Biden restores Bears Ears, other monuments reduced by Trump
WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden on Friday restored two sprawling national monuments in Utah, reversing a decision by President Donald Trump that opened for mining and other development hundreds of thousands of acres of rugged lands sacred to Native Americans and home to ancient cliff dwellings and petroglyphs.
The Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments in southern Utah encompass more than 3.2 million acres — an area nearly the size of Connecticut — and were created by Democratic administrations under a century-old law that allows presidents to protect sites considered historic, geographically or culturally important.
“This may be the easiest thing I’ve ever done so far as president — I mean it,” Biden said at a White House ceremony attended by Democratic lawmakers, tribal leaders and environmentalists.
Restoring the monuments’ boundaries and protections restores their integrity, upholds efforts to honor the federal trust responsibility to tribal nations and conserves the lands and waters for future generations, Biden said.
Bears Ears in particular was an important site to protect, Biden said, noting that the 1.3-million acre site is the first national monument to be established at the request of federally recognized tribes. It is “a place of healing ... a place of reverence and a sacred homeland to hundreds of generations of native peoples,” Biden said.
Biden called Grand Staircase Escalante “a place of unique and extraordinary geology” and noted that the 1.9-million acre site had been protected by presidential order for 21 years before Trump’s 2017 order slashed the monument nearly in half. Trump cut Bears Ears by 85%, to just over 200,000 acres.
In a separate action, Biden also restored protections at a marine conservation area off the New England coast that has been used for commercial fishing under an order by Trump. A rules change approved by Trump allowed commercial fishing at the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument, a nearly 5,000-square-mile area southeast of Cape Cod. Trump’s action was heralded by fishing groups but derided by environmentalists.
“There’s nothing like it in the world, because it’s unique biodiversity,” Biden said of the marine monument. “Waters teeming with life with underwater canyons as deep as parts of the Grand Canyon. Underwater mountains as tall as the Appalachians. Marine scientists believe that this is a key to understanding life under the sea.”