Opponents of the proposed Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah have taken to impersonating Department of Interior officials, distributing forged letters and phony flyers in an effort to frighten Utah Navajos and divide widespread Tribal support for the proposal.
The documents, which impersonate Interior Secretary Sally Jewell and Utah Din√© Bik√©yah (a Native American-led group working to protect Bears Ears), claim that the monument will seize 4 million acres of Navajo land and tells Navajos to “stay away from our party.”
These offensive scare tactics are only the most recent in a long line of disrespect for Native Americans in Southern Utah by local, state, and federal officials. The exhaustive efforts of the Tribes to protect Bears Ears from increasingly frequent looting of cultural sites has gone largely ignored by Utah’s leaders.
Though the push to preserve Bears Ears is championed by the Hopi Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, and the Ute Indian Tribe and is backed by two thirds of all Utah voters, supporters have been consistently marginalized during public discussion of the region’s future. Now, the Tribes are turning to President Obama to protect the threatened landscape as a national monument.
Take a look back at the many times that Utah leaders ignored or dismissed the Native American-led effort to protect Bears Ears below.
The timeline can be viewed in full screen here.
Featured Photo: The Navajo Nation lies across the San Juan River in southeast Utah | Jesse Prentice-Dunn