Tribes moved on Friday to intervene in lawsuits seeking to overturn the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah/BLM

The battle over the Bears Ears landscape in Utah continues, with a number of tribes seeking to intervene in lawsuits aiming to overturn President Biden's decision to restore the original boundaries of the national monument. On Friday the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and the Pueblo of Zuni filed to intervene in two lawsuits that seek to remove protections from the Bears Ears National Monument.

Back in August the state of Utah and two of its counties went to federal court in a bid to overturn the latest boundary change to Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, arguing that President Biden overreached the authority given him under The Antiquities Act.

On Friday the tribes moved to defend President Biden's action.

“Bears Ears sustains life. Bears Ears provides food, medicine, cultural items, and ceremony sites,” Zuni Pueblo Lieutenant Governor Carleton R. Bowekaty said after the tribes filed. “As sovereign nations and Bears Ears National Monument co-managers, we have the right to intervene in these lawsuits. As stewards and people of this land, we hold a responsibility to protect Bears Ears.”

The legal bid by the state and Garfield and Kane counties is just the latest turn to shift the boundaries of the two monuments. 

Bears Ears National Monument was established by President Obama in 2016 under The Antiquities Act following years of advocacy by numerous tribes with cultural ties to the land. The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition advocated successfully to protect the cultural, historic, and natural values of the monument. The monument is home to multiple culturally significant and archaeological sites dating as far back as 11,000 BCE. The land is still used today by tribal members, who continually visit it to conduct religious ceremonies and other traditional practices.

The 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, designated by President Clinton in 1996, is extremely rich in paleontological resources, with nearly 150 scientists having said the monument “hosts one of the highest concentrations of dinosaur fossils in the world,” and that only 6 percent has been surveyed, and that “the potential for future discovery is tremendous.”

But former President Trump flew to Salt Lake City in December 2017 to issue presidential proclamations that sheared nearly 2 million acres from the two monuments. Trump maintained that Presidents Clinton and Obama overreached their authority under The Antiquities Act by creating national monuments larger than needed to protect historic, cultural, archaeological, and paleontological resources.

Now the boundary matter is back in court.

“The two lawsuits seek to eviscerate the Antiquities Act and deprive Bears Ears of the protections it so desperately needs,” said Native American Rights Fund Deputy Director Matthew L. Campbell. “The tribal governments will fight to protect these places.”

According to the tribes, between the time Presidents Trump and Biden rearranged the monument's borders, "private interests lined up to exploit a region that has drawn people to it for more than 13,000 years. Hard rock miners staked claims that threaten the health and welfare of local Indigenous communities, perpetuating the tragic legacy of uranium mining in the region. The oil and gas industry flooded the Bureau of Land Management with requests to exploit 60,000 acres within original monument boundaries."

“At Bears Ears, the Hopi, Ute Mountain Ute, and Zuni tribal governments continue their efforts to protect a shared natural treasure against destructive private interests benefiting a few at the expense of Indigenous peoples and the public writ large,” said NARF Staff Attorney Jason Searle.