“It would be easy to let this place go unprotected, if you didn鈥檛 know what this place was made of,” narrates Ace Kvale, in this short film about Bears Ears. Like Donald Trump, who just massively shrunk the monument, I鈥檝e never actually been to Bears Ears. This film helped me appreciate why so many people feel so passionately聽about it.
The guy who put this together is , the creative director聽of , a聽4×4 magazine. The film emphasizes the many different聽kinds of聽outdoor recreationist who want to protect this place.聽After all, our nation鈥檚 natural heritage isn鈥檛 just valuable to people who live in these wild places, or to crunchy environmentalist types鈥攖hese lands聽matter to all of us.
Sinuhe聽originally made this film in 2014, before the monument got its official designation. Now, with Bears Ears capturing so many headlines, I figured it was worth looking back at why the rollback of national-monument聽protection is so worrisome.
鈥淲hat is this place worth in oil?鈥 Asks Craig Childs in the film. 鈥淲here do we want to steer our civilization? What do we want left when we鈥檙e done?鈥