{"id":16998,"date":"2021-10-19T14:50:10","date_gmt":"2021-10-19T18:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.indianz.com\/News\/?p=16998"},"modified":"2021-10-19T14:53:22","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T18:53:22","slug":"cronkite-news-tribes-welcome-restoration-of-bears-ears-national-monument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/indianz.com\/News\/2021\/10\/19\/cronkite-news-tribes-welcome-restoration-of-bears-ears-national-monument\/","title":{"rendered":"Cronkite News: Tribes welcome restoration of Bears Ears National Monument"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n\t\t\n\t\t\tPresident Biden Delivers Remarks on Restoring Protections for National Monuments\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
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President Biden Delivers Remarks on Restoring Protections for National Monuments and Steps the Biden-Harris Administration is Taking to Better Conserve and R…<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t

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White House: President Biden Delivers Remarks on Restoring Protections for National Monuments – October 8, 2021<\/a>\r\n<\/figcaption>\r\n
Biden reverses Trump cuts to national monuments, restores Bears Ears<\/div>\r\n
Tuesday, October 19, 2021<\/div>\r\n
By Diannie Chavez<\/div>\r\n
Cronkite News<\/DIV>\r\n
cronkitenews.azpbs.org<\/A><\/DIV>\r\n

<\/p>\r\nWASHINGTON – President Joe Biden restored Bears Ears National Monument to its previous 1.36 million-acres footprint on October 8, reversing a Trump-era decision to cut as much as 85% of the southern Utah site valued for its environmental, archeological and tribal treasures.

<\/p>\r\nBears Ears was one of three national monuments cut by former President Donald Trump that were restored by Biden, along with the 1.87 million acre Grand Staircase<\/a>-Escalante National Monument in Utah and the Northeast Canyons<\/a> and Seamounts National Monument off the coast of New England.

<\/p>\r\nThe move was welcomed by environmental and tribal leaders who were on hand for Friday’s signing of the proclamations<\/a> restoring the public lands, with one calling the restoration of Bears Ears “a victory for our people, our ancestors, and future generations.”

<\/p>\r\n“It’s time to put Trump’s cynical actions in the rearview mirror, restore rightful protections, and restart the Bears Ears co-management arrangement with the tribes who have held this place sacred since time immemorial,” said Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, in a prepared statement.

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The Bears Ears National Monument in Utah gets its name from two buttes resembling the ears of bears. Photo by Tim Peterson<\/a><\/figcaption> \r\n

<\/p>\r\nBut Utah officials, who had criticized former President Barack Obama’s decision to create the Bears Ears<\/a> monument in 2016, were not pleased.

<\/p>\r\n“These decisions clearly demonstrate the administration’s unwillingness to collaborate with and listen to those most impacted by their decisions,” Utah Gov. Spencer J. Cox said in a written statement Thursday.

<\/p>\r\nThat statement,<\/a> which was also signed by the lieutenant governor, the attorney general, the Senate president and House speaker, charged that Biden’s proclamation “fails to provide certainty as well as the funding for law enforcement, research, and other protections which the monuments need and which only Congressional action can offer.”

<\/p>\r\nBears Ears was created by Obama<\/a> with a stroke of the pen under the Antiquities Act, a law that allows a president to unilaterally create monuments to protect cultural and natural resources. Obama used the act more than any other president, invoking it 34 times<\/a> to create 29 new monuments and enlarge five others during his term.

<\/p>\r\nThe monuments were an early target for Trump, who ordered a review just months into his term in 2017 and signed a proclamation before the end of that year that slashed Bears Ears<\/a> from roughly 1.35 million acres to about 200,000. The reduction was welcomed by critics like then-Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, who said at the time that the Antiquities Act has “no rules, there is no process in the law for either creation or readjustments, and that’s part of the problem.”

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