Click the link to read the article on The Ark Valley Voice website (Jan Wondra). Here’s an excerpt:
July 21, 2026
Earlier this week, President Donald Trump issued a proclamation dramatically reducing Bears Ears National Monument and terminating the Bears Ears Commission, undermining years of progress in collaborative management. The decision weakens protections for a living cultural landscape. This sacred ancestral homeland has been cared for by Indigenous peoples since time immemorial. This is a major setback to one of the nation’s most extraordinary models of collaborative management of public lands between Tribal Nations and federal agencies…
The Bears Ears Commission is composed of five Tribal Nations—the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah & Ouray Reservation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Zuni Tribe. They work collaboratively with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service to manage and steward Bears Ears National Monument. The Bears Ears Commission exemplifies collaborative management between sovereign Tribal Nations and the federal government. The Commission was established following the designation of Bears Ears National Monument in 2016.
According to a statement from the commission last week, “The significance of Bears Ears cannot be reduced to a handful of individual sites or separate management areas. Tribal Nations understand Bears Ears as an interconnected living cultural landscape, where the land itself—and the relationships among its cultural sites, waters, plants, animals, and sacred places—are what must be protected.”
Over the past several years, the Bears Ears Commission has worked alongside the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service developing and implementing the Bears Ears Resource Management Plan. This collaborative management framework is grounded in Traditional Indigenous Knowledge and western science. The plan remains a historic achievement. It demonstrates how Tribal leadership, Indigenous Knowledge, and western science can work together to care for one of America’s most significant regions in a way that protects the cultural, historical, ecological, and scientific values that make Bears Ears cherished by Tribal Nations and all who visit and experience it. In June 2025, the Department of the Interior stated in writing that, if it considered changes to the boundaries, management, or designation of Bears Ears National Monument, it would contact the Bears Ears Commission to schedule a meeting. The Commission expected meaningful government-to-government consultation and the Department’s written commitment to be honored before decisions affecting Bears Ears National Monument were made. But no such consultation occurred. The proclamation also terminates the Bears Ears Commission, despite years of collaborative work carried out through the Commission and its government-to-government relationship with federal agencies. The president’s action not only reneges on the Department’s assurances in the June 2025 letter, but is also contrary to the terms establishing the Commission in Proclamation 10285 and the Inter-Governmental Cooperative Agreement between the Commission Tribes, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Forest Service for collaborative management of the Monument.
