Jim Enote: Bears Ears worthy of status as national monument

The effort by five tribes to establish a new national monument west of the Four Corners region is worthy of our attention. The Bears Ears Monument proposal is an assertion that tribes and the federal government will collaboratively co-manage the monument as equal partners. Upper-level policy and decision-making for the monument would be conducted through a monument commission comprised of equally numbered tribal and federal representatives. Tribal authority would not be limited to a tribal advisory committee and input would not be limited to occasional tribal consultations.

I believe the Bears Ears monument concept will directly address the asymmetry of federal land management authorities and actualize a vision by many whereby indigenous traditional knowledge and science are given equal treatment and application. This is particularly important in this case because the Bears Ears area is dense with cultural resources and is still an operative cultural landscape for several regional tribes. The ancient springs, shelters, shrines, petroglyphs, pictographs, plant and mineral gathering places of the Bears Ears area once consecrated even long ago are blessed in perpetuity and must be protected. Sadly, the area of the proposed monument has been ground zero for looters of cultural resources. As tribal peoples have become increasingly mobile and able to visit the Bears Ears area, what they find is not always pleasant.

Imagine a national monument where your presence is needed to complete a co-existing relationship of people and place. How this sense of home and place is interpreted would be a special task for the monument’s tribal and federal staff.