Jul 14, 2026
This week, President Trump shrank two national monuments in Utah: Bears Ears & Grand Staircase-Escalante — again. And I am working with allies to defend these public lands — again. This time through America the Beautiful for All Coalition.
I have never visited these sacred lands. I hope to one day, and fear they are in danger of being destroyed by mining and other threats now that their monument protections are gone.
I am forever grateful for the lessons I learned when I was the Executive Director of Creation Justice Ministries from Indigenous leaders who are part of faith communities near these national monuments, as well as from our partners at Utah Diné Bikéyah and the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. They taught me so much about how different conservation policy can look — and how different conservation results can be — when we learn from Indigenous knowledge and invest in Tribal stewardship of ancestral homelands.
Bears Ears was the first national monument designated at the request of a historic coalition of Tribal Nations: the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Zuni Tribe, and Ute Indian Tribe of Uintah and Ouray Reservation. It was a highlight of my career to work with Secretary Deb Haaland and the Biden Administration to restore protections for these national monuments.
President Biden's restoration of the monuments safeguarded cultural sites and added protection for one of the most significant cultural landscapes in the nation.
Trump's action to dismantle the monuments' integrity (even worse this time) defies the landmark Tribal co-stewardship framework for Grand Staircase-Escalante and a groundbreaking federal-intertribal collaborative management authority for Bears Ears.
First and foremost, please support the inter-tribal coalitions: Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition & Grand Staircase Inter-Tribal Coalition. I'm grateful to be working shoulder to shoulder to restore these protections with so many organizations in our coalition leadership. You can take action with Native American Rights Fund, Grand Canyon Trust, Earthjustice, and The Wilderness Society. I'm grateful that after all these years, I still get to work with Pat Gonzales-Rogers to defend these lands.
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