Trump poised to open Bears Ears to corporate plunder

In another attack on Indigenous rights and the environment, President Donald Trump is expected to announce his decision to shrink Bears Ears National Monument. This can qualify as the biggest corrupt giveaway of resources to Big Oil since the Teapot Dome scandal during the Warren Harding administration in 1921.

In a landscape dotted with stunning red rock formations, delicate arches, piñon-juniper forests and deep canyons sits a place rich in history and culture. Situated in the Four Corners region of San Juan County, Utah, Bears Ears — named for its twin buttes — is a place for connections, healing and illuminating life through Native American traditions and knowledge.

In December 2016, a centuries-long battle for Indigenous sovereignty culminated when a coalition of the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni and Ute Indian Tribes were able to designate over 1.3 million acres of Bears Ears for protection within a national monument. This was an important moment for the stakeholders involved. It was the first national monument created at the behest of Native people.

Until this point, the U.S. government had a century-long reputation of forcing Native people off of their lands in order to preserve “wilderness.” The coalition stated that it was a moment in history where Native voices were “finally heard and our cultural and spiritual heritage was respected.”

Trump’s theft rivals Teapot Dome

The designation meant that 100,000+ archeological sites would be managed by the Native nations and protected from oil and gas drilling, mining, grave robbing and vandalism. This victory, however, lasted just nine months.

Trump is expected to announce his decision to shrink Bears Ears by up to 88 percent to open the land up for uranium, oil, gas and potash mining. Several other monuments were “pardoned” from Trump’s review for their recreational use, geological uniqueness, biological diversity, and for containing and honoring relics of human history. Despite Bears Ears meeting that criteria — and in defiance of the millions of public comments submitted in favor of the monument — the Trump administration is expected to push forward its corporate agenda.

After President Warren G. Harding transferred supervision of the naval oil-reserve lands from the Navy to the Department of the Interior in 1921, Interior Secretary Albert Fall secretly granted the Mammoth Oil Company exclusive rights to the Teapot Dome reserves in Wyoming on April 7, 1922, in return for a massive bribe. The Bears Ears giveaway to Big Oil is in the same league as this major scandal of the 1920s.

Trump would have the public believe that his recent defense of Confederate monuments means he is concerned with the preservation of history. But, much like white supremacists’ erecting of Confederate monuments during the 1950s to counter the growing fight for civil rights, the reduction of Bears Ears is Trump’s way of “sticking it” to people of color as they strive to exercise their right to self-determination.

Just three months into his presidency, Trump made it a priority to reduce Bears Ears. His appointee, Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, opened a 60-day comment period on all national monuments, but limited comments on Bears Ears to just 15 days.

Zinke met only with thieves

Instead of meeting with tribal leaders, Zinke met and toured the site in helicopters with Utah government officials and others who adamantly oppose the monument. The local communities of mostly white residents near Bears Ears Monument have a record of massive theft of priceless Native artifacts despite the existing laws protecting these items. They are stolen and sold to wealthy collectors. (archaeologicalconservancy.org, June 8, 2016)

In a July statement, members of the Bears Ears Tribal Coalition said, “The radical idea of breaking up Bears Ears National Monument would be a slap in the face to the members of our Tribes and an affront to [Native] people all across the country,” adding that “the monument cannot be diminished without imperiling the objects, structures, and other objects of historic and scientific interest protected by monument designation.”

According to a study done prior to the site’s designation, there are no “unimportant areas” in the monument — Bears Ears is so rich in cultural resources, one cannot go more than one-eighth of a mile without encountering the next site or “object.” In other words, a reduction in size would mean putting sacred spaces and objects at risk.

The latest announcement is part of a series of decisions that serve to undermine tribal sovereignty. Just days after taking office in January, Trump signed executive actions to advance approval of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access Pipelines in Dene, Creek, Blackfoot, Nakota, Dakota, Lakota, Omaha, Ho-chunk and Panka territories. Both pipelines are already leaking onto ancestral Native lands.

The Tribal Coalition is not waiting for an announcement, they are mobilizing and have vowed to continue the fight for use and management of their ancestral lands.

Other sources include bearsearscoalition.org and a doi.gov Aug. 24 press release.