‘Zero consultation’: Tribal reps say they were left out of monument reduction decisions 

Two coalitions of Native American tribes emphasized Tuesday that they weren’t consulted before President Donald Trump downsized Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by roughly 90%.

President Trump shrinks Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante — again

Autumn Gillard, coordinator for the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition, said during a news conference that the group “had received zero consultation” before Trump ordered the dramatic reductions in a pair of executive orders Monday. 

Utah’s all-Republican congressional delegation, which stood behind Trump in the Oval Office as he signed the orders, has long condemned the monuments as too expansive and the wrong way of managing the land. They’ve noted the sweeping protections, established by Democratic presidents, came despite opposition from state leaders and several neighboring rural Utah communities.

“I think one of the most hurtful and offensive things to the coalition was that we kept hearing this narrative that local stakeholders were not heard,” Gillard, a descendant of the Cedar Band of Paiutes, said Tuesday. “But what about our tribal voices? We have constituents and members who are citizens of the state of Utah. Are their voices not equal to those of other citizens that live in the state?”

Monday brought a sense of deja-vu. Trump, a Republican, previously shrank the monuments in 2017. Both were fully restored by former President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in 2021. 

This week’s downsizing was more dramatic than almost a decade ago. During his first term in the White House, Trump slashed Bears Ears from roughly 1.35 million acres to roughly 228,000 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante from about 1.87 million acres to roughly 1 million acres. 

This time, Trump shrunk Bears Ears to about 121,000 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante to about 182,000 acres.

Bears Ears, created in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama, was the first monument established at the urging of Native American tribes to whom the land is sacred. It’s been managed jointly by the federal government and the Bears Ears Commission of five tribal nations: the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Zuni Tribe and Ute Indian Tribe. 

But Trump’s order on Bears Ears is ending that framework. It terminated the federal agencies’ agreement with the commission, stipulating that “secretaries shall have no obligation to engage, consult, or coordinate with the BEC” while directing them to still “consult with Tribal Nations in accordance with other applicable authorities.”

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX.

At Tuesday’s virtual news conference, hosted by the nonprofit conservation group The Wilderness Society, speakers sharply criticized the move. 

“We have been here before, but this cuts even deeper,” said Davina Smith-Idjesa, Navajo Nation representative and co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. 

“To reduce Bears Ears again is devastating, but to abolish the Bears Ears Commission to attempt to erase years of tribal leadership relationships and work between sovereign tribal nations and our federal partners is something I am still trying to fully process,” Smith-Idjesa said. 

Democratic members of Congress from Western states said during the news conference that the orders prioritize corporate interests over the preservation of treasured lands.

“This is about a giveaway of our public lands to international corporations that want to mine for uranium and other minerals on our lands,” said New Mexico Sen. Martin Heirich. 

Gillard noted the president’s order on Grand Staircase-Escalante states the region contains critical minerals including copper, iron, titanium and zinc, among others, calling them essential to the nation’s defense, manufacturing and transportation systems. 

The document goes on to say that “modifying the Monument’s boundaries will help ensure that adequate domestic supplies exist, thereby reducing the threat posed by our Nation’s reliance on foreign sources.”

Gillard said that language causes her concern about new mining in areas previously off limits to mineral extraction because they were within the prior bounds of the monument. 

She said she’s also concerned about the potential for contamination of Colorado River water used for drinking and any disturbance of buried ancient remains. 

“Coming from an Indigenous perspective, land exploration is highly invasive because you are boring into Mother Earth,” Gillard said, disrupting the ecosystem and cultural landscape.  

State leaders in Utah, however, see the changes as restoring balance, rather than interrupting it. 

Gov. Spencer Cox, who also joined Trump in the Oval Office Monday with Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz, said the new boundaries better balance targeted protection for places of cultural and scientific importance with public access.   

“The question has never been whether to protect them, but how to protect them best,” the governor said.

SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE