Bears Ears National Monument, sacred to native tribes, faces a challenge to its status
Lauren Markoe
WASHINGTON (RNS) At the end of his second term, then-President Obama gratified a coalition of Western Native Americans by creating Bears Ears National Monument in southeastern Utah, 1.35 million acres of high desert punctuated by dramatic rock formations.
Now a tribal coalition, which considers many sites within Bears Ears sacred, fears the Trump administration will take the unprecedented step of stripping a national monument of its designation, and leave their ancestral lands vulnerable.
“Our religion is very much tied to the land,” said Carleton Bowekaty, a Zuni tribe councilman and co-chair of Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. The group’s lobbying made the monument the first ever to be created at the behest of sovereign tribes.
http://religionnews.com/2017/03/10/bears-ears-national-monument-sacred-to-native-tribes-faces-a-challenge-to-its-status/
