Bears Ears monument debate is splitting Utah Navajos

A schism is opening among Utah Navajos over whether to protect sacred lands surrounding the Bears Ears Buttes with a new national monument. The multi-tribe American Indian group, urging protection for a 1.9 million-acre region south of Canyonlands National Park, says San Juan County has excluded tribal perspectives in crafting a proposal that could shape public-lands policy for generations to come. Meantime, some local Navajos have split from the group, worried a federal designation would impede tribes' access to the scenic highlands west of Blanding. "True Utah grass-roots Navajo strongly oppose national monument designation," said Rebecca Benally, a first-term San Juan County commissioner and Navajo. Earlier this week, the County Commission signed off on a plan for inclusion in the Utah Public Lands Initiative, spearheaded by Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, adopting a resolution opposing any "unilateral" designation of a national monument there by President Barack Obama. The move upset the Bears Ears Inter-tribal Coalition, which argues the plan fails to adequately protect numerous sacred lands — Cottonwood Wash, Arch Canyon, Beef Basin and Recapture Wash — while including many special areas in zones earmarked for energy development. Utah Dine Bikeyah is the group that initiated the Bears Ears conservation proposal...But Marie Holiday, a Navajo member who served on the county's public lands advisory council, accused Dine Bikeyah of "closing the door to your own people." "They wanted all that to be wilderness. I didn't think that was right," Holiday, who lives in Monument Valley, told the commission Tuesday. "It's not going to help our people," she said. "I know they want to preserve, but we are here. We need to use that Cedar Mesa. We still get our wood from there. My grandmother went to get some herbal stuff, and I know where it is, and pinyon, too. "If there's a national monument, we are not going to have access to it."...more