Native News
As Mining Threat Looms, Majority of Utah Voters Want Protections Restored for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante
As mining claims on the former lands of two National Monuments in Utah open on Friday, Sept. 11, a new poll shows voters overwhelmingly support restoring protections.
On July 13, President Trump issued a proclamation reducing the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante Monuments by 90%, opening the lands cut from monument protections to mining and other commercial interests. The reduction also terminated a coalition of tribal leaders that for four years guided the management of the lands. The move sparked outcry from tribes, advocates, and the public.
New polling by New Bridge Strategy, commissioned by the Grand Canyon Trust, found that 66% of Utah voters say greater protections should be restored to all of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. As well, 82% of Utah voters say it is important for Native American Tribes to have a strong role in managing public lands containing sacred or culturally significant sites.
The lands are sacred to tribes in the region, including the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Ute Indian Tribe, and Pueblo of Zuni.
The lands contain thousands of archaeological and cultural sites, including cliff dwellings, rock art, ceremonial locations, and ancestral villages. Tribal citizens also continue to hunt, gather medicinal plants, and conduct traditional cultural practices throughout the landscape.
The monuments spanned more than 3 million acres. Trump’s proclamation brought the protected lands down to 303,000 acres combined.
Davina Smith-Idjesa (Diné), co-chair of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, spoke at a Wednesday press conference announcing the polling results.
“Bear Ears and Grand Staircase are not merely boundaries drawn on the map,” Smith-Idjesa said. “They are our sacred places, our churches, our medicine cabinets, our grocery stores, and living landscapes where ceremonies, histories, teachings, and relationships with land continue today.”
Smith-Idjesa pointed to the results favoring Native people taking a lead in stewarding public lands.
“I think these findings demonstrate broad public recognition that tribal nations must remain meaningfully involved in stewardship and co-management of their ancestral lands,” she said. “Whether every elected official agrees with the results or not, these findings are profoundly telling, and should not be ignored. They reflect broad support within Utah for protecting these national audiences and ensuring that tribal nations have a meaningful and lasting role in their future.”
Also speaking at the press conference was Autumn Gillard, descendant of the Cedar Band of Paiutes and coordinator of the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition. Gillard emphasized preserving Native cultures through land stewardship.
“Protecting historic homesteads, trails, structures, inscriptions, and community places allows descendants to maintain meaningful connections to the lives, hardships, and achievements of their ancestors,” Gillard said. “These histories deserve protection alongside Indigenous cultural places, while recognizing that tribal relationships with this landscape extend back 1,000s of years and remain alive through our language, our oral traditions, our plant knowledge, our ceremonies, and our continued stewardship.
Responsible management must preserve the full cultural record of the monument and meaningfully include the communities whose identities and histories are connected to it.”
Mining Threat
One day after President Trump’s July proclamation shrinking the monuments, mining companies began filing claims on the newly unprotected land; however, all claims filed before this Friday are invalid. 81% of voters oppose selling public lands to private interests.
As the U.S. stands on the threshold of another uranium boom, the threats spurred by the loss of the monument protections extend beyond cultural and spiritual concerns to the very health and existence of Native peoples in the region.
Thousands of Native Americans are still living with the health and environmental consequences of America’s first foray into uranium mining, which spanned from the 1940s to the 1970s. Mining was largely conducted on Native lands and left thousands vulnerable to the adverse effects of uranium exposure, including kidney disease, cancers, and respiratory disease. Traces of uranium can still be found in many Native communities where mining took place, including in water supplies.
Smith-Idjesa grew up in Monument Valley, where she herded sheep with her grandparents and drank water from a well supplied by what she later learned was contaminated runoff. She spoke of growing up with constant headaches, seeing mutated sheep, and watching her peers die of various cancers believed to be caused by uranium exposure.
“Our community had no idea,” she said.
Gillard pointed to the risk posed by limited healthcare access in Native communities and formerly protected public lands being exposed to mining interests.
“You’re going to start to see people get sick,” she said. “You’re going to start to see the environment get sick. tribal rural communities on reservation areas are far away from health services, and when they experience severe health issues like those that come from uranium booms, you start to see a severe population depletion.”
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