President Donald Trump has revoked the Bears Ears National Monument and ordered the termination of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Commission, setting up a renewed legal fight over roughly 1.24 million acres of land in southern Utah that five tribal nations consider sacred, according to Native News Online.
The executive action, signed July 13, strips national monument protections from the land 60 days after signing, at which point the area becomes eligible for mineral leasing, mining claims and other public land uses, Native News Online reports. Trump also ordered the dissolution of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Commission, the body created to give the Hopi Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni, Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and Navajo Nation a formal role in co-managing the monument.
The Native American Rights Fund, which has represented the Hopi, Zuni and Ute Mountain Ute in Bears Ears litigation since 2017, condemned the decision and pledged to sue, arguing the Antiquities Act of 1906 gives presidents the power to designate monuments but not to undo them.
“The Antiquities Act of 1906 authorizes presidents to declare national monuments. It does not give presidents the power to undeclare existing monuments,” the organization said in a statement cited by NARF.
The order also reduced protections at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, removing national monument status from more than 2.9 million acres of public land between the two sites combined, according to ICT. Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first Indigenous person to hold a Cabinet post, said in a statement reported by ICT that the administration is “handing our sacred homelands and public lands over to billionaires and corporations.”
Tribal leaders told ICT they were not consulted before the decision. Davina Smith-Idjesa, a Navajo Nation citizen and co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, called the move “heartbreaking” and accused federal officials of sidestepping their legal obligation to consult with affected tribes.
Trump previously shrank Bears Ears during his first term, a move that drew lawsuits from tribes and environmental groups before President Joe Biden restored the monument’s boundaries. Advocates told the New Republic they expect to again challenge the reduction in court.
