Bears Ears monument designation meets mixed reactions
President Barack Obama recently dedicated 1.35 million acres of land in southern Utah as Bears Ears National Monument, which produced controversial reactions.
Some students were not in favor of the action.
“Giving it a national monument designation isn’t going to solve the problem [of preserving the land],” said Barrett Anderson, a graduate student studying political science. “All it’s going to do is increase tourism and potential damage for the area.”
President Obama used the Antiquities Act, an act which gives the president authority to designate land as a national monument, without the approval of Congress.
Barrett Anderson said he is against the act and Obama used it because “he is trying to cement his legacy right now.”
Some students said they supported the monument because they thought it would help protect land sacred to Native American tribes who live in the area.
Dylan Anderson, a junior studying ecology, said he is in favor of the monument because he thinks the land should be preserved for its beauty.
“There’s nothing in the world like the American Southwest,” Anderson said.
Anderson also said he supports the monument because he believes the land should be preserved as sacred for the Native Americans who live there.
“There are certain places in this country that are so gorgeous and that have tremendous heritage for Native Americans,” Anderson said.
However, Danielle Shirley, a Navajo woman who lives near the monument area, said she is against the monument’s designation.
“My grandmother is a medicine woman and she gathers all of her materials from there — it will be harder for her to gather herbs and firewood and she doesn’t speak English, so she can’t communicate with people working for the monument,” Shirley said.
Shirley also said she felt like Obama’s decision to designate the monument was unfair and did not take the opinions of local tribes into account.
Shirley compared the sacredness of the monument area to an LDS temple, and said the land should be treated with the same level of respect.
“People who aren’t worthy to enter the Mormon temple can’t go inside. People who don’t understand Mother Earth are going to come and disrespect it,” Shirley said.
Jesse Ivins, a junior from Blanding, Utah, a town near the monument, said the locals in her hometown are also against the president’s decision.
“Our whole town and county is trying to fight it because it’s going to take away a lot of our grazing rights,” Ivins said.
Ivins said the county is trying to work with Utah senators to convince President-elect Donald Trump to undo the designation.
Locals in the area also believe tourists coming to visit the monument will ruin the area in different ways, Ivins said.
Shirley said when tourists come from around the world to visit the monument, she thinks they will ruin its beauty by littering and disrespecting the area.
Ivins said she and other Blanding locals welcome people to visit and enjoy its beauty, but do not want the area to be controlled by tourists.
“Tourism is a seasonal industry and that will ruin our economy, especially with the restrictions on hunting and grazing rights,” Ivins said.
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Photo by Matt Halton