Charting Sustainable Land Management Futures by Looking to the Past: The Case of Bears Ears National Monument

Abstract

This review offers an examination of the historical and sociocultural context that should have informed the creation and management of the Bears Ears National Monument (BENM) in rural Southeastern Utah, USA—an area surrounded by ranching communities and sovereign Native American tribal lands. Because of elements such as cultural significance, ancestral ties, natural resources, and recreational value, the land of Bears Ears has different cultural meanings for various groups. The BENM is indeed a complex issue that can and should be viewed from multiple perspectives. Throughout its history, the BENM has been a topic of debate and controversy amongst numerous groups, from Native American tribes to local ranchers to the federal government. Before, during, and after Bears Ears was designated as a national monument, disputes and discourse surrounding the issue have been mainly focused on land use, management, politics, and governance. We present a review of the historical background leading to claims of ancestral ties to place. We summarize the major events that led to the Bears Ears National Monument designation, reduction, and restoration. We provide a brief discussion of the current academic literature and directions for future research.

1. Introduction

Aldo Leopold, noted conservationist and pioneer in wildlife management, opined that “[w]e abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect” [1] (p.viii). To that end, policies and practices regarding land governance need to be tempered in order to account for a community of diverse stakeholders and a multiplicity of localized social contexts. This need is echoed in the United Nations’ (UN) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2015–2030 as well as in the 2018–2030 strategy for UN-Habitat’s Global Land Tools Network (GLTN) agenda to promote “A world in which everyone enjoys secure land rights” [2,3]. Achieving these goals requires a procedural orientation that operates with a clear distinction between land administration needs and land governance. According to Home [4] (p.1), “[l]and administration comprises an extensive range of governmental systems, whose processes include: transferring rights from one party to another; regulating uses; gathering land-based public revenues; and resolving conflicts involving land.” As such, land administration has a bureaucratic propensity towards legalism and a tendency to discount cultural meanings. On the other hand, “land governance is wider, and recognizes the importance of power and political relations, and multiple stake-holders and actors with their own cultures and specialist languages, for instance professions, academia, government and wider society” [4] (p.1). As such, land governance requires a more deliberate and humane approach to establishing sustainable stewardship of the land.

This review offers an examination of the historical and sociocultural context that should have informed the creation and management of the Bears Ears National Monument (BENM) in rural Southeastern Utah, USA—an area surrounded by ranching communities and sovereign Native American tribal lands. Because of elements such as cultural significance, ancestral ties, natural resources, and recreational value, the land of Bears Ears has different cultural meanings for various groups. The BENM is indeed a complex issue that can and should be viewed from multiple perspectives. Throughout its history, the BENM has been a topic of debate and controversy amongst numerous groups, from Native American tribes to local ranchers to the federal government. Before, during, and after Bears Ears was designated as a national monument, disputes and discourse surrounding the issue have been mainly focused on land use, management, politics, and governance.

The BENM case demonstrates the importance of understanding a region’s historical sociocultural context when approaching land governance. This use of a historically grounded approach demonstrates how engagement with the local environment has, does, and will continue to shape how individuals and communities conceptualize the land. Because collective and personal histories connect groups to the land where they live, land issues significantly impact the groups who live around Bears Ears. The history of the land has a large impact on how land issues are framed in local and public debate. With this in mind, this review presents the history of Bears Ears region and the establishment of the BENM. Our goal in doing so is to highlight social and cultural complexity as a key consideration for land management and governance.

Below, we first provide the historical background of the groups that have, at various points in time, inhabited the land of Bears Ears; this is intended to contextualize how different groups have used the land, thereby setting up the current land issues. Next, we explore major historical events surrounding the proposal, establishment, and successive modifications of the BENM from 2008 to 2022. Finally, we offer a brief discussion of some of the current academic literature on the BENM.

2. History

2.1. Native Americans

Dating back to the Paleoindian Era (13,000 years ago), the Clovis people inhabited the land surrounding Bears Ears [5]. Ancestral Puebloans then occupied the land (2500 years ago), encompassing five major time periods: Basketmaker I and II, Pueblo I, II, III; each period was marked by changes in lifestyle and structure [6,7]. Later, during the 1800s and 1900s, conflicts and tensions between native groups and the government, military, and settlers were common. Today, there are over 100,000 archeological and cultural sites that continue to hold significance and meaning for Native Americans in the area, namely the tribes of the Navajo Nation, Hopi, Ute Mountain Ute, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, and the Pueblo of Zuni, all of whom claim the Colorado Plateau as their ancestral land [8,9].

2.2. Spanish Explorers

In the early 16th century, Spanish conquistadors and explorers came to the American West. Native American ancestral lands were claimed by Spain as part of New Spain, making Utah part of the Spanish Empire from 1521–1821 [10]. Different expeditions were made through and to Utah by European explorers. One of these was the Dominguez and Escalante Expedition in 1776, whose goal was to find a route connecting New Mexico and California; expedition participants mapped much of the West, including Utah [11,12]. Because of the lack of natural resources that New Spain could or would exploit, the Spanish traded with the Native American tribes who inhabited the land [10]. Trade was expanded in the 1800s using the Old Spanish Trail, which was based on existing Native American trails. Many people used this trail, including the native populations, Spanish traders, American explorers, and Mormon settlers. This trading was both profitable and detrimental to those involved, and it created conflict between tribes.

2.3. Mormons

Mormon settlers first came to the area of Bears Ears in 1879 in what is known as the San Juan Expedition [13]. This expedition, similar to the other colonizing efforts made by the early Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was made in the name of the Church and was believed to be inspired by God [14]. The call to serve religious missions and occupy regions of the West, such as San Juan County, was regarded as sacred. Those who heeded the call aimed, as the scriptures said, to make the desert “bloom as a rose” [14]. Mormons settled in Southern Utah, establishing communities and cattle ranching [15].

2.4. Outlaws

In the generally lawless land of the American West, the wealth disparities between small ranchers, farmers, miners, homesteaders, and big ranch and business owners was significant [16]. In Southern Utah, Mormons were typically tasked with law enforcement, but their approach was generally hands-off [17]. Many of the outlaws identified with the poorer settlers and relied on local communities, especially those of the Mormons, for safety. Although the reality of the lives of these individuals was likely unglamorous, outlaws such as Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and those in the Wild Bunch continue to be revered as folk heroes in local communities in Southern Utah.

2.5. Antiquities Act

The Antiquities Act, signed by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1906, gives the president the power to create national monuments on federal lands. The purpose of this act is to protect natural resources, cultural land, and/or areas of scientific interest from external forces or interference. It was specifically created with Native American tribes and cultures in mind, aiming to protect and preserve indigenous ruins and artifacts from looting, vandalism, and private sales [18]. The act allows presidents to quickly designate protected areas, but many view it as a short-term solution [19]. The Antiquities Act has been used multiple times in declaring national monuments in Utah over the years, notably the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument [20].

In the late 2000s, the discussions about the preservation of the lands known to residents as Bears Ears in San Juan County, Utah, became more intense and garnered more attention. In 2009, the Utah Tribal Leaders Association began to discuss how to advance Native American interests on public lands, specifically with respect to the area now known as Bears Ears National Monument and the surrounding areas in San Juan County [21]. Additionally, in 2009, the FBI and U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) conducted a raid called Operation Cerberus Action in order to recover thousands of artifacts taken from the lands in and surrounding what is now the Bears Ears National Monument [22]. After the passage of the Washington County Lands Bill, Senator Bennett began discussions in San Juan County with Native Americans about the management of the public lands of Bears Ears. In 2010, Senator Bennett initiated a land-use planning initiative, and Utah Navajo leaders began a cultural mapping effort that spanned two and a half years [21]. The Navajo Chapter Houses in Utah supported the development of the Bears Ears proposal in San Juan County and the mapping of ancestral land.

In 2011, the “Navajo Lands of Interest” proposal map was distributed to lawmakers in Utah and Washington D.C by the group that would become the Utah Diné Bikeyah. In 2012, the Utah Diné Bikeyah was officially formed to protect culturally significant ancestral lands, including the Bears Ears region [23]. The Utah Diné Bikeyah presented their proposed National Letter of Intent (NLOI) to Congress, and Congressman Robert Bishop began hosting informal meetings with governments and stakeholders [21].

In 2013, the Utah Public Lands Initiative (UPLI) was launched by Representative Rob Bishop and Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah as a legal way to protect the Bears Ears area. The bill proposed to protect 1.3 million acres of land but did not stipulate the co-management of the area by Native American tribes, and it did not pass in Congress [24]. The Navajo/San Juan County Economic Development Committee was formed under a joint planning agreement. On April 17, 2013, the Navajo Nation presented its proposal to San Juan County, the State of Utah officials, and the Utah Congressional delegation at Monument Valley [21].

In 2014, the Navajo Utah Commission adopted a legal resolution of support for the permanent protection of lands in San Juan County, UT, on the basis of its being a National Conservation Area or National Monument. The Hopi Tribal Chairman also sent a letter of support for the protection of the area of Bears Ears, and the Ute Mountain Ute requested that the name “Utah Diné Bikéyah” be replaced with the name “Bears Ears” [21].

In 2015, the Utah Congressional Delegation sent a letter announcing the release of a map for the Public Lands Initiative. The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition was formally organized of five sovereign tribes in the region and it submitted a formal proposal to the government of the United States [21].

In July of 2016, Congressman Rob Bishop proposed a bill that protected 1.39 million acres of Bears Ears but did not include tribal co-management. The bill was not voted on due to the adjournment of the session. Sally Jewell, the Secretary of Interior in the Obama administration, and other officials toured the Bears Ears area and held a public meeting in Bluff, Utah, that drew both supporters and protestors [24]. In September, the House Committee on Natural Resources held a hearing on H.R. 5780, the Utah Public Lands Act [25]. On December 28, 2016, President Obama designated 1.35 million acres for the establishment and protection of the land of Bears Ears according to the Antiquities Act of 1906 [26].

In May of 2017, Ryan Zinke, the Secretary of Interior in the Trump administration, met with the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition [21] to review the national monument designations as required under the Presidential Executive Order on the Review of Designations Under the Antiquities Act [27]. The government opened a request for public comments on the review of National Monuments, including but not limited to Bears Ears National Monument [28]. In August, Secretary Zinke submitted his report on his findings, including a recommendation to modify the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument [21]. On December 4, President Trump modified the boundaries of the Bears Ears National Monument and excluded 1,150,860 acres of the original boundary [29]. Three separate federal lawsuits were filed by December 7, 2017, challenging the reduction of Bears Ears National Monument, including lawsuits against the Trump administration by the Hopi Tribe, the Utah Diné Bikeyah, the Natural Resources Defense Council Inc. et al., The Wilderness Society et al., and the Grand Staircase Escalante Partners et al. [30]. In August of 2018, the Trump administration created a new Bears Ears advisory committee with two committee slots for “tribal interests” [21].

In January of 2021, President Biden issued an executive order to the Department of Interior to review the boundaries and conditions of Bears Ears National Monument. In response, Secretary of the Interior for the Biden administration Deb Haaland visited Bears Ears and discussed the monument with the tribes and several interest groups from the surrounding areas [21]. On October 8, 2021, President Biden issued a proclamation under the 1906 Antiquities Act modifying the boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument and thus increasing its size to 1.36 million acres [31].

In June of 2022, the tribes belonging to the Bears Ears Commission, the BLM, and the USDA Forest Service formalized the partnership that would lead to a collaboration of the management of the BENM [32]. By August, the State of Utah filed a lawsuit against the formation of the new boundaries of Bears Ears National Monument established by President Biden [33].

3. Current Academic Literature

In recent years, there has been a growing academic interest in the Bears Ears region [34,35,36,37,38,39,40,41]. Here, our review highlights some of this literature as it relates to the BENM. With diverse documents, forums, articles, media, and more, we recognize that we cannot include everything. Nevertheless, our goal is to provide a starting point for researchers interested in learning more about management of this area specifically, and for those interested in using the BENM case to inform research more generally. We organize this section of according to the following themes: Bears Ears in public and policy discourse, land use, land management, and an example of a successful collaborative management effort. Most of the following articles have some specific voice that they highlight, and we attempt to reveal and clarify those voices to form a holistic understanding of the importance of the land of Bears Ears.

3.1. Bears Ears in Public and Policy Discourse

Because of the declaration and modification of Bears Ears National Monument boundaries, some articles were published before the re-designation by the Biden Administration in October 2021 [34,35,36,37]. As such, the articles do not provide an up-to-date account of the recent history but are useful for understanding the periods prior to and in between the presidential proclamations. For example, Creadon and Bergren [35] provide insight into the controversy of the designation and reduction of the BENM boundaries. They provide three recommendations for government actions that could ensure the protection of the area. However, with Biden’s executive order, these recommendations became obsolete.

Another article written after the Obama and Trump proclamations but before Biden’s, used meso-level analysis of Twitter data to understand the various narrative strategies that advocacy organizations leaned into regarding Bears Ears policy events [36]. As part of their background to the Bears Ears/Grand Staircase-Escalante controversy, Rupinsky et al. provided a timeline detailing key events from April 2017 to February 2020 [36] (p. 5). The researchers found that during increased policy conflicts surrounding Bears Ears, organizations did not shift narrative strategies but slightly adjusted their response toward certain events dealing with the policy [36]. While this timeline summarized the policy-related events in depth, it did not adequately encapsulate the prior histories of the people inhabiting the land in Southeast Utah.

Similarly, Joshua Smith’s [37] analyses of rhetoric regarding the Bears Ears National Monument only encompassed Obama’s and Trump’s official declarations. The above-mentioned research [34,35,36,37] represents part of the narrative addressing environmental and ecological concerns that can only be addressed through enforcement by government officials.

There are several other concerns that distinguish viewpoints of how Bears Ears should be managed. Indeed, “[t]he story of the reduction of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments in Utah is punctuated by periods of focused attention and increased conflict…” [36] (p. 2). Since the monument’s boundaries were restored in late 2021, researchers have sought to compare differences in responses to each presidential proclamation. Macary and Gillig [39] used a “frames matrix” method to catalog symbolic devices articulated in 59 articles published by The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News in the two weeks following the BENM’s designation, reduction, and redesignation.

What Macary and Gilling [39] classified as “local news”, is considered “extra-local news” in our review, as these sources (The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News) are both located in Salt Lake City (as opposed to communities directly surrounding the monument). This article contributes to our understanding of Bears Ears National Monument because it qualitatively measures sentiment in news sources published in Utah regarding the BENM. Without using polarizing language or assumptions, Macary and Gillig [39] elucidated themes that were present in both extra-local news sources. They found frames of failure, validation, and authoritarianism in the BENM’s designation; frames of loss, remediation, and resistance in its reduction; and the frame of stability in its redesignation [39]. These findings support the authors’ hypothesis that local news shapes the perceived significance of a protected area. Understanding extra-local perspectives is beneficial, but it is also necessary to directly capture sentiment from local individuals regarding land management and sustainability.

3.2. Land Use

One important element of the BENM is concern over land use: who has the right, who is doing it ‘right’, and who is responsible. Some of these perspectives are captured in Baker and Fick’s research [38]. For this project, the authors engaged in ethnographic fieldwork and interviews during 2018 and 2019 near Indian Creek—an area encompassed by the BENM boundaries. Baker and Fick’s work [38] serves as a useful source detailing land use. These ethnographers share many quotes from interviewees as evidence of the range of perspectives on land use that are present even within a single group. While they mainly focused on rock-climbers and recreation access, the researchers also highlighted the voices of land managers and ranchers. Most of the perspectives in this article were from rock-climbers who were non-local residents. This is critical to document because while there are a lot of sources claiming to understand the BENM controversy, very few sources have engaged with the locals to capture their experiences. The authors found five themes: rights, sacredness, stewardship, identity, and attachment. Most pertinently, the researchers observed an abundance of place-based experiences with many different cultural valuations. The authors noted that “…dissonance emerges among land users based on how they experience and interpret degradation” [38] (p. 8). This dissonance allows for inconsistent interactions with the land, and this aspect must be researched more thoroughly to understand what kinds of land management and land usage agreements will effectively preserve the land and relations between people.

The government-level solutions proposed thus far have led to increased conflict, not only because of the content but also because of the power exercised to declare Bears Ears as a national monument. Both Obama and Trump claimed they used the Antiquities Act correctly, yet their conclusions were quite different [37]. Despite both being based on neoliberal rhetoric, Obama and Trump interpreted what “responsible maintenance” meant very differently [37]. The neoliberal idea of getting the “most out of the land” is not just related to extraction: it can also stem from the perspective of the new consumerist climbing community. Baker and Fick [38] emphasized how different types of rock-climbers and tourists view their responsibility to the land in distinct ways, with some individuals “self-policing” and others doing what they want when they want regardless of potential harm to artifacts, rocks, or sensitive soils. Future research could investigate how these behavioral patterns and the climbing community’s monitoring of self and others have changed in the years since the data were originally gathered.

These articles demonstrate that cultural valuations impact perspectives on how the land can be used and how it should be protected. The sentiment of protecting the space from “outsiders” was indicated in multiple instances [34,38], and who was classified as the “outsider” influenced the type of land management for which individuals and groups advocated.

3.3. A Successful Collaborative Management Example: Inscription Rock

In a recent study, Hanson et al. [41] state that the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) has the potential to be a representative and accurate reflection of the “multivalency and multivocality of history” through engaging in archival research and review meetings with those locally and/or culturally affiliated with the land to better understand its historic context. These researchers share that through the National Historic Preservation Act (1966), the NRHP determines what places are worthy of protection by evaluating their historic significance, integrity, and context [41] (p. 441). What was previously a power only given to the National Park Service (NPS) and the president (through the Antiquities Act, 1906), now became a way for other groups to propose significant local and/or cultural areas worthy of protection.

The authors used Inscription Rock to demonstrate the effectiveness of using historic context as the basis of collaborative land planning. Inscription Rock is located in northwestern New Mexico, USA [41]. Through collaboration with culturally affiliated tribes, the research team tasked by the NPS to evaluate the National Register eligibility of this area realized protecting Inscription Rock alone did not adequately encompass properties that the tribes viewed as significant. Further, the histories shared by the various tribes conflicted with one another and thus reflected tensions that still divide them today. Instead of aiming to prove the “correct” interpretation, the researchers focused on recording the different narratives as evidence of the significance of how place unifies the groups. The BENM case presents a similar situation of several groups having credible historical ties to the land. Stoffle [42] communicated, based on findings from ethnographic interviews with members of local tribes, that such guidelines for the BENM had been proposed previously, yet had not been implemented. In both of these projects, viewing the variety of histories as distinct or incompatible was not the objective. Instead, this multivocality allowed for an understanding of the many different ways a geographic area can be important. In the case of the BENM now, researchers can attempt to find the similarities between the several perspectives, including, for instance, that they all agree that the area needs to be protected. This goal is present in other perspectives such as those of rock-climbers, environmentalists, the BEITC, and local residents; the difference between their perspectives is in how they recommend the stewardship of the land that has so much significance for them.

4. Discussion and Conclusions

This review set out to explore the historical and sociocultural context related to the Bears Ears National Monument. Our goal, in terms of discussions regarding land management, was to underscore the importance of recognizing shifting dimensions of power and political relations among the multiple stake-holders and actors. As such, our review contributes to the existing literature on land governance as well as the creation and modification of the BENM. Thus, the historical context as described in this review is helpful for researchers, policy creators, and the general public to better understand the importance of the area that is now the BENM, as well as other land designations. Intrinsically, this review points to further research such as that of the rhetoric surrounding the creation and modification of other national monuments. This review also adds to the discussion surrounding the research done on land use, land and resource management, ancestral ties to place, change of community, and more. From a social science perspective, the BENM region might provide insight into changing perceptions of community as a result of tourism or extraction surges. Baker and Fick [36] provided ethnographic findings from the perspective of rock-climbers, and Stoffle [42] added voices from some local tribal leaders, but more insight is needed as both of these ethnographies took place before Biden’s re-designation. Further, looking into sense of place, its association with notions of stewardship, and its variation across groups or times may reveal unexpected findings.

Existing literature on land governance has, by and large, sought to understand the process through which authority is exercised by decision-making institutions, with increased attention to cultural traditions and practices [43]. Professions, disciplines, and sub-disciplines have promoted numerous concepts and approaches to land governance. For example, path dependence theory argues that our perspective on the decisions we face is limited by our past decisions, even when past circumstances may no longer be relevant. Yet, on this view, critical junctures occur when existing political structures fail and new dynamics and institutions emerge [44,45,46]. Another approach, historical institutionalism, investigates and examines how social, political, and economic change influence institutional and political structures and outcomes over time [47]. Credibility theory, which refers to the methods and practices used by actuaries to examine historical data to assess risk, can be applied to examine institutional change and land administration. [48,49]. Political settlement theory explores the effects of power relations upon institutions and patterns of development [50,51]. Actor-network theory can be used to examine causal networks both in terms of material (between people and things) and semiotic (between concepts) relationships [52]. While these, as well as other, approaches have produced informative results, there remains a tendency towards ‘silo mentalities’ [53] and ‘academic tribes’ [54] that may, unfortunately, result in a lack of mutual understanding between differing approaches.

However, this review and other studies surrounding the BENM are simply case studies. The information presented in this review, and other research, is meant to help inform actors handling other locations under consideration for monument, national park status, or other land management designation. We argue that understanding the proper historical development and consequences of designations is a crucial step for understanding the social changes that can occur when new sites are created. We argue that further research should be done to uncover social phenomena that occur around the creation of a national park or national monument, as these changes profoundly affect the communities and peoples that surround these areas.