Meet Bears Ears
Proclamation 9558 opens with the buttes, and with the name:
“Rising from the center of the southeastern Utah landscape and visible from every direction are twin buttes so distinctive that in each of the native languages of the region their name is the same: Hoon’Naqvut, Shash Jáa, Kwiyagatu Nukavachi, Ansh An Lashokdiwe, or ‘Bears Ears.’”
— Proclamation 9558, December 28, 2016The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition writes the same four names, and says why they matter: the Coalition Tribes are “unified in the effort to protect this landscape we call Hoon’Naqvut, Shash Jáa, Kwiyagatu Nukavachi, Ansh An Lashokdiwe, in our Native languages, all of which mean ‘Bears Ears.’”
Four names, five nations: the two Ute nations share a language. Neither the Coalition nor Proclamation 9558 assigns each name to a language. Proclamation 10285, in 2021, is the document that does: Hoon’Naqvut (Hopi), Shash Jaa’ (Navajo), Kwiyagatu Nukavachi (Ute), Ansh An Lashokdiwe (Zuni). Note that the 2021 proclamation renders the Navajo name Shash Jaa’, with a final glottal stop, where the Coalition and the 2016 proclamation write Shash Jáa. We use the Coalition’s spelling, because it is theirs.
What surrounds the buttes, in the proclamation’s own words, is “one of the densest and most significant cultural landscapes in the United States.”
Why you will not find traditional stories retold here
The nations connected to this land have their own accounts of it. Those accounts belong to them. The Coalition’s own land management plan states the principle plainly: “The location of specific power sites, which are not general knowledge, should be discussed only with those who have a need to know as this power has both the possibility to harm and to heal.”
So this page quotes the nations where the nations chose to publish, and does not paraphrase, summarise or reconstruct anything they did not. Where a leader refers to creation or migration accounts, we quote the reference and stop there.
Sources: Proclamation 9558 · Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, Who We Are · Proclamation 10285 · BEITC Collaborative Land Management Plan (PDF)
What the rock holds
Proclamation 9558 describes the paleontological record here as “among the richest and most significant in the United States,” with fossil evidence running from the Permian Period through the Pleistocene Epoch, early tetrapods at one end and mammoths at the other.
We are not going to embroider that sentence. It is the federal record’s own assessment, and the citation below goes to the document.
The people who have always been here
“For hundreds of generations, native peoples lived in the surrounding deep sandstone canyons, desert mesas, and meadow mountaintops, which constitute one of the densest and most significant cultural landscapes in the United States.”
— Proclamation 9558The proclamation names, among others, the Lime Ridge Clovis Site, Doll House Ruin, Moon House Ruin and Newspaper Rock. It also records that this is not a closed past. In its words, “as they have for generations, these tribes and their members come here for ceremonies and to visit sacred sites,” continuing “traditions of hunting, fishing, gathering, and wood cutting” and the “collection of medicinal and ceremonial plants, edible herbs, and materials for crafting items like baskets and footwear.”
Tribal leaders have said the same thing in their own words, under oath. Shaun Chapoose, elected member of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee and a member of the Bears Ears Commission, testifying to the House Subcommittee on Federal Lands on January 9, 2018:
“We continue to use Bears Ears to: collect plants, minerals, objects and water for religious and cultural ceremonies and medicinal purposes; hunt, fish and gather; provide offerings at archaeological sites; and conduct ceremonies on the land.”
“Our tribal members go to Bears Ears to gather roots, berries, piñon nuts, weaving materials, and medicines. We go for healing.”
— Shaun Chapoose, Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee, January 9, 2018Russell Begaye, then President of the Navajo Nation, testifying three weeks later: “Navajo people continue to camp in the area and continue to hunt for wild game…as they have done since time immemorial,” and “traditional Navajo ceremonies, practiced since time immemorial, continue to take place in the Bears Ears region.”
Sources: Proclamation 9558 · Chapoose testimony (PDF) · Begaye testimony (PDF)
Five nations, one coalition
In July 2015, leaders from the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni and Ute Indian Tribe founded the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. The Coalition does not publish a day-precise founding date, and neither will we.
What it is matters more than when it began. In the Coalition’s own words:
“Each Coalition Tribe exercises its inherent right to self-determination by appointing a delegate to represent its interests in the Coalition’s work, in tandem with an MOU signed by all five Tribal councils that invests power in and ascribes limits to Coalition activities. In this way, we are distinct from a typical non-profit or grassroots organization because we are an extension of each Tribe’s sovereign authority.”
— Bears Ears Inter-Tribal CoalitionCoalition and Commission are not the same thing
The Coalition is the five nations acting together, formed in 2015. The Bears Ears Commission is a federal body created by proclamation in 2016, made up of one elected officer from each of those same five nations. The Coalition supported the Commission with operational capacity, technical expertise, land planning capacity, communications and funding. A president can disband the Commission. A president cannot disband the Coalition.
Sources: BEITC, Who We Are · BEITC, The Bears Ears Commission
What the nations asked for
On October 15, 2015, the Coalition formally presented its proposal to the Obama administration. A copy went to Representatives Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz the same day. The proposal describes itself in one sentence:
“This is a Tribal proposal for a Presidential proclamation under the Antiquities Act of 1906 to protect historical and scientific objects in an area of 1.9 million acres of ancestral land on the Colorado Plateau.”
— Proposal to President Barack Obama, October 15, 2015It asked for 1.9 million acres and for a Bears Ears Management Commission of eight members: one from each of the five nations, plus one each from the Bureau of Land Management, the Forest Service and the National Park Service. Under the proposal that Commission would hire and supervise the monument manager, who would report directly to it, with Indian preference in hiring, and the agencies and tribes would “from the beginning to the conclusion of all plans and projects, collaborate jointly on all procedures, decisions.”
Hold that against what was actually created, in section 06 below. The gap between the two is the whole story.
It was signed by Herman G. Honanie, Chairman of the Hopi Tribal Council; Russell Begaye, President of the Navajo Nation; Shaun Chapoose, Chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee; Manuel Heart, Chairman of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Council; and Val Panteah, Governor of the Pueblo of Zuni. Nineteen additional tribes and the National Congress of American Indians formally supported it.
“This proposal originates from the heart of Indian Country. By protecting these sacred ancestral lands we can take a very important step towards healing.”
— Eric Descheenie, Co-Chair, Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, October 15, 2015“The Antiquities Act was written to protect Native American artifacts on public lands. But this is the first time tribes have ever come together to call on the President to use the Antiquities Act.”
— Alfred Lomahquahu, Vice Chairman, Hopi Nation, October 15, 2015“This destruction of our sacred sites—including the gravesites of our ancestors—deeply wounds us. Bears Ears should have been protected long ago. It has been central to our creation and migration stories since time immemorial.”
— Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk, Councilwoman, Ute Mountain Ute, October 15, 2015Sources: The proposal (PDF) · Coalition press release, October 15, 2015
Made, cut, restored, cut
December 28, 2016 — Proclamation 9558
Bears Ears National Monument established, “approximately 1.35 million acres.” The Bears Ears Commission created, consisting of one elected officer each from the five nations.
Read the Commission’s actual mandate carefully, because it is narrower than it is often described. It was established “to provide guidance and recommendations on the development and implementation of management plans and on management of the monument.” The Secretaries were required to “carefully and fully consider” its traditional and historical knowledge, and if they declined a written recommendation they had to explain why in writing. That is an advisory body with a duty of reasons attached. It is not co-management, and the 2015 proposal had asked for something much stronger.
December 4, 2017 — Proclamation 9681
Reduced to approximately 201,876 acres, about 85 percent gone, in two units: the Shash Jáa Unit and the Indian Creek Unit. The Commission was renamed the Shash Jáa Commission, its scope limited to that one unit, and its membership expanded to include the elected officer of the San Juan County Commission representing District 3. The proclamation also added approximately 11,200 acres that had not been inside the 2016 boundary.
The five nations filed suit on December 4, 2017, hours after the proclamation was signed.
October 8, 2021 — Proclamation 10285
Restored, “encompassing approximately 1.36 million acres” — the lands reserved as of December 3, 2017 plus the 11,200 acres added in 2017. The Commission was reestablished on the terms of Proclamation 9558, covering the entire monument. No federal source gives an exact post-2021 acreage; “approximately 1.36 million” is all the proclamation says, so it is all we say.
July 13, 2026 — Proclamation 11043
Reduced to approximately 121,096 acres: the Shash Jáa Unit at approximately 106,816 acres and the Indian Creek Unit at approximately 14,279 acres. Approximately 1,238,904 acres excluded, about 91 percent. Effective at 9:00 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 11, 2026.
Two notes on the numbers. The White House fact sheet rounds to 121,100; the proclamation itself says 121,096, and that is the figure used here. The two unit acreages sum to 121,095, a one-acre rounding artifact inside the proclamation. The BLM’s own Bears Ears page currently reports 380,759 acres, which cannot be reconciled with the proclamation and appears to be stale.
“The BEC is hereby disbanded and terminated, and the Secretaries shall have no obligation to engage, consult, or coordinate with the BEC or a comparable entity.”
— Proclamation 11043, July 13, 2026Note the second clause. “Or a comparable entity” was the phrase in the 2016 proclamation that carried the written-explanation duty. Removing it removes the duty. What remains is consultation “in accordance with other applicable authorities,” plus an advisory committee with one member each from the Hopi Nation, the Navajo Nation, the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Pueblo of Zuni.
Sources: Proclamation 9558 · Proclamation 9681 · Proclamation 10285 · Proclamation 11043 · NARF, Bears Ears case page · White House fact sheet, July 2026
What was actually built
Between the restoration and the second cut, something was built that had not existed before.
The 2022 agreement
An Inter-Governmental Cooperative Agreement was signed in June 2022 and announced on June 21, 2022, between the five nations, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service. BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning called it “true co-management” that “will serve as a model for our work to honor the nation-to-nation relationship in the future.”
The operative text is narrower than the announcement. The agencies agree to coordinate and consult with the Commission throughout planning and implementation, and the federal authorized officer retains final authority, with the same written-explanation duty if recommendations are declined. It creates no tribal veto. Both things are true at once, and a page that reports only one of them is not telling you the truth.
“What can be a better avenue of restorative justice than giving Tribes the opportunity to participate in the management of lands their ancestors were removed from?”
— Carleton R. Bowekaty, Lieutenant Governor, Pueblo of Zuni, June 2022The Coalition’s own plan
The Coalition published a Collaborative Land Management Plan, dated July 5, 2022 and released August 26, 2022, to “provide Federal land managers with a synthesis of Tribal perspectives on managing the landscape.” Its central test is a question about parity: have “indigenous knowledge and Native ways of knowing given equal consideration with knowledge from processes framed by a Western scientific paradigm.”
“Our culture relies on accessibility to the Bears Ears region. Through this Land Management Plan, we are strengthening our connection with our people, the environment, and all the land, water, and animals. What we are looking at is reconnecting with our Aboriginal lands and finding ways to incorporate our worldview into the management of our homelands.”
— Hank Stevens (Naatsis’áán), BEITC Representative for the Navajo Nation, August 26, 2022Alternative E and the 2025 plan
“Alternative E” was one of five alternatives in the Bears Ears resource management plan and environmental impact statement, and the agency-preferred alternative in the draft. The Record of Decision describes it as the alternative that “would have maximized the consideration and use of Tribal perspectives in managing the landscape,” emphasising “the use of Traditional Indigenous Knowledge and perspectives on the stewardship of the Bears Ears landscape.”
On authorship, sources differ: the Record of Decision credits the BLM and Forest Service, developed in close coordination with the Bears Ears Commission throughout; advocacy accounts describe the Commission as having developed it. The accurate phrasing covers both.
The plan was adopted in January 2025, the Records of Decision signed mid-January and published in the Federal Register on January 16, 2025. It closes 591,185 acres to off-highway vehicle use, restricts livestock grazing on 27,208 acres, and prohibits rock stacking and recreational shooting at cultural sites.
The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition describes the plan as “the first of its kind to embed Indigenous leadership and Traditional Indigenous Knowledge at every stage.” That is the Coalition’s characterisation, and we attribute it rather than assert it: the federal Record of Decision makes no such claim.
The July 2026 proclamation disbanded the Commission that the plan was built around.
Sources: The 2022 agreement (PDF) · Department of the Interior announcement · BEITC Land Management Plan (PDF) · BEITC plan release · Record of Decision (PDF) · Federal Register notice · GAO B-338306 · BEITC on the management plan
Where things stand
The reductions took effect at 9:00 a.m. eastern time on September 11, 2026. Roughly 1.24 million acres became available for mineral entry, mining claims and other public land dispositions. Opening land to claims is not the same as authorising a mine; claims still require separate permits and approvals.
Claims were staked before the effective date. Kimmerle Mining filed seven claims in San Juan County on July 14, 2026, the day after the proclamation, specifying uranium, vanadium, copper and other metals. A second filer recorded two claims in Kane County, on the Grand Staircase side, on August 6, 2026. Under the proclamation’s own terms, appropriation under the mining laws before the restoration date is unauthorised and such claims “shall vest no rights against the United States.” Their legality is contested.
On September 2, 2026, three coalitions filed motions for leave to file second amended and supplemental complaints, reactivating the cases first brought in December 2017 and stayed after the 2021 restoration. These are not new lawsuits; they are the old ones, restarted. The consolidated matter sits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, with Hopi Tribe, et al. v. Trump as the lead caption. No ruling has issued.
A separate line of cases, brought by the State of Utah and Garfield County against the 2021 restorations and against the Antiquities Act itself, was remanded to the Utah district court by the Tenth Circuit on June 23, 2026. Those are different cases and are easy to confuse.
“You can abolish a commission, you can redraw a boundary, but you cannot erase our prayers from this land. You cannot erase the footprints of our ancestors from this land. You cannot erase us. We are still here.”
— Coalition Co-Chair (Diné), quoted by the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, July 24, 2026Sources: Proclamation 11043 · Earthjustice on the mining claims · KUER, August 18, 2026 · KSJD, September 9, 2026 · NRDC, September 2, 2026 · Moab Sun News, September 10, 2026 · Earthjustice on the Tenth Circuit remand · BEITC, July 24, 2026
Support
Two monuments in southern Utah were cut in 2017. Lawsuits followed, asking a single question: the Antiquities Act lets a president create a national monument, but does it let a president take one apart? Those cases were paused in 2021 when the boundaries were restored. They were never decided.
On July 13, 2026 both monuments were cut again, and the reductions took effect on September 11, 2026. On September 2, 2026 the same cases were reopened. Plaintiffs argue the Act authorizes a president to designate a monument and nothing more; the government argues it permits a president to modify an earlier declaration. Nothing has been ruled on. Everything below is a place to read the filings yourself.
“The Antiquities Act of 1906 authorizes presidents to designate national monuments, but it does not give them the power to shrink the monuments created by their predecessors or to undercut their protections.” — Sierra Club, September 2, 2026. The government’s position, that the Act permits modification and the reduced boundaries still protect the necessary objects, is summarised here.
Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument litigation
- 01The primary lawsuit. The lead case history, docket entries and parties: CourtListener docket, Grand Staircase Escalante Partners v. Trump, Case No. 1:17-cv-02591, D.D.C.
- 02The motion to reopen. The argument for restarting the case, filed by Earthjustice: Grand Staircase Escalante motion to reopen and lift stay, Case No. 1:17-cv-02587, D.D.C.
Bears Ears National Monument litigation
- 01The motion to reopen. The arguments against the 2026 proclamations, in full: Bears Ears motion to reopen and lift stay, Case No. 1:17-cv-02590, D.D.C.
- 02Case details and updates. The environmental challenge, tracked and archived: NRDC, NRDC et al. v. Trump (Bears Ears).
- 03Tribal representation. The filings brought on behalf of sovereign nations: Native American Rights Fund, Bears Ears case page.
Who is standing up
Sovereign tribal nations. Five nations formed the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition in July 2015 and filed suit together in December 2017, hours after the first reduction. Three are represented by the Native American Rights Fund; the Navajo Nation and the Ute Indian Tribe have their own counsel.
Conservation organizations. Many represented by Earthjustice; see also WildEarth Guardians.
- Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance · Natural Resources Defense Council · The Wilderness Society · Sierra Club · National Parks Conservation Association · Grand Canyon Trust · Center for Biological Diversity · WildEarth Guardians · Western Watersheds Project · Great Old Broads for Wilderness · Conservation Lands Foundation · National Trust for Historic Preservation
Grassroots, scientific and public interest groups. NRDC case page · Archaeology Southwest
- Utah Diné Bikéyah, a Native-led nonprofit · Access Fund · Archaeology Southwest · Society of Vertebrate Paleontology · A’Nuche
Businesses. Patagonia Works is a named co-plaintiff. A coalition of 118 outdoor businesses, including REI, Black Diamond and Osprey, signed a joint letter opposing the reductions without being parties to the case. Patagonia · Deseret News on the 118-business letter
Monumental Love // Stewardship cannot be silenced.
This is a small, independent initiative driven by the community that cares, with a specific output: a dated, public, collaborative, community-authored record of what this landscape means to the people and their experiences, created at the moment its legal status is being rewritten. Our stewardship does not end when the rules change. Our commitment does not end on a deadline. History will not be erased when a committee is dismantled.
Donations are made directly to Grand Staircase Escalante Partners, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (EIN 34-1987583); Storyscope Studio receives no portion. Contributions are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Program budget, participation data, and a summary report are available to funders on request.
Read for yourself
From the nations themselves
Start here. These are the Coalition’s own documents, in its own words.
- Proposal to President Barack Obama, October 15, 2015 (PDF)
The original ask. 1.9 million acres and a commission with real authority.
- A Collaborative Land Management Plan for Bears Ears (PDF)
What tribal stewardship looks like when the nations write the plan.
- Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, Who We Are
Who the five nations are and what the Coalition is, legally and politically.
- The Bears Ears Commission
The federal body, its membership, and the Coalition’s relationship to it.
Primary sources
- Proclamation 9558, December 28, 2016
Establishment. The description of the land and the creation of the Commission.
- Proclamation 9681, December 4, 2017
The first reduction, to 201,876 acres.
- Proclamation 10285, October 8, 2021
Restoration, and the source that assigns each Indigenous name to a language.
- Proclamation 11043, July 13, 2026
The second reduction, to 121,096 acres, and the disbanding of the Commission.
- Inter-Governmental Cooperative Agreement, June 2022 (PDF)
Read the operative text, not the press release.
- Record of Decision, January 2025 (PDF)
The adopted management plan, and what it says about Alternative E.
News and reporting
-
Conservation groups file court challenge as monument cuts take effect Friday
What changes the moment the reductions take effect, and the impact on gateway towns.
-
Lands removed from Bears Ears to open to mining claims September 11
Local radio on the effective date, and the difference between a claim and a mine.
-
New mining claims crop up on land cut from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante
Who filed, when, and for what minerals.
-
Bears Ears cuts also end first-of-its-kind tribal land commission
On what the Commission was, and what its ending means.
-
The power of Bears Ears and Indigenous place names
Angelo Baca (Diné) on the names themselves, and why they are not interchangeable.
A note on method: every factual claim on this page is linked to a source. Where sources disagree, we say so and give both. Where a figure could not be verified, we leave it out rather than round it into place.
Now the other half.
That was the record. This is the response, a collective, community-authored testimony of what this place means, drawn by our own hands.
Go to Monumental Love →