Governor Polis, Lt. Governor Primavera, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe and the Southern Ute Indian Tribe Condemn Trump Administration Decision to Strip Protections of Bear Ears[...]

DENVER - Today, Governor Jared Polis, Lt. Governor Dianne Primavera, the Southern Ute Indian Tribe, and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe released the following statements condemning President Donald Trump's decision to reduce the size of Bears Ears National Monument and remove public lands protections without meaningful consultation with the Tribal Nations whose ancestral homelands it protected. The proclamation reduced the monument from 1.36 million acres to roughly 121,000 acres, a 91 percent reduction. Because of this action, the 1,238,904 acres stripped of protection became open to land sales and transfers, mineral leasing, and mining claims.

"In Colorado, we've worked hard to build real, respectful relationships with Tribal Nations. The federal government's decision to gut protections at Bears Ears, without consulting the Tribes who have called this land home for generations, undercuts that trust. Bears Ears isn't just sacred ground, it's a fragile irreplaceable ecosystem, home to thousands of archaeological sites and species that depend on this landscape staying intact. Government-to-government consultation isn't optional. We call on the federal government to sit down with Tribal leaders directly before making decisions like this," said Governor Polis.

"For generations, Bears Ears has been a sacred landscape of historical and cultural value. Its star-filled skies and untouched landscape holds a record of human history found nowhere else on Earth," said Lt. Governor Primavera. "Once a sacred site is drilled or a cliff dwelling is bulldozed, no proclamation can bring it back. The Tribes built something remarkable with the Bears Ears Commission, a true partnership that placed Tribal knowledge at the heart of caring for this land, and President Trump threw it away. Here in Colorado, we honor Tribal sovereignty, and we will not stay quiet while these lands are put up for sale, leasing, and mining."

"The government can shrink our lands, but they cannot erase history and our people. Ute Mountain Ute will continue the fight to preserve our ancestral lands, for all people and for the future," said Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Councilwoman Tawnie Knight.

"The Ute people have lived within and maintained deep connections to the lands now known as Bears Ears since time immemorial," said Southern Ute Tribal Chairman Christine Sage. "Beyond the countless archaeological sites that attest to our enduring presence, our oral histories, traditional ecological knowledge, and cultural practices continue to affirm our profound relationship with this area. It deserves the highest level of protection possible, and a national monument designation remains a vital tool for safeguarding its cultural, historical, ecological, and spiritual value."

With over 13,000 years of human history recorded throughout the Bears Ears region, this is a living landscape that includes tradition, ceremony, culture, and natural ecologies. The connection of Tribal Nations to Bears Ears is not solely about protecting the past; it's about protecting the site for future generations for traditional practices in a sacred environment. President Trump made this decision without regard for the ancestral places, cultural resources, and traditional practices that make Bears Ears sacred to the Tribes who call it home.

In 2016, President Barack Obama designated Bears Ears as a national monument, affirming both its deep cultural importance and the need to safeguard the landscape. That designation created the Bears Ears Commission. Through this Commission, five federally recognized Tribes, including the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, created a first-of-its-kind partnership guiding the monument's management. Working with the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service, the Commission developed a resource management plan grounded in Traditional Indigenous Knowledge and federal land management practice. It was a new model for stewarding public lands, one that honored Tribal sovereignty.

President Trump's proclamation disbanded the Commission and ended the federal agencies' obligation to work with it, replacing a permanent Tribal partnership with only the general consultation required under other laws. Now these public lands are being sold to private interests.

Bears Ears is sacred ground, and is also home to the wildest, most ecologically important country left in the American West. Few places in the lower 48 states remain so untouched by roads and development. Its high country captures and filters water for surrounding communities, and its forests and canyons shelter the largest contiguous critical habitat for the threatened Mexican Spotted Owl, along with bighorn sheep, elk, rare desert plants, and some of the nation's richest fossil records.

Expanded mining threatens the fragile desert habitat and risks contaminating land and water. Once this landscape is damaged, it cannot be restored.

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