together united to defend Bears Ears," Natalie Landreth, an attorney for the
<a href="https://www.narf.org/" target="_blank">Native American Rights Fund</a>, told
<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-monuments/trump-to-shrink-utah-monuments-riling-tribes-and-environmentalists-idUSKBN1DY167" target="_blank">Reuters</a>.
</p><p style="">
Reuters reported that Republican Congressman Rob Bishop of Utah, chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, is expected to introduce legislation after Trump's announcement to carry out the cuts. However, the measure's chance of passing the Republican-controlled body is unclear.
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Senator Tom Udall from New Mexico promised he would try to stop Trump's cuts.
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"[President Trump's] ignorance and disrespect diminish the office of president of the United States," Udall said. "He will be challenged in court, and I will fight him every step of the way in my capacity as democratic leader on Senate Indian Affairs and the Interior Department Appropriations Subcommittee."
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Environmental groups as well as outdoor clothing company
<a href="http://www.patagonia.com/home/" target="_blank">Patagonia</a> are also expected to fight Trump's action in court.
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"Since taking office, the Trump administration has abandoned its responsibility to protect America's public lands for our children and our grandchildren, and they've rejected the voices of millions of Americans," said Patagonia president and CEO Rose Marcario. "Removing protections for federal lands could result in permanent destruction of these treasured places and could jeopardize access for all of us. As a result, Patagonia will continue our fight to protect Bears Ears National Monument in the courts."
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Ah-Shi-Sle-Pah in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. Harry Hayashi / ISTOCKPHOTO.COM
President Donald Trump is expected to order a significant downsizing of two national monuments in Utah next week, a move environmentalists have condemned as the "largest rollback of federal land protections ever."
According to leaked documents obtained by the Associated Press, the president plans to shrink Bears Ears National Monument by nearly 85 percent and reduce Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by almost half.
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The plan would gut the 1.35 million-acre Bears Ears to only 201,397 acres and the 1.87 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante to just 997,490 acres. This is a collective loss of more than two million acres of formerly protected land.
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Trump, who will travel to Utah on Monday to formerly announce the decision, is making the move after Interior Sec. <a href="https://www.ecowatch.com/tag/ryan-zinke">Ryan Zinke</a> made recommendations to his boss to sharply downsize the two monuments.
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Fossil fuel-linked advocates have long targeted the areas for oil, gas and coal resources within and around the monuments' boundaries. According to Zinke's <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4052225-Interior-Secretary-Ryan-Zinke-s-Report-to-the.html" target="_blank">leaked memo</a> from his nationwide monuments review over the summer, Grand Staircase-Escalante sits atop "several billion tons" of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/tag/coal">coal</a>. Coal and oil reserves also surround Bears Ears.
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Environmental groups and tribal leaders have responded to the Associated Press' report with sharp condemnation. The <a href="https://wilderness.org" target="_blank">Wilderness Society </a>and the <a href="https://www.narf.org/" target="_blank">Native American Rights Fund</a> have <a href="https://wilderness.org/resource/maps-boundary-modifications-bears-ears-and-grand-staircase-escalante-national-monuments" target="_blank">released maps</a> of the proposed land reduction.
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"It is no surprise that the Trump Administration is bowing to special interests, including the oil and mining companies, and these maps show how extreme his plans are for some of the most treasured and culturally significant lands in our nation," said Jamie Williams, president of The Wilderness Society.
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“President Trump's attempt to splinter and shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante would be the largest rollback of federal land protections ever," said Mark Salvo, vice president of Landscape Conservation at <a href="https://defenders.org/" target="_blank">Defenders of Wildlife</a>. </p><p>Bears Ears in particular features thousands of Native American archaeological and cultural artifacts.</p><p>
"For us, Bears Ears is a homeland. It always has been and still is," the <a href="http://bearsearscoalition.org/bears-ears-inter-tribal-coalition-condemns-zinke-recommendation-to-eviscerate-bears-ears-national-monument/?utm_content=bufferfd0f1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer" target="_blank">Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition</a> said. "The radical idea of breaking up Bears Ears National Monument is a slap in the face to the members of our Tribes and an affront to Indian people all across the country. Any attempt to eliminate or reduce the boundaries of this Monument would be wrong on every count. Such action would be illegal, beyond the reach of presidential authority."
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<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xNjE5Mzg1OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MzEwMzQ1MX0._XR-enhCq_2zDPjfE5ZHgdSqjOEMu_Hwc2alxCMnYmY/img.jpg?width=980" id="2f45c" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="ba443bfd4192b451f08e292abd5bfe6c" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image">
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Natalie Landreth, an attorney for the Native American Rights Fund, called Trump's action unprecedented and illegal and has already drafted a legal challenge to the move.
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"He will not be able to bask in one day of applause at the Salt Lake City airport" before being sued, she told the AP.
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Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah has said that the monuments in his state locked up too much land and asked Trump to shrink or rescind them.
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“I believe the outcome he is planning to announce strikes an excellent balance where everyone wins," Hatch said Thursday.
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