Two coalitions of American Indian tribes stressed Tuesday that there was no consultation before President Donald Trump reduced Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by about 90%.
President Trump shrinks Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante again
Grand Staircase-Escalante Tribal Coalition Coordinator Autumn Gillard said in a press conference that the group had “not been consulted in any way” before President Trump. ordered a drastic reduction In two executive orders on Monday.
Utah’s all-Republican Congressional delegation, which stood behind Trump as he signed the executive order in the Oval Office, has long denounced the monument as too vast and a flawed land management practice. They point out that the broad protections established by the Democratic president came despite opposition from state leaders and some rural communities in neighboring Utah.
“I think one of the most hurtful and unpleasant things for the coalition was continuing to hear that local stakeholders were not being heard,” Gillard, a descendant of the Paiute Cedars, said Tuesday. “But what about the voices of our tribes? We have voters and legislators who are citizens of the state of Utah. Are their voices not equal to the voices of other citizens living in the state?”
Autumn Gillard, coordinator of the Grand Staircase-Escalante Intertribal Federation, poses for a portrait in an undated photo. (Photo provided by Autumn Gillard)
Monday brought a sense of deja vu. Republican President Trump previously scaled back these monuments in 2017, but both monuments were fully restored by Democratic former President Joe Biden in 2021.
This week’s downsizing was more dramatic than it was nearly a decade ago. During his first term in the White House, Trump reduced Bears Ears from about 1.35 million acres to about 228,000 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante from about 1.87 million acres to about 1 million acres.
This time, President Trump reduced the size of Bears Ears to about 121,000 acres and Grand Staircase-Escalante to about 182,000 acres.
Established in 2016 by then-President Barack Obama, Bears Ears is the first monument established at the urging of Native American tribes who consider this land sacred. The facility is managed jointly by the federal government and the Bears Ears Commission of five tribal nations: the Hopi, Navajo, Ute Mountain Ute, Zuni, and Ute Indian Tribes.
but President Trump’s order on Bears Ears We are trying to end that framework. The commission terminated the commission’s agreements with federal agencies, providing that “the Secretary has no obligation to engage with, consult with, or coordinating with the BEC,” but directing them to continue “consulting with tribal nations in accordance with other applicable authorities.”
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Speakers at a virtual press conference on Tuesday, hosted by the nonprofit conservation group The Wilderness Society, harshly criticized the move.
“We’ve been here before, but this time we’re going to dig deeper,” said Davina Smith-Ijesa, a Navajo Nation representative and co-chair of the Bears Ears Intertribal Coalition.
“While cutting Bears Ears again would be devastating, eliminating the Bears Ears Commission, which seeks to erase years of tribal leadership relationships and work between sovereign tribal nations and federal partners, is something I am still trying to fully process,” Smith-Ijesa said.
Democratic lawmakers from Western states said at a news conference that the order prioritizes corporate profits over preserving valuable land.
“This is giving away our public lands to international companies that want to extract uranium and other minerals on our land,” said New Mexico Sen. Martin Heirich.
Doll House, an ancestral Puebloan structure in Bears Ears National Monument, photographed Friday, September 19, 2025. (Photo by Spencer Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Newspaper Rock petroglyphs were photographed on Wednesday, January 29, 2025, along Indian Creek in Bears Ears National Monument near Monticello. (Photo by Spencer Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
Gillard took note of the president’s remarks. Order at Grand Staircase Escalante It says the area contains important minerals, including copper. iron, It claims that titanium and zinc, among others, are essential to the nation’s defense, manufacturing and transportation systems.
The document goes on to say, “Fixing the monument’s boundaries will help ensure the presence of adequate domestic sources, thereby reducing the threat posed by our country’s dependence on foreign sources.”
Mr Gillard said he was concerned that the language could lead to new mining in areas that were previously off-limits.No internal extraction was performed as they were within the monument’s previous boundaries.
She also said she was concerned about the possibility of contaminating Colorado River water used for drinking water and disturbing buried ancient sites.
“From an Indigenous perspective, land exploration is very invasive because it digs into Mother Earth,” Gillard said, adding that it destroys ecosystems and cultural landscapes.
But Utah leaders believe the changes will restore balance, rather than interrupt it.
Gov. Spencer Cox, who attended Mr. Trump’s Oval Office with Utah House Speaker Mike Schultz on Monday, also said the new border provides a better balance between targeted protection and public access of sites of cultural and scientific significance.
“The question was not whether to protect them, but how to best protect them,” the governor said.
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