The president told Sen. Orrin Hatch Friday that he’s going to shrink Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, “For you, Orrin.” He’s not doing so for the American people.
America needs what the Bears Ears can offer: “powerful medicine for healing — of the land, of plants and animals, and for all people.” Barack Obama acknowledged this vision from the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, this historic and restorative breathing space, when he created Bears Ears National Monument in December 2016.
The Coalition reminds us: “The Bears Ears region is not a series of isolated objects, but the object itself, a connected, living landscape, where the place, not a collection of items, must be protected.