Yesterday the US Government, by executive fiat, eliminated protection for 90% of the lands in the Bears’ Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante National Monuments in the State of Utah, placing tribal nations in the unenviable position of once again having to fight to protect their sacred ancestral homelands.
Southern Paiute citizen Autumn Gillard, coordinator of the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition, reminds us that “The federal government must honor its Trust and Treaty obligations to our Tribes —- it is not optional. Today’s action is a direct strike against the federal government’s duty to consult with Tribes. It also profoundly disrespects our intergenerational Traditional Knowledge by destroying a framework for Tribal co-stewardship over our ancestral lands in which we invested years of effort.”
Hopi leader Georgie Pongyesva disputed the US Government’s assertion that these lands are abandoned ruins. “These places are not abandoned, nor are they ruined,” he said. “These are living landscapes for which Tribes are the original stewards, and we are the living descendants of the ancestors that left their footprints and writings on these landscapes.”
Davina Smith-Idjesa, the coalition’s Navajo representative, pointed out that “Grand Staircase-Escalante is far more than a landscape. It is an ancestral homeland that holds our sacred places, plant medicines, waters, wildlife, and living history. Once again, Tribal voices are being pushed aside, yet we will continue to stand together in unity and fulfill our responsibility to protect these lands for the generations yet to come.”
Read the rest here: Trump Moves to Shrink Grand Staircase-Escalante, Bears Ears