The Bears Ears Commission had a historic aim: To ensure that tribal nations had a direct role in the management of 1.35 million acres of their ancestral lands in southern Utah. Established alongside Bears Ears National Monument in 2016, the commission brought five tribal nations together with federal agencies to plan for the lands’ protections. But its work was abruptly cut short on Monday when President Donald Trump announced that he was slashing the monument by 91% to enable resource extraction — a decision that eliminated the commission entirely. A separate proclamation cut nearby Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by 90%.
“I am angry. I am hurt, and I am tired of standing here having to explain again why Bears Ears matters to me,” said Davina Smith-Idjesa, co-chair for the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and its Navajo Nation representative, in a press call Tuesday morning. The Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition is a nonprofit created by the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and Zuni Tribe to advocate for the monument
The cuts — a combined 3 million acres of federal lands — are more extensive than those made by Trump during his first administration, which were later reversed under President Joe Biden. Trump’s new proclamation — which has been expected since he returned to office last year — was the product of a long-running campaign by the state of Utah to slash the monuments and limit Indigenous oversight of the lands.
“We have been here before, but this cuts even deeper,” Smith-Idjesa said. “To reduce Bears Ears again is devastating, but to abolish the Bears Ears Commission is to attempt to erase years of tribal leadership, relationships and work between sovereign tribal nations and our federal partners.”
Under the Trump administration, the Department of the Interior had promised to meet with the commission before considering changes to the monument’s boundaries, according to the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. But that consultation never occurred, the coalition said in a press release.
Monday’s reduction went much further than its predecessor in defining what the Trump administration sees as worth protecting, said Monte Mills, director of the Native American Law Center at University of Washington. The order’s language undercut the significance of a place that tribes and others have long sought to protect, dismissing the objects within the monument as “not of particular historic or scientific interest” and the landscape as merely “generic features” that were “not … worthy of protection.” “This isn’t just about, ‘Oh, we’re going to undo this monument,’” Mills said, but about “trying to rewrite and trying to erase the real history and meaning and value of this place.”
The proclamation is part of “a broader project of white nationalism on the part of this administration,” in line with other administration efforts, Mills said, such as removing signs from national parks that feature Indigenous histories or slavery.
Similar tensions exist around Grand Staircase-Escalante, which was established by President Bill Clinton in 1996. The Inter-Tribal Coalition was formed last year to defend the monument and advocate for the inclusion of tribal perspectives. Both monuments finalized their resource management plans in 2025, following years of consultation with the public and tribal nations about incorporating Indigenous knowledge. Bears Ears in particular became a model for Indigenous leadership of land stewardship.
The cuts demonstrate how vulnerable tribal co-management is to political changes in different administrations — and to political influence. Bears Ears had become a lightning rod over the years, but the administration has also made dramatic changes that affect all levels of land management.
“What we’re seeing this week is the fundamental destruction of public-lands management as we know it, from grazing rules, oil and gas rules, (Endangered Species Act) rules, Bears Ears,” Mills said. “In the same way this administration has reshaped the federal government, we’re seeing it play out across the public landscape.”
While co-management requires collaboration from all partners, Mills described the Bears Ears rollback as the federal government “fully stepping back from its obligations.” And it was doing so, he added, “at the behest of Utah politicians.”
Utah state officials have long had a contentious relationship with the monuments within the state’s borders. In blistering public comments from 2024 on a draft of the Bears Ears resource management plan, the state said federal agencies under the Biden administration had a “focus on eliminating the State’s rights from this land,” claiming the agencies showed “wholesale deference” to the Bears Ears Commission and sought to “create a new ‘Indian Country’” through the national monument. Utah also asked the agencies to be “more inclusive of living, non-Indigenous people,” stating that the draft plan “gives less respect, dignity and protections to their heritage when compared to the heritage of the area’s Indigenous people.”
Utah — which sued over Biden’s restoration of the monuments in 2022 — also complained that the plan promoted “a state of non-use,” comments that Trump echoed at Monday’s proclamation signing ceremony when he claimed, “You can’t go hunting. You can’t go fishing. You can’t do anything. You can virtually not even walk on it” — each which are allowed in the monuments.
The decision to shrink the monuments was met with widespread opposition from tribal leaders, members of Congress, conservationists, recreationalists and locals. On Tuesday, the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), which has represented three of the commission tribes at Bears Ears, said that the president does not have the authority to shrink national monuments. “We will pursue every available legal course of action to stop these illegal attacks on Native homelands, culture, and people,” said NARF Deputy Director Matthew Campbell in a statement.
“We will pursue every available legal course of action to stop these illegal attacks on Native homelands, culture, and people.”
Hillary Hoffmann, professor of law at the University of Wyoming and former co-director of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, said that the constant back-and-forth over the monuments’ boundaries over the past decade “should be a signal to the judiciary that resolution is needed on these legal questions.”
Congress could solve the problem by permanently protecting Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, Hoffmann said, and ensuring that tribes are able to continue co-management. “I don’t think that this strikes any kind of death knell for collaborative management or co-stewardship,” Hoffmann added.
Before the commission ever existed, the tribes came together to create the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition to fight for the land that became the monument. That work will continue, the five tribes said this week.
“Our connection to Bears Ears did not begin with a presidential proclamation, and it will not end with one,” said Smith-Idjesa. “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.”
Note: This story was updated to correct the organization Davina Smith-Idjesa represents. She is the Navajo Nation representative and co-chair for the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, not the Bears Ears Commission.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
