Monument’s new protection plan met with fury
Nearly two years after dramatically shrinking the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, the Trump administration finalized a management plan Friday that would allow trees to be plowed down using heavy chains, utility lines and more ranching in the smaller area that is still preserved.
The new plan for the nearly 202,000-acre expanse of public land, which removes five Native American tribes from the management board of a monument they fought to designate, drew immediate protest from conservation and tribal groups.
But officials from the Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service, who jointly manage the monument, said in a statement that it balanced the region's economic interests against the need to safeguard it.
The administration spent months soliciting input on its plans to expand energy extraction and other activities on two areas in southern Utah that were restricted under previous presidents. In addition to Bears Ears, which was established by President Barack Obama, President Donald Trump cut the neighboring Grand Staircase-escalante National Monument — established by President Bill Clinton in 1996 — nearly in half.
Bureau officials emphasized that the new plan released Friday imposed some new restrictions on areas inside the existing monument, including prohibiting target shooting at sites such as campgrounds, developed recreation sites, petroglyphs and cliff dwellings. But legal hunting will be allowed throughout the area, as will fishing.
One of the most controversial aspects of the new plan — "chaining" — angered conservationists. It involves a process where two vehicles drag a thick anchor chain across forest, leveling trees and shrubs. Officials say the practice can prevent wildfires, whereas environmentalists say it opens terrain up for cattle grazing, which could appease ranchers in Utah who opposed the Bears Ears designation.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans wrote in opposition to the proposed management plan, though administration officials such as former Interior secretary Ryan Zinke repeatedly dismissed some of those comments on the grounds that they were organized by environmental groups.