Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Friday wrapped up her visit to Utah to view Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments/BLM

For the third time in less than five years, an Interior secretary has visited southern Utah to try to grasp the significance of a landscape with a cultural heritage that reaches back thousands of years and one that also entombs paleontological remains millions of years old in a bid to determine the appropriate size of two national monuments.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland used three days on the ground, viewing the landscape, talking to state, local, and tribal officials, and meeting with archaeologists and paleontologists, to enhance her knowledge of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. She retraced much the same ground, literally and figuratively, as did former Interior secretaries Sally Jewell under President Obama and Ryan Zinke under President Trump in developing recommendations regarding the size of the two monuments.

Jewell's recommendations led Obama to use his authority under The Antiquities Act to set aside 1.35 million acres for Bears Ears in December 2016. Zinke's recommendations led Trump to cut, in a controversial and questionable move, a bit more than 1 million acres from Bears Ears and a bit more than 1 million from Grand Staircase-Escalante, which covered 1.9 million acres when President Clinton established it in 1996.

While lawsuits challenging Trump's actions remain pending, President Biden early this year directed the Interior Department to review the monuments' boundaries and make recommendations on whether he should reverse Trump's reductions.

"This has been a special trip, and I deeply appreciate the many people who took time to share their wisdom, perspectives, and prayers with me,” Haaland said Friday before heading back to Washington. “How we manage public lands and national monuments is important – not just to the tribes and ranchers and elected leaders and others who I met with this week, but to the many generations to come. I look forward to sharing what I heard and saw with President Biden so he has the benefit of these perspectives as we chart a path forward on the stewardship of these incredible culturally rich places.”

During her visit, Secretary Haaland received a briefing on the national monuments from U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service employees; the two agencies cooperatively manage Bears Ears. She also visited the Bears Ears Education Center in Bluff, Utah, which is operated by Friends of Cedar Mesa to educate visitors about the national monument and how to respectfully visit the important natural and cultural landscapes.

Haaland also toured the Edge of the Cedars State Park Museum, where she saw cultural artifacts and Ancestral Puebloan (Anasazi) pottery. She also met with palaeontologist Dr. Alan Titus, who showed her fossils from the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

The Interior secretary also met with:

• Tribal leaders from the five Tribes in the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, and other Indigenous-led organizations.
• Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, U.S. Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney, and Reps. John Curtis, Blake Moore, Burgess Owens, and Chris Stewart.
• She also held a series of listening sessions in both Kane and San Juan counties that included state, county and city leaders, local ranchers, conservation organizations, local business owners, mining companies, outdoor recreation permit holders, paleontologists, and archaeologists.

On Thursday morning, Haaland was joined by Hopi Tribe Vice Chairman Clark Tenakhongva, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe White Mesa Representative Malcom Lehi, Pueblo of Zuni Lt. Governor Carleton Bowekay, Gov. Cox, Lt. Gov. Henderson, Sen. Romney, and Rep. Moore in the Bears Ears region. During their hikes, they saw cliff dwellings, pictographs, and other sacred sites that are located inside and outside of the national monument boundaries determined by President Trump, according to an Interior release.

Prior to the Utah visit, administration officials from the Departments of the Interior, Commerce, and Agriculture held Tribal consultations and met with Utah leaders, including Utah Governor Cox; members of the Utah congressional delegation; representatives from Kane, Garfield, San Juan, and Grand Counties of Utah; members of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition; non-profit organizations; and small business owners.

In a joint statement, Utah's congressional delegation called for the Biden administration to resort to a legislative, not executive, solution to the size of the two monuments. 

“We appreciate Secretary Haaland’s visit and thank her and her team for taking time to meet with us and with state, local, and tribal leaders as part of the ongoing review of these monuments. During these discussions, we reiterated our desire to find a permanent legislative solution, which we believe is the only path to finally resolving the longstanding dispute over the monuments’ boundaries and management. If the administration decides to act unilaterally, a legislative solution that provides certainty will be nearly impossible to achieve. And without protections against the Antiquities Act, Utah is left vulnerable to the whim of future presidents. We continue to urge the administration to work with us to craft a collaborative, consensus plan that reflects the input of the people most directly impacted and ends the political back-and-forth that our communities have been subjected to for more than 25 years.”

Also Friday, Defenders of Wildlife issued a statement urging the Biden administration to redraw the monuments' borders.

“National monuments are established to protect places with cultural and scientific values of national consequence. Bears Ears and Grand-Staircase Escalante national monuments are national treasures and every day that goes by without restored protections leaves them at risk,” said Renee Stone, senior vice president of conservation programs, Defenders of Wildlife. “We are pleased to see that Secretary Haaland is visiting Utah to learn more about the resources at stake and urge the Biden administration to restore protections as soon as possible.”

Prior to Haaland's Utah trip, the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks urged President Biden to restore the two monuments' original borders.

“Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments need protections now. Over the past four years, we have witnessed a relentless attack on our country’s national parks and monuments; and we know what the impacts have been," Phil Francis, the Coalition's chair, said earlier this week. "With Secretary Haaland scheduled to visit Utah’s incredible national monuments this week, we hope her team recognizes these lands are critical cultural, historical, and environmental sites and they need stronger protections.

“Every day that goes by leaves the irreplaceable resources at Bears Ears and Grand Staircase vulnerable to damage or destruction from looting, vandalism or other threats as a result of lack of protective management."