Zinke to tour Bears Ears on Monday

I just don't see hows making these areas Monuments can be called ABUSES. I save that term for the massive west side clearcuts that barely maintain a thin ribbon of trees along the creeks and the elaborate oilfield and gas fields that require a web of roads so dense as to almost entirely eliminate security habitat and the giant factory fish processing ships that are depopulating large swaths of the ocean and the you scratch my back I'll scratch yours of rural development in areas that should never be developed but are allowed in our County governments (which I am completely convinced are THE MORE CORRUPT level of government). Those are actual ABUSES. Protecting land is not an abuse.

The doom and gloom you mention would have happened decades ago if the energy deposits existed.

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Says Who? Just you; or are you more than a few who wish conservation to eschew ... and ruin the view?

Take the 13 points of archaeological interest, route a dedicated hwy to each site, preserve each area with heck, a thousand acres and call the road and sites the, "Bears Ear's National Monument Highway". Done... Instead throw away American job opportunities by trying to claim 1.4 MILLION ACRES is necessary to protect a few points of interest...

Sytes said:

Take the 13 points of archaeological interest, route a dedicated hwy to each site, preserve each area with heck, a thousand acres and call the road and sites the, "Bears Ear's National Monument Highway". Done... Instead throw away American job opportunities by trying to claim 1.4 MILLION ACRES is necessary to protect a few points of interest...

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When I visited Bears Ears last month the BLM interp ranger talked about having to build new and larger campgrounds to support the increased tourism. It seems to me the designation is going to create plenty of jobs, just not in oil and gas. Probably a good thing given the cyclic nature of that industry.

Sytes said:

Take the 13 points of archaeological interest, route a dedicated hwy to each site...

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That might be tough considering, "The area contains an estimated 100,000 archaeological sites, including ancient Pueblo cliff dwellings that are more than 3,500 years old," according to Christian Science Monitor.

grizzly_ said:

That might be tough considering, "The area contains an estimated 100,000 archaeological sites, including ancient Pueblo cliff dwellings that are more than 3,500 years old," according to Christian Science Monitor.

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Looking @ the tribal map for the tribal's identified points of interest, they have 13. I would be interested how many "sites" are within these 13 locations... How is the use of the word, "site" utilized... and how 'eco-centric' is the identification of the sites...

Edit added: Sorry power, didn't see your post until now. I can respect that taxpayers will pay more to expand the need for additional tourists. I wonder if taxpayers will be left to foot the bill as the tribal entity assumes all concessionaire profits under the <X> Agreement. (edit added: Still searching. Had the wrong agreement listed). Anyone know about that? If a National Monument is designated on tribal land if the federal government is able to recoup money spent?

Sytes said:

Anyone know about that? If a National Monument is designated on tribal land if the federal government is able to recoup money spent?

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I'm admittedly not all that familiar with the Bears Ears, but where did the feds designate tribal lands? I didn't think they had jurisdiction to designate anything on a reservation. Still trying to learn about this monument, so someone educate me please.

Anyway, to answer what I think you are getting at...no. In all likelihood, DOI would provide money to the tribes for land management "partnerships". The Tribal Self Governance Act and Indian Self Determination Act create a mechanism by which tribes get paid to manage natural resources within their borders, or outside their borders where they have a significant interest.

Hunting Wife said:

I'm admittedly not all that familiar with the Bears Ears, but where did the feds designate tribal lands? I didn't think they had jurisdiction to designate anything on a reservation. Still trying to learn about this monument, so someone educate me please.

Anyway, to answer what I think you are getting at...no. In all likelihood, DOI would provide money to the tribes for land management "partnerships". The Tribal Self Governance Act and Indian Self Determination Act create a mechanism by which tribes get paid to manage natural resources within their borders, or outside their borders where they have a significant interest.

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Agree. That is the same as I understand Section 17 of the Tribal ability to operate a business outside Federal taxes / regulations.
As for tribal land and Federal Government, Yes, the Feds are able to designate "National Monuments" on tribal land, as the case with Bears Ears, a multi tribal coalition representing the land.

Sytes said:

Agree. That is the same as I understand Section 17 of the Tribal ability to operate a business outside Federal taxes / regulations.
As for tribal land and Federal Government, Yes, the Feds are able to designate "National Monuments" on tribal land, as the case with Bears Ears, a multi tribal coalition representing the land.

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To be clear; Bears Ears is BLM, NFS, State Trustlands. Not one acre of Tribal Land.

dukes_daddy said:

To be clear; Bears Ears is BLM, NFS, State Trustlands. Not one acre of Tribal Land.

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I am not very familiar with the Monument. Are you certain State Trust lands are included?

Primarily BLM and USFS, but there are some State Trust Lands included. The designation documents make reference to facilitating land exchanges with the state to make up for this I believe.

UTK14 said:

Primarily BLM and USFS, but there are some State Trust Lands included. The designation documents make reference to facilitating land exchanges with the state to make up for this I believe.

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A big land trade was made after the GSENM designation. The state got a bunch of sections west of SLC as part of that deal. Last time I was by a good portion of it was being used as a landfill...

dukes_daddy said:

To be clear; Bears Ears is BLM, NFS, State Trustlands. Not one acre of Tribal Land.

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I apologize. I thought the internet was always right... and now removing my foot... on my understanding the specific Tribal points of interests were on Tribal land. We all know what assume relates to... my bad.

On a side note regarding national monuments on tribal land, Canyon de Chelly would be an example of a National Monument placed on Tribal land, operated by NPS...

I just got back last night from a hunt in the Ears. We camped in the same meadow that Zinke used for his photo shoot on horseback. It's a beautiful, rugged area and should be protected, one way or another. The local consensus, and that of the Forest Ranger who was doing a PR tour of the hunters, is that there will likely be a reduction in area... which is likely a reasonable compromise considering all the angles. We shall see.

PS. My brother got a beautiful cinnamon bear on the morning of the 4th day and we came home sunburned. Doesn't get much better than that.

grizzly_ said:

I just got back last night from a hunt in the Ears. We camped in the same meadow that Zinke used for his photo shoot on horseback. It's a beautiful, rugged area and should be protected, one way or another. The local consensus, and that of the Forest Ranger who was doing a PR tour of the hunters, is that there will likely be a reduction in area... which is likely a reasonable compromise considering all the angles. We shall see.

PS. My brother got a beautiful cinnamon bear on the morning of the 4th day and we came home sunburned. Doesn't get much better than that.

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Congrats on a great hunt/experience! You mention that the area should be "protected". What do you think are the shortcomings of the current management plan(s) for that area in regard to keeping that area "protected"?

1_pointer said:

Congrats on a great hunt/experience! You mention that the area should be "protected". What do you think are the shortcomings of the current management plan(s) for that area in regard to keeping that area "protected"?

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First off, I want to say that I have been a longtime supporter of the Monument (to the point that I was quoted in a F&S article as a hunter who supported the Bears Ears). For those that don't know the area well, it is basically a National Forest/Wilderness Area that previously had a donut of BLM land surrounding it (the BLM also has Natural Bridges National Monument some National Recreation Area and Canyonlands National Park in the immediate vicinity). The top of the plateau, where the actual Bears Ears sit, is a National Forest and north of there is Dark Canyon Wilderness, which actually has an existing/open ATV trail into the bottom which is unusual for Wilderness Areas. Cutting into the plateau in the National Forest are various white-rock canyons that hold many of the ruins. The ruins are plentiful, but highly scattered. These are not like the ruins in Mesa Verde, but very sporadic and hard to locate.

I think the Forest/Wilderness Area is probably correctly designated and protected. It is not unlike any other National Forest you'll likely visit. The surrounding low-lying areas, where most of the ruins are, looks like sand and white-rock cliffs unless you happen to find the ruins or know where some are. There are artifacts of some kind in virtually every canyon in the area, but they were built to be hidden and remain that way today.

While hunting last week, there was a very noticeable increase in non-hunter traffic in the area. I hate to stereotype people, but for ease of explanation I'm going to... we saw 10 Subaru-type vehicles with yuppie-looking folks for every pickup truck we saw (I know there are Subaru-drivers that hunt too, but they're very rare in SE Utah and stereotypes are almost always built on some truth so bear with me for the sake of my greater point). I have hunted this area for years and can probably count on one hand the Subaru's I have seen in that area before this trip. I had two vehicles actually stop and ask me where to find the Indian ruins, another lady (wearing the stereotypical yuppie garb) who walked into our camp to ask where to find Indian ruins, and another guy that pulled into our camp late one night to say he was lost, out of gas, and had no cell reception. They were out-of-state folks that were completely unprepared to be off the pavement and didn't know how to get back to the highway. There is absolutely no question that the media attention and Monument designation has increased tourism to the area.

My point is not that increased tourism is necessarily bad, and that type of traffic is certainly less intrusive than oil extraction, but the designation did have a negative immediate impact on the area.

I could see a potential compromise protection status of keeping the National Forest and Dark Canyon Wilderness areas intact. Place smaller National Monument status on the most concentrated artifact areas and put in some sort of permanent restriction preventing extractive industries from disturbing the remaining areas in the immediate vicinity. I know this is an outside-the-box scenario, but one that could be tailor-made for this specific circumstance.

My point is not that increased tourism is necessarily bad, and that type of traffic is certainly less intrusive than oil extraction, but the designation did have a negative immediate impact on the area.

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First off, thank-you for the great description of the area and for your personal insight. Hopefully, whatever changes the to monument occur they will be close to what you suggest.

From your descriptions of interactions, the "negative impact on the area" is not clear, other than perhaps inconvenience and irritation to you by the "yuppie" types. Could you further explain the negative impact.

As an aside, I get it that the folks you encountered likely "weren't from around here". I know the feeling, but also realize that public land is just that ... public for all sorts of folks, and mostly supported by tax dollars from far away states.

grizzly_ said:

First off, I want to say that I have been a longtime supporter of the Monument (to the point that I was quoted in a F&S article as a hunter who supported the Bears Ears). For those that don't know the area well, it is basically a National Forest/Wilderness Area that previously had a donut of BLM land surrounding it (the BLM also has Natural Bridges National Monument some National Recreation Area and Canyonlands National Park in the immediate vicinity). The top of the plateau, where the actual Bears Ears sit, is a National Forest and north of there is Dark Canyon Wilderness, which actually has an existing/open ATV trail into the bottom which is unusual for Wilderness Areas. Cutting into the plateau in the National Forest are various white-rock canyons that hold many of the ruins. The ruins are plentiful, but highly scattered. These are not like the ruins in Mesa Verde, but very sporadic and hard to locate.

I think the Forest/Wilderness Area is probably correctly designated and protected. It is not unlike any other National Forest you'll likely visit. The surrounding low-lying areas, where most of the ruins are, looks like sand and white-rock cliffs unless you happen to find the ruins or know where some are. There are artifacts of some kind in virtually every canyon in the area, but they were built to be hidden and remain that way today.

While hunting last week, there was a very noticeable increase in non-hunter traffic in the area. I hate to stereotype people, but for ease of explanation I'm going to... we saw 10 Subaru-type vehicles with yuppie-looking folks for every pickup truck we saw (I know there are Subaru-drivers that hunt too, but they're very rare in SE Utah and stereotypes are almost always built on some truth so bear with me for the sake of my greater point). I have hunted this area for years and can probably count on one hand the Subaru's I have seen in that area before this trip. I had two vehicles actually stop and ask me where to find the Indian ruins, another lady (wearing the stereotypical yuppie garb) who walked into our camp to ask where to find Indian ruins, and another guy that pulled into our camp late one night to say he was lost, out of gas, and had no cell reception. They were out-of-state folks that were completely unprepared to be off the pavement and didn't know how to get back to the highway. There is absolutely no question that the media attention and Monument designation has increased tourism to the area.

My point is not that increased tourism is necessarily bad, and that type of traffic is certainly less intrusive than oil extraction, but the designation did have a negative immediate impact on the area.

I could see a potential compromise protection status of keeping the National Forest and Dark Canyon Wilderness areas intact. Place smaller National Monument status on the most concentrated artifact areas and put in some sort of permanent restriction preventing extractive industries from disturbing the remaining areas in the immediate vicinity. I know this is an outside-the-box scenario, but one that could be tailor-made for this specific circumstance.

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So the protection you think is necessary is from extractive industries?

As an aside, your experience there matches that which a former co-worker who grew up in the GSENM related to me.

EDIT: 1-pointer, you posted your reply while I was typing mine.

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Straight Arrow, let me expound with another example...

When we started going to the Escalante area, specifically Hole-In-The-Rock Road, it was before the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument designation. At the time, it required a personal knowledge of the area to find canyons such as Peekaboo and Spooky; and one would take extra fuel and spare tires before making the trek down that road. I once rescued a person who broke down without water and was attempting to walk back to town (30+miles) because he knew that traffic was so limited he couldn't expect another vehicle within the next few days. I also came upon a ranching cabin that was torched by arsonists in opposition to grazing on the GSENM, but were able to escape minutes before we arrived on the scene. I share those examples to try and paint a picture of the remoteness and wildness of the area 20 years ago.

With the increase of traffic that came with the GSENM designation, those same slot canyons now have signage and designated parking lots. Instead of a topo map to find the canyons, one just merely follows a marked trail while sharing the canyon with literally dozens of other hikers at the same time. The Wave, a trail that starts in southern Utah and crosses into Arizona requires a permit just to access the area. The Hole-In-The-Rock Road itself is graveled so heavily that you can comfortably travel over 40mph except for when you have to slow down for the parade of other hikers.

The negative impacts on the wildness of that area and the ideals of keeping wild areas untouched by man is clear to anybody who saw it pre-Monument as opposed to today. One cannot drastically increase human traffic without increasing the impact on the land itself. I'm not advocating banning human traffic, nor alluding to the idea that all Americans don't have a right to access it, but an area that is unknown becomes a "destination" once it receives a name and the associated media coverage that comes with it. Very few people in American knew about Bears Ears three years ago, but now it has been covered in major newspapers around the country and has become that "destination location" I mentioned above. I see this as similar to BigFin not giving locations for some of the artifacts he has found in the past. Certainly they are on public land and we all have the "right" to see them, but publicizing it is not the best way to protect those artifacts. The same could maybe be said for Bears Ears. Sometimes the best of intentions have negative consequences.

I am not "anti-local" and I made clear my support for the Monument, but to pretend that advertising an unknown location with a tiny local population to millions of other folks won't increase the human impact on land and wildlife is naïve. The question to me is one of relativism...

Which is more harmful, the potential increase of tourist traffic or the potential of resource development?

I don't know the answer.

Here is part of an article quoted on Wayne's Words the Lake Powell website. It looks like some tribes support it and some not so much.

"On its website, the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition describes how the coalition was founded in July of 2015 by the leaders of five tribes who came together.

The coalition's formation, however, was written about months earlier in a rock climbing magazine, which listed Friends of Cedar Mesa, the Conservation Lands Foundation, the Grand Canyon Trust and Utah Dine' Bikeyah as groups that had "banded together."

Josh Ewing's group, Friends of Cedar Mesa, was still in talks that same year with Chaffetz and Bishop over provisions in the yet-to-be unveiled public lands bill that promised the establishment of national conservation areas for the region — designations that differ from monument protections.

Ewing, however, registered the coalition's domain name in 2015 and is listed as its administrative contact. The Grand Canyon Trust notes on its website the voluntary assignment to create the map for the proposed Bears Ears monument and its Native American program manager sends out press releases for the coalition as the media contact.

Those close ties lead monument critics to question the authenticity of the movement.

"This is not a grass-roots Native American effort to protect sacred lands," said Blanding City Manager Jeremy Redd. "This is an effort by environmental groups to get what they want. … People feel like they are being run over by the money and the organization that these special interest groups have. Sadly, local people don't have that kind of money behind them."

Redd added that the Utah portion of the Navajo nation, Native Americans who live off reservation in San Juan County and the Blue Mountain Dine are nearly "across the board," opposed to the monument designation.

"The general consensus among local people is they feel the process has been co-opted by the environmental groups and special interest groups who want to use the power of the federal government to get their way.

"The farther you get away from being local, the more you are influenced by special interest groups and the money they have," Redd said.

Common ground

Ewing said it is natural for Friends of Cedar Mesa to help the tribes because of the common goal of all entities to protect cultural resources in the region.

"Those who don’t have common ground with the tribes and want to continue the status quo are trying to manufacture something that doesn’t exist," he said. "It is no secret we have worked to find common ground and we have common interests in protecting cultural resources."

Support for a Bears Ears monument includes outdoor business leaders, who came together Thursday in a press conference at the Outdoor Retailer Show. In a packed room in downtown Salt Lake City, they outlined why 15 leading companies are in support of a national monument designation.

"It is a place that is absolutely iconic in the form of recreational opportunities that are available such as climbing, hiking and water sports. It is an incredible treasure in the state of Utah," said Hans Cole of Patagonia. "As an industry we rely on these protected places, and so for us it is an economic driver. But it is also deeply personal because of the landscape."

Carlton Bowekaty, a Zuni tribal councilman from New Mexico, was at the Bears Ears meadows gathering in July, addressing Jewell on the need for protections in the area.

Later, he dismissed the notion that his people had been overly influenced by environmental groups.

"We rely on them for support, but if I felt like it was not something I could personally support, I would not bring it to the Zuni people," Bowekaty said.

But Clarke said most of the tribal leaders who visited Bears Ears for the Jewell meeting had probably never been there before and likely will not be back again.

"The more distant you are as a Navajo and tribal member the more likely you are to support the monument because you view it as an abstraction or concept or theory of tribal sovereignty," he said. "The closer you get to the monument, the more likely you are to view it as land that can and should be used properly."

The Conservation Lands Foundation boasts on its website that the marathon listening meeting in Bluff attended by more than 1,500 people for Jewell was an "incredible success," with huge showings from their Friends Grassroots Network that includes multiple Colorado-based organizations.

Supporters of monument designations sported blue T-shirts to draw attention to themselves at the event designed for Jewell to hear the issues surrounding the monument debate.

"Secretary Jewell, you came to Utah seeking local input. Unfortunately, what you saw and what you heard was theater staged by radical environmentalist outsiders intent on smothering local voices. This wasn't local grass roots. This was Astroturf," blogged Matthew Anderson, the Sutherland Institute's policy analyst for the Coalition for Self Government in the West.

Chaffetz said he has no doubt tribal leaders are being influenced by environmental groups seeking monument designation.

"I sat with the president of the Navajo Nation last August and he had no idea what Bears Ears was or where it was," he said.

Clarke wonders at what he says is a contradiction inherent in the monument designation.

"Everybody who came out here says it's beautiful, it's wonderful and pristine and we want to keep it that way. I say 'thank you,' because we have been taking care of it the last 100 years," he said.

Monument opponents, he said, are characterized as extreme conservatives who don't care about the land.

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Clarke said he doesn't believe tribal officials who support a monument designation could name the landmarks at Bears Ears or know if wood gathering is good at places like Babylon Flat, Duck Lake, Little Dry Mesa or Sweet Alice Springs.

"I'd be met with blank faces. The people who came here from a distance and will return to a distance had to GPS the Bears Ears to get there. I've never had to use GPS out there," he said. "Their idea of protection is to essentially make it famous. How is making it famous and putting it on the map for careless visitors protect it."