Updates from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase — and How You Can Help

Updates from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase — and How You Can Help

by | 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.

As Earth Day Turns 50, We Can Do Our Part to Protect Nature

As Earth Day Turns 50, We Can Do Our Part to Protect Nature

by | 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.