More than 20,000 people submitted responses during a call for public comments relating to the future Utah’s national monument
Author: Austin Fisher
Five Native American tribes are joining the federal government in looking over tens of thousands of public comments on the future of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.
The three-month public comment period ended on June 11, and more than 20,000 people submitted responses, according to the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition.
The public comments “overwhelmingly supported the use of traditional Indigenous knowledge in the management of the monument,” the coalition said in a news release on Wednesday.
The tribally informed co-management plan for the national monument is the first of its kind in U.S. history.
The plan is a collaborative approach between the federal government and tribes on how to steward Bears Ears, which can include tribal ancestral history and ideas for protections through land conservation and traditional education.
People from the Zuni Pueblo, Navajo Nation, Hopi Tribe, Ute Mountain Tribe, and Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray each have their own cultural and spiritual connections to the land, and say it is a sacred site. The five tribes signed the land management deal in June 2021.
With public comment over, the five tribes acting through the Bears Ears Commission, along with the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, will review the comments and figure out how to incorporate them into the final management plan.
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