Why Black America Should Pay Attention To The Battle Over Bears Ears

More than 1.2 million acres of formerly protected land that formed part of Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah face an uncertain future after the Trump administration reduced its boundaries by more than 90% under a July 13 proclamation. 

The proclamation reduced Bears Ears from approximately 1.36 million acres to about 121,000 acres. Since September, multiple companies have already filed more than 70 mining claims on land removed from the monument. Meanwhile, on October 13, a federal judge reopened lawsuits challenging Trump’s authority to shrink the monument in the first place. For Indigenous nations with ancestral ties to the region, this fight is about more than just mining companies extracting from the land. They are concerned about the protection of their sacred ceremonial and archaeological sites that have been integral to their cultures and spiritual traditions for generations.

Hopi tribal member and Bears Ears advocate Jessica Wiarda describes the monument as a place whose importance is reflected in the unusual alliance formed to defend it.

“Bears Ears is so unique that I was shocked that all these tribes came together to protect this one place,” Wiarda said.
”So that really means that it’s really significant because it’s historically really difficult to get tribes to communicate and be on one page.”

Trump first reduced Bears Ears back in 2017, after President Barack Obama designated it in 2016. Then Joe Biden restored the larger boundaries in 2021. In July 2026, Trump again reduced the monument, arguing that the previous boundaries covered more territory than necessary to protect particular historic and scientific features.

On Sept. 2, several groups asked a federal judge to revive litigation over Trump’s 2017 monument rollbacks and allow them to challenge his latest cuts as part of those cases. The Bears Ears plaintiffs include conservation groups represented by Earthjustice, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and the Natural Resources Defense Council, as well as the Native American Rights Fund, tribal nations with ties to the monument and a group that includes Patagonia.

On Oct. 13, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan lifted stays on litigation originating from the 2017 reductions, allowing the legal challenges to proceed. At an Oct. 15 status conference, the judge directed the parties to address a briefing schedule and a requirement that the government give plaintiffs 48 hours’ advance notice of surface-disturbing activities on excluded lands, according to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Heidi McIntosh has litigated environmental and public-land issues since the 1990s. She worked with the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance before joining Earthjustice in 2012 and is now managing attorney of its Rocky Mountain office in Denver. She said the plaintiffs are arguing that the president’s actions do not align with the 1906 Antiquities Act, and this is another example of the president attempting to do things beyond his jurisdiction.

“It authorizes the president to do just one thing, which is to designate monuments, and then protect the lands around the monuments, to ensure that they aren’t harmed,” McIntosh said. “There’s nothing in the statute that authorizes the president to change national monuments, to revoke them, anything like that. That authority remains solely with Congress.”

The case could have broader implications. The sources agreed that this is representative of other social justice movements and the federal government intervening and not using the proper channels. The legal fight over Bears Ears is relevant to Black Americans because it raises questions about the future of federally protected monuments, historic landscapes and places commemorating Black history.

As McIntosh put it, “If the president can roll back Bears Ears and the Grand Staircase in Utah, he can roll back the monument in your backyard.”

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, a nonprofit founded in 1983, has fought to protect southern Utah’s red-rock wilderness for more than four decades, including Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante. Grant Stevens, the organization’s communications director, said that in addition to organizing and litigation, the group has people on the ground monitoring threats to the landscape.

One of the first things they observed after the monuments were reduced in July was the Bureau of Land Management and other federal agencies removing entrance signs from the monuments. At least one of the signs displayed the tribal seals representing the five tribes that composed the Bears Ears Commission.

“I think especially when you talk to tribal nations or you talk to individual tribal members, there’s a feeling that the agency and the administration is trying to erase tribal presence and tribal involvement, and then there’s the real effort to kind of erase the monuments from the landscape as well,” Stevens said.

Wiarda spoke to friends in the San Juan County area when the seals were removed, and said it impacted the mood of the entire city.

“The tribes down there are like, ‘wow, they’re just erasing us,’” she said. 

Meanwhile, groups say mining claims were filed prematurely in areas removed from the monuments, raising questions about what could happen on the ground while the legal battle plays out.

Companies and individuals seeking rights to extract certain minerals from federal land use a process established under the Mining Law of 1872. The process includes identifying a mineral deposit, physically marking the boundaries of a claim and filing documents and fees with county and federal officials.

Beginning Sept. 11, companies and individuals were permitted under Trump’s proclamation to stake mining claims on lands excluded from the monument, subject to existing rights and other applicable laws. According to McIntosh and Stevens, some people attempted to file claims before that date. Conservation groups have called those claims premature and invalid.

“The fact that people are already clamoring to do that, I think really does point to the fact that we are gonna see mining claims filed, we are gonna see extractive uses pursued on the landscape,” Stevens said. “And I think, unfortunately, we’re gonna see those at a faster pace than we did in 2017.”

More extensive exploration and mining operations require additional review and authorization. Mining is only one concern. McIntosh said groups have also seen interest in oil and gas drilling, which the Trump administration has promoted through its “drill, baby, drill” agenda.

McIntosh called Bears Ears “one of the richest archaeological areas in the country.” It is home to ancient cliff dwellings, ceremonial kivas and rock art.

“Really what motivates me to protect their ears, even though I don’t live there, and my tribe’s not, ‘on the monument,’ it’s like, there’s kivas there. We have stories of traveling up there,” Wiarda said. “That’s our history, and just because they don’t see it, it doesn’t mean it didn’t exist.”

These resources are at risk of looting, which can be facilitated by off-road vehicle access. According to McIntosh, before Bears Ears was protected as a monument, looters used vehicles such as Jeeps to transport stolen materials from archaeological sites. She said the president’s rollback could create opportunities for that to happen again.

Between environmental and cultural extraction, Stevens said the administration’s “act first, ask questions later” approach will not be good for the landscape’s long-term health.

“Part of what is so significant about both monuments is just the sheer scale of these places and what they’re protecting and how interconnected they are, can they connect to other protected areas, whether those are national parks, national recreation areas, wilderness areas, and any effort to chip away at those protections, to undermine those areas, is going to have detrimental impacts over time,” he said.

While signing the proclamation, Trump said the presidents who designated the monuments “took the land away from the people of Utah.” U.S. Rep. Celeste Maloy said the state’s residents want the land available for “multiple use and not locked up.”

McIntosh said there is a misunderstanding about how land can be used within a monument. According to the monument’s website, permitted activities include hiking, camping, hunting, guided trips, rafting and driving off-road on designated trails. The monument was receiving hundreds of thousands of visitors annually and boosting local economies.

Part of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance’s work involves organizing both nationally and within Utah. A week after the monuments were reduced, the organization held five rallies throughout the state as part of its “Monumental Day of Action.”

“The great thing that has come out of that is there is such love for these landscapes, such passion for protecting them and people are excited to take that and to go to their elected officials and say, ‘This is unacceptable. We need permanent protections for these places,’” Stevens said.

The issue extends beyond Utah. McIntosh compared Bears Ears to Yosemite or Yellowstone: Even if people never visit, she said, they can value its existence and consider its protection part of preserving the nation’s legacy.

“These are public lands that belong to all Americans, and they reflect important parts of American history and culture, and in the case of Bears Ears, it’s really central to the cultural lives of tribal members with ties to Bears Ears,” she said.

Sydney Goitia-Doran is a senior journalism major and environmental studies minor at Howard University. She is the editor-in-chief of The Hilltop and a climate intern at The Washington Post. You can connect with her on Instagram @sydneygdmedia.

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