Trump Guts Protections for Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante

The president’s directive slashes the footprint of Bears Ears to roughly 121,100 acres from its previous 1.4 million, while Grand Staircase-Escalante drops to 181,541 acres from 1.87 million. Trump justified the move by claiming the areas were previously inaccessible to the public, asserting that visitors could not hunt or fish on the land. These claims were immediately challenged by conservationists and legal experts as factually groundless.

Opposition to the move is mounting rapidly. Rep. Jared Huffman, the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee, characterized the decision as a handover to corporate interests seeking short-term profits. Meanwhile, legal advocacy groups including Earthjustice are preparing to challenge the legitimacy of the proclamations in federal court. Critics argue the Antiquities Act of 1906 grants presidents the power to designate monuments, but provides no clear authority to dismantle them.

Tribal leaders expressed particular fury, noting they were excluded from the decision-making process. Autumn Gillard, coordinator for the Grand Staircase-Escalante Inter-Tribal Coalition, described the rollback as a profound disrespect toward intergenerational knowledge and a violation of the federal government’s duty to consult with indigenous communities. As the administration pushes to open these landscapes for resource exploitation, the legal battle over the future of these monuments is expected to mirror the protracted disputes that followed Trump’s 2017 attempt to shrink the same sites.