In 2018, former President Barack Obama sat down with David Letterman on the pilot of the comedian鈥檚 Netflix series听My Next Guest Needs No Introduction. It was Obama鈥檚 first talk show interview since leaving office, and the most revealing insight into what Obama鈥檚 long post-presidency might look like鈥揾e was only 55 years old at the end of his second term鈥揷ame when he remarked that his wife, Michelle, recognized the true power of the nation’s highest office before he did. Obama told Letterman, 鈥淧art of your ability to lead the country doesn鈥檛 have to do with legislation, doesn鈥檛 have to do with regulations鈥攊t has to do with shaping attitudes, shaping culture, increasing awareness.鈥�

A few months later, Netflix announced it had signed a multiyear deal with the Obamas to create original content for the streaming service. Under the imprint Higher Ground Productions鈥攕eemingly a nod to Michelle Obama鈥檚 famous catchphrase 鈥淲hen they go low, we go high鈥濃�攖he former first couple has produced three children鈥檚 shows, the Oscar-winning documentary American Factory, the Peabody Award鈥搘inning film Crip Camp, and听the听Emmy-nominated documentary Becoming,听based on the former first lady鈥檚 memoir.

Barack Obama鈥檚 latest Netflix venture is the five-part nature series ,听which came out earlier this month. It鈥檚 his first Netflix gig in front of the camera, stepping into a David Attenborough鈥揺sque role as narrator, highlighting protected lands around the world, from the snowcapped mountains of Chilean Patagonia to the species-rich waters of Monterey Bay in California. As an addition to the nature-doc genre, Our Great National Parks is fairly formulaic, but听viewed听as a piece of presidential branding that tells a certain story about environmental issues, it鈥檚 much more illuminating.

The Obamas aren鈥檛 the only former White House occupants to pivot to content creation. Hillary Clinton launched the podcast You and Me Both in 2020, the same year she and her daughter, Chelsea, founded HiddenLight Productions. Bill Clinton started his own podcast, Why Am I Telling You This?, early last year, and Mike Pence began hosting his podcast American Freedom a few months later. Most recently, Donald Trump rolled out the Twitter look-alike app Truth Social. With varying degrees of success, the projects that former politicians take on as private citizens are attempts to shape their legacies and speak to the causes they care about, says Joshua Scacco, a communications professor at the University of South Florida. 鈥淧olitical leaders have realized they actually do harness a lot of power in the attention economy. They鈥檙e late to the game in some ways, but they鈥檙e catching up very quickly.鈥�

While Obama never mentions his time as president in Our Great National Parks, the series nevertheless leans into his story and legacy. Three episodes focus on national parks in places that Obama has a personal connection to: Hawaii, where he was born; Indonesia, where he spent some of his childhood; and Kenya, where his father lived. Promotional copy for Our Great National Parks emphasizes,听鈥淭his isn鈥檛 out of left field: Obama protected more public lands and waters than any U.S. president.鈥� The series, the news release says, is 鈥渁s much a celebration of nature as it is a call to action.鈥� In the opening shot of the first episode, Obama walks barefoot on the beach at Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve, in Hawaii, dressed casually in chinos and a linen shirt with rolled-up sleeves. 鈥淢y love of the natural world began here,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 want to make sure that the world鈥檚 wild spaces are there for my kids and my grandkids.鈥�

In the听story Obama鈥檚 trying to tell, we are all equally culpable in, and equipped to solve, the world鈥檚 environmental crises. Between听stunning scenes of lemurs jumping over limestone peaks and monarch butterflies taking flight, he stresses the importance of nature preserves and warns of the effects of climate change. But besides offering praise for some local efforts鈥攍andowners around Kenya鈥檚 Tsavo National Park expanding a conservation area, and community members removing plantations in Indonesia鈥檚 Gunung Leuser National Park, for example鈥擮bama provides no specific solutions to our climate crisis, nor indictments of the corporations and governments most responsible. Even his new initiative accompanying the documentary, , recommends anodyne actions like signing a nature petition or visiting a wildlife center. Increasing pollution and extreme weather, Obama says, are 鈥渢he result of the choices we all make in our daily lives.鈥� Never mind that or that .

He also avoids wading into the complicated history of U.S. national parks, and instead uncritically celebrates them, like generations of American statesmen have, as our best idea. 鈥淚n 1872, Yellowstone, in the western United States, became the first national park in the world,鈥� Obama says as the camera pans over its spectacular hot springs and mountain ranges. 鈥淥ne of America鈥檚 greatest ideas, established for the benefit and enjoyment of the people.鈥� What he chooses not to mention is that to create Yellowstone, the U.S. violently forced out , as well as听 who called the area home before white settlers arrived.

鈥淢any of these landscapes were very carefully and sustainably managed for centuries, if not millennia,鈥� Ryan Emanuel, an environmental-science professor at Duke University and enrolled member of the Lumbee Tribe, says. 鈥淭he U.S. put up rules and regulations that prevented people from carrying out their ancestral practices on these lands, and to not acknowledge that is a major oversight.鈥�

鈥淚t鈥檚 not really a historical series,鈥� said executive producer James Honeyborne, who also produced the BBC Natural History Unit鈥檚 Blue Planet II and Patagonia: Earth鈥檚 Secret Paradise, when asked why Our Great National Parks didn鈥檛 include these accounts.鈥淚t鈥檚 really a more forward-facing series, looking at the importance of wilderness to us now and to the relationship humans have with it going forward.鈥�

The series鈥� most politically charged moments arrive at the end, when Obama urges us to 鈥渄emand鈥� to protect public lands, to 鈥渃ampaign鈥� for more, to 鈥減ush鈥� for better in our own communities. But he doesn鈥檛 name-check anyone in power for us to demand anything from. His most concrete proposal? 鈥淰ote like the planet depends on it.鈥� To be sure, there鈥檚 no disputing that a meaningful fight against climate change requires all of us. But the message rings hollow coming from the former occupant of the most powerful office in the world鈥攅ven if that former officeholder did enact progressive climate policy.听If听Obama has a political message in听Our Great National Parks, it鈥檚 to affirm American mythology about personal responsibility, the altruism of conservation, and our so-called 鈥渂est idea.鈥�

In the middle of the series鈥� first episode, Obama narrates footage of a three-fingered sloth basking in the sun, as an acoustic guitar gently strums in the background. He tells viewers about fungus in the sloth鈥檚 fur that has the potential to fight cancer, malaria, and antibiotic-resistant superbugs. 鈥淚f we can protect him and his rainforest, this sleepy sloth might just save us all,鈥� Obama says. It鈥檚 a line brimming with hope, and in that sense, it鈥檚 very on-brand.

The post What鈥檚 Up with President Obama Narrating a Netflix Nature Series? appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

When that Tom Collier, the CEO of Alaska鈥檚 long-stalled and highly controversial Pebble Mine project, was resigning after being ensnared in an environmental sting, it was just the latest shocking twist in the proposed mine鈥檚 yearslong saga of turnabouts and changes of fortune.听

The massive copper, gold, and molybdenum deposit is situated near the headwaters of two river systems that help sustain southwest Alaska鈥檚 pristine Bristol Bay region and its legendary salmon run. Discovered over 30 years ago, its development has long been opposed by听Native groups and fishermen, who believe an open-pit mine poses too great a threat to the ecosystem, not to mention the lives, culture, and $1.5 billion fishing economy that all depend on it.听

Since Canadian mining company Northern Dynasty Minerals acquired the rights to Pebble nearly two decades ago, residents and fishermen have lived in an uncomfortable purgatory, as the proposed mine鈥檚 prospects have waxed and waned and financial backers, governors, and presidents have come and gone. But even by this saga鈥檚 standards, the past few months have been remarkable, with twists and turns that include a cameo from Donald Trump听Jr.听and the release of secretly recorded video calls between mining-company executives and investigators posing as investors. Now, with Joe Biden should he win, the fate of this pristine slice of Alaska may hinge, like so much else, on the presidential election. Here鈥檚 everything you need to know to catch up on what鈥檚 happened.

A New CEO, a听New Administration, a听New Life

In 2010, six Bristol Bay tribes petitioned the EPA to intervene听and听block the mine鈥檚 development, and听after years of study and legal battles, the agency deemed the mine听too great of a risk to the area鈥檚 salmon. By the middle of Barack Obama鈥檚 second presidential term, in 2014, the EPA听was poised to use its authority under the Clean Water Act to veto the project.

That鈥檚 when Washington, D.C., lawyer Tom Collier was hired as CEO of the Pebble Limited Partnership, the subsidiary responsible for developing the deposit for Northern Dynasty, which owns the mineral rights to the state-owned land. (The 鈥減artnership鈥� part is a bit aspirational at this point: Northern Dynasty is the sole owner, after various mining-company partners .) Collier, a career Beltway insider, was tasked with trying to bring the project back from the brink by making the EPA problem go away. He orchestrated an extensive legal and lobbying strategy that succeeded in stalling the agency鈥檚听final decision in court just long enough to outlast the Obama administration. When Donald Trump was elected in 2016, Collier knew the听favorable combination of a pro-extraction president and a muzzled EPA might not last, so he had one goal: to file a mine plan capable of attaining its first major permit by the end of Trump鈥檚 first term. To underscore that objective, that if he achieved the permit within four years of applying for it, he鈥檇 be due an 鈥渆xtraordinary bonus鈥� of $12.5 million on top of his nearly $2 million annual compensation.

鈥淚f it hadn鈥檛 been for the election of Trump, I firmly believe this project would have been dead in 2017,鈥� says Joel Reynolds, western director and senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), who has spent years directing the nonprofit鈥檚 fight against Pebble. 鈥淏ut Trump breathed new life into it.鈥�

In December 2017, with the EPA action withdrawn, Pebble filed an application with the Army Corps of Engineers for its first federal permit, which would grant it听permission to excavate and fill in wetlands. The application proposed a smaller, shorter-duration mine, operating at a shallower depth and extracting a tiny fraction of the deposit鈥檚 known reserves. The plan was designed, ostensibly, as a responsible alternative to the more ambitious proposals Pebble had floated in investor materials over the years. The corps then laid out what many observers saw as an timeline for completing an environmental review for a project of this size and complexity, one that would enable it to wrap up before the end of Trump鈥檚 term. (By comparison, the review process for another controversial Alaskan mine project, , took nearly six years.)听

From Pebble鈥檚 perspective, it was听finally getting a fair shake, unimpeded by what it听had seen as politically driven interference by the EPA, and the timeline seemed reasonable, a function of efficiency rather than urgency. 鈥淭he corps has been able to do their work efficiently, largely because of all the work we put in ahead of time,鈥� says Mike Heatwole, Pebble鈥檚 head of public affairs. 鈥淲e have the information, and we鈥檙e able to work expeditiously on our end of it, so we鈥檙e not slowing things down, either.鈥�

But to critics, the smaller plan seemed like a bait and switch, aimed at establishing a beachhead for a future larger mine, or even a district of many neighboring mines. The $8.6 million since 2017 seemed further evidence of a politically driven process that felt rushed and wasn鈥檛 inclusive. Native voices, in particular, have felt marginalized throughout.

鈥淔rom the get-go, our voices have been silenced and ignored,鈥� says Alannah Hurley, the executive director of听,听a consortium that represents 15 tribes in the region. 鈥淏ut I don鈥檛 think anyone anticipated the level to which we would be railroaded in this process.鈥� Concerns brought up by Native groups during and after the review process were disregarded听she says, and there are of corps officials and contractors at one village meeting arguing with elders about disputed locations of culturally important sites and subsistence hunting and fishing grounds. 鈥淭hey were literally yelling at tribal leaders,鈥� says Hurley. (A corps spokesman, when asked about the听allegation, declined to comment.)

That brings us to mid-July 2020, when much of the region was preoccupied with a tense, pandemic-tinged, but ultimately successful fishing season鈥�53.5 million salmon returned, and there were no big COVID outbreaks. On July 15, that the Army Corps of Engineers had finished its final draft of the Environmental Impact Statement, the project review that would form the basis for the corps鈥檚听decision to approve or deny Pebble鈥檚 permit. When the was published on July 24, it was a big day for Pebble, the culmination of its post-2017 effort, and it saw vindication. 鈥淔rom the beginning, we dedicated the time, resources, and technical work to ensure we had a project that could be done responsibly,鈥� Collier said in a . 鈥淭he final EIS for Pebble unequivocally shows it can be developed without harming salmon populations.鈥�

A Surprising Turn

Northern Dynasty鈥檚 announcement of the positive EIS sent its stock price climbing for a week, but by the time the EIS was actually published, the price had already peaked and started falling. In fact, there about the company鈥檚 economic fundamentals鈥攁 series of blue-chip mining companies have walked away from their partnerships with Northern Dynasty over the years. Northern Dynasty is a junior mining company, and an undercapitalized one at that, more suited to mineral exploration than full-scale mine development. Without the backing of a major, deep-pocketed company, there鈥檚 no way it could fund a mine-construction process that would cost . 鈥淚ts entire business plan is to get a permit from the corps and use that permit to get an investor,鈥� says the NRDC鈥檚 Reynolds. 鈥淏ut the legitimate part of the industry is not interested.鈥澨�

Meanwhile, the science used to justify the mine, including in the final EIS, is hardly solid. 鈥淭he document is a joke,鈥� says Daniel Schindler, a professor at the University of Washington鈥檚 School of Aquatic and Fishery听Sciences, who has spent 24 summers studying Bristol Bay with the university鈥檚 . 鈥淚t鈥檚 a three-ring circus, where science is basically a shroud behind which they鈥檙e playing politics.鈥� He says the EIS is built on unsupported assumptions and, crucially, understates potential impacts and ignores the fact that refuse from the mine would have the potential to pollute the landscape, not just during the life span of the mine听but forever after.听

These criticisms were largely ignored until the first week of August, when Pebble hit more turbulence, this time from an unexpected source: well-connected Republicans. First came an 听from Nick Ayers, a former Mike Pence chief of staff and an avid fisherman, who said that he, 鈥渓ike millions of conservationists and sportsmen,鈥� hoped the president would direct the EPA to block the mine. An hour later, this was by Donald Trump听Jr., who wrote, 鈥淎s a sportsman who has spent plenty of time in the area I agree 100%. The headwaters of Bristol Bay and the surrounding fishery are too unique and fragile to take any chances with.鈥� It鈥檚 widely known that Trump听Jr. is an avid fisherman, and lodge owners in Bristol Bay who have hosted him have periodically whispered that he might be a useful ally. But nobody expected him to publicly open a rift with his father鈥檚 administration. A slew of celebrity tweets and news coverage followed, many echoing what Jimmy Kimmel said when he became one of the 2,300 or so people to 听Trump听Jr.鈥檚 opinion: 鈥淚 never thought I鈥檇 say this, but @DonaldTrumpJr is right.鈥� When asked by reporters about the tweet, the president said his son 鈥渉as some very strong opinions and he is very much of an environmentalist鈥� and that he would 鈥渓ook at both sides of it,鈥� which was itself a monumental shift.

The hits kept coming. On August 8, Joe Biden came out against Pebble. 鈥淚t鈥檚 no place for a mine,鈥� he said in a . 鈥淭he Obama-Biden administration reached that conclusion when we ran a rigorous, science-based process in 2014, and it is still true today.鈥� More surprisingly, on August 14, Tucker Carlson aired an听 on his Fox News show, featuring Johnny Morris, CEO of Bass Pro Shops, who also spoke out against it. As Carlson noted on air, Pebble is the rare environmental issue that doesn鈥檛 split cleanly along partisan lines. 鈥淪uddenly you are seeing a number of Republicans,鈥� he said, 鈥渋ncluding some prominent ones, including some very conservative ones, saying, 鈥楬old on, maybe Pebble Mine is not a good idea, maybe you should do whatever you can not to despoil nature, and maybe not all environmentalism is about climate.鈥欌�澨�

Would anything come of this? For a moment, it seemed like it. On August 22, Politico posted a story from a D.C.-based reporter headlined 鈥�,鈥� which claimed that early the following week, the administration would move to block the mine, according to six anonymous sources. What emerged two days later in a letter from the corps basically amounted to a request for a more rigorous plan for offsetting the mine鈥檚 impact on the thousands of acres of surrounding wetlands. It wasn鈥檛 nothing: it noted that the mine would cause 鈥渦navoidable adverse impacts鈥� and 鈥渟ignificant degradation,鈥� which was harsher than anything the corps had said before, and it set what observers called a for mitigation. But the company wasn鈥檛 surprised by the letter鈥檚 contents and was already working on a mitigation plan.

To hedge against further confusion, Pebble had been听 on Fox News targeted at an audience of one. 鈥淧resident Trump, continue to stand tall, and don鈥檛 let politics enter the Pebble Mine review process,鈥� said a spot that ran the night of September 16. It seems to have found its mark. At 10:20 P.M., Trump , 鈥淒on鈥檛 worry, wonderful and beautiful Alaska, there will be NO POLITICS in the Pebble Mine Review Process.鈥�

The Sting

On September 21, outlining a set of secret video recordings, known as the , which had been recorded over the previous two months by the , a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. Posing as overseas investors, EIA operatives captured video calls showing an overconfident Collier and Ron Thiessen, Northern Dynasty鈥檚 equally bullish CEO, saying all the quiet parts out loud: that the actual plan was to eventually mine the entire ore body听rather than the smaller portion proposed, and to do so over the course of perhaps 200 years rather than 20. In their telling, the smaller mine was merely a temporary step to improve their chances of getting a permit.听

Most embarrassing, they made boastful claims about their closeness with and influence over all sorts of politicians and government officials. One person who came up was David Hobbie, director of regulatory affairs for the Alaska District and someone with strong influence over the final EIS. Collier called him 鈥渢he decision maker鈥� and said they met weekly and had become something close to friends. The corps issued a to the EIA鈥檚 recordings, citing 鈥渋naccuracies and falsehoods relating to the permit process and the relationship between our regulatory leadership and the applicant鈥檚 executives.鈥�

The tapes were damning. 鈥淚鈥檝e been at this 40 years, and I鈥檝e never seen this happen to the blatant extent that the tapes reveal,鈥� says the NRDC鈥檚 Reynolds. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a testament to the flaws in our permitting system that it takes a videotape to force people to come to terms with that basic fraud.鈥�

The fallout was swift, and the fall guy was Collier. 鈥淐ollier鈥檚 comments embellished both his and the Pebble Partnership鈥檚 relationships with elected officials and federal representatives in Alaska,鈥� said a announcing Collier鈥檚 resignation. 鈥淭he comments were clearly offensive to these and other political, business, and community leaders in the state, and for this, Northern Dynasty unreservedly apologizes to all Alaskans.鈥澨�

It was a blow to the company, but Thiessen remains in his position. He鈥檚 quoted in the same release saying that he plans to keep advancing the application and expects a decision on the permit this fall.听

For those dedicated to fighting the mine, what the tapes revealed seemed less 鈥渆mbellished鈥� than unvarnished, the true Pebble finally come to light. 鈥淐ollier is one symptom of the much greater problem of this company terrorizing Bristol Bay for almost 20 years now,鈥� says Hurley of the United Tribes of Bristol Bay. 鈥淕etting rid of him does absolutely nothing to rectify the entrenched issues.鈥� To her, the flawed permitting process and alleged political influence taint the process beyond repair. 鈥淎t this point, a permit denial is clearly needed,鈥� she says. 鈥淣obody has faith that鈥檚 going to happen鈥攖he corps hasn鈥檛 changed course or addressed this as a real issue.鈥�

What Comes Next听

Indeed, despite all the drama, the corps has tried to forge ahead, saying little. 鈥淭he District is currently in the deliberative process of making a permit decision,鈥� a spokesman emailed in response to my questions. 鈥淲hile doing so, it is inappropriate for us to comment on opinions, to speculate on potential outcomes of our deliberations in response to media inquiries.鈥�

And though Pebble always seems to be running out of time or money (or both), the company plans to file the mitigation plan that the corps requested before the mid-November deadline, and the corps stands ready to receive it. The final EIS that so many stakeholders see as flawed is still the governing document, and Pebble, for its part, is sticking to its plan. 鈥淭hroughout the course of this project, we鈥檝e hit a lot of potholes or road bumps, and we find a way to keep pressing forward,鈥� says Pebble spokesman Heatwole. 鈥淲e want to get a positive decision from the corps, secure a partner, and get into state permitting. Those are our milestones.鈥�

With any decision almost certain to lead to litigation, there won鈥檛 be any immediate moves, even if the corps does issue a decision this fall. But as the impact of the tapes has rippled outward, the controversy has managed to do something that Alaskans had not been able to: get their two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, on the record after years of noncommittal fence-sitting. What that means remains to be seen, but they could help call for congressional investigations. They could also push through the appropriations bill to which the House attached an amendment that would cut off funding for the corps鈥檚 work on Pebble, effectively freezing the permit application. That bill could be taken up by the Senate as soon as December. And if the corps issues a positive final decision on the permit during a potential lame-duck period, the senators could support the EPA in taking steps to block Pebble. (It鈥檚 also worth noting that the Pebble Tapes have become a major issue in Sullivan鈥檚 surprisingly against challenger Al Gross, a Democrat-leaning Independent.)

The lesson of Pebble may be that short-term political solutions are too tenuous to be relied on. 鈥淚t鈥檚 clear we鈥檙e not dealing with agencies acting in the best interests of the American people, or in the way these systems are supposed to be working,鈥� says Hurley. And that may be the biggest takeaway of all: that only in a broken system would regulatory decisions of this magnitude be influenced by a tweet from the president鈥檚 son or a well-placed ad on Fox News, or that they听would require secret videos from eco-spies to get senators to finally take a public stance.

Pebble鈥檚 opponents are hoping that if November 3 goes well for the Democrats,听the EPA will finally听be empowered to find a way to permanently block the mine, whatever decision the corps makes on the permit. 鈥淭his project needs to die definitively,鈥� says Reynolds of the NRDC. His hope is that the EPA will resume its Clean Water Act review in a Biden presidency, but even an EPA veto of the project could, theoretically, be overturned in the future. So for protection that puts Bristol Bay beyond the reach of the shifting political winds, they鈥檒l need to keep working toward a long-term preservation plan for the area. 鈥淚鈥檓 hoping we can put this to bed,鈥� Reynolds says, 鈥渁nd create a political landscape in Alaska that allows Alaskans to decide how to permanently protect the national treasure that is Bristol Bay.鈥�

UPDATE (Oct 29, 2020):听After this article went to press, the EIA revealing the extent to which Northern Dynasty CEO Ron Thiessen, who is still running the company, plays a hands-on role in every aspect of Pebble鈥檚 development, and made statements to EIA鈥檚 investigators that were every bit as outrageous as those made by former Pebble CEO Tom Collier. The new tapes include Thiessen discussing his influence over Alaska鈥檚 senators and pro-Pebble governor, and an assertion that he believes the state of Alaska would contribute roughly $1.5 billion of taxpayer money to assist in building infrastructure for the mine.

UPDATE (Nov听25, 2020): The Army Corps of Engineers decided today听 for the Pebble Mine saying 鈥渋t it does not comply with Clean Water Act guidelines鈥� and calling the project 鈥渃ontrary to the public interest.鈥� This latest twist in the saga will likely kill the proposed extraction project in the short term, but Pebble plans to appeal the decision, and the mine鈥檚 opponents are still hoping that the incoming Biden administration will consider more permanent protection for Bristol Bay.

The post What the Hell Is Going on with the Pebble Mine? appeared first on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online.

After World War II, Americans flush with cash and vacation time (then a new concept) started exploring national parks in droves. After 1945, the final year of the war, visitation skyrocketed. Yellowstone alone saw 189,000 people鈥攎ore than double the year before. In the early 1960s, by the time the first baby boomers were getting driver鈥檚 licenses, Old Faithful鈥檚 audience .

These crowds pushed the parks to their limits. The infrastructure at nearly every park, starved of funding during the war, struggled to handle the tourists. As Sara Dant, a historian at Weber State University, writes in her book , the National Park Service struggled to live up to its founding mission of conserving ecosystems while also opening them up for the enjoyment of all, a task that at times felt contradictory. 鈥淲ith 鈥榯ourism鈥� as its prime directive,鈥� she writes, 鈥渢he newly minted Park Service struggled to reconcile protecting the sublime and providing pit toilets.鈥� In 1953, conservationist and author that until Congress produced enough funding to manage them properly, parks should 鈥渂e temporarily closed and sealed, held in trust for a more enlightened future.鈥�

The parks never closed. And the enlightened future never arrived. Overcrowding remains common at the most popular national parks, and the Park Service faces a maintenance backlog of nearly $12 billion. In hearings before House and Senate committees earlier this month, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke defended his idea to by saying, 鈥淲hen you give discounted or free passes to elderly, fourth-graders, veterans, disabled, and you do it by the carload, there鈥檚 not a whole lot of people who actually pay at our front door. So, we鈥檙e looking at ways to make sure we have more revenue in the front door of our parks themselves.鈥� (The reason for these hearings, paradoxically, was to justify President Donald Trump's call for a cut in funding to the NPS.)

So, while Zinke bemoans parks being 鈥渓oved to death,鈥� we find ourselves asking a 50-year-old question: Will tourists kill national parks?

The answer鈥攁nd the solution to the problem鈥攎ight come from a little-known report published in 1967 by then Park Service Special Assistant Ronald E. Lee. At the time, Americans were around zipping the country after a decade-long highway, lodge, and visitor center construction binge known as . Lee saw this frenzied movement and studied how this explosion of tourism would alter America鈥檚 greatest landscapes. , he cited four trends that were profoundly shaping parks and continue to do so today: population growth, car travel, the growing popularity of outdoor recreation, and ecosystem preservation. All, Lee suspected, would cause park visitation to skyrocket. The Park Service, he cautioned, needed to prepare accordingly: 鈥淔or only a little while longer can the Service meet the pressures of increased travel by additional development without unacceptable impairment of park values.鈥�

In Lee鈥檚 estimation, that challenge would become increasingly difficult. His visitation predictions were a tad high鈥攈e thought 1.32 billion visitors would materialize by 2000, but the record high, set in 2016, was a billion shy of that. Those lofty expectations, however, allowed him to consider overcrowding in a long-term, pragmatic fashion.

To stem the 鈥渙bvious objections to unregulated tourism,鈥� Lee鈥檚 answer was better zoning. He wanted to designate certain areas of parks as car-free wilderness and plan others for various tiers of traffic. At the time, some were arguing for a hard stop on development to curtail traffic; fewer roads, lodges, and interpretive centers, they reasoned, would hold tourism at sustainable levels. But Lee wrote that this stance 鈥渨as like arguing the cock crowing causes the sun to rise.鈥� Tourists were inevitable, and Lee wanted to manage them through designated use areas, permits, and public transit.

He didn鈥檛 think fee hikes, like the ones recently passed by Zinke, would work. (And, indeed, most Republicans and Democrats dislike the idea.) Lee wrote that raising entrance fees 鈥渨ould be discriminatory, favoring affluent visitors in contrast to those less economically fortunate. Such a public policy would be intolerable in the United States.鈥�

Ultimately, though, the goals in 1967 and 2018 are different. Lee wanted to reduce crowds. Zinke wants to monetize them to pay for better infrastructure.

The biggest difference between then and now is money. When Lee penned his report, Congress had just finished spending more than $900 million on Mission 66鈥攖he equivalent of more than $7 billion today. Nowhere in his report does Lee mention the need for greater funding; in 1967, when the environmental movement was in full swing and legislators on both sides of the aisle fought for preservation, one could safely assume Congress would foot the bill for our treasured parks. Lee probably focused on planning because he didn鈥檛 need to mention money.

Today, there鈥檚 a very different picture. Even legislators who are critical of Zinke often fail to pony up more money. Aside from a few bumps in last week鈥檚 spending bill, the most sincere take on funding NPS is Zinke鈥檚 idea to tie park maintenance to energy extraction profits in a sort of Faustian bargain.

It鈥檚 Congress鈥� tight purse strings that have some believing the hordes of visitors need to pay up. 鈥淚t does not look like Congress is going to allocate additional dollars for managing our public lands,鈥� says Holly Fretwell, a fellow with the a free-market think tank. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 nothing new. It doesn鈥檛 matter what administration is in there鈥攇etting more dollars for public land management is not a high priority.鈥� Fretwell and her colleagues have advanced numerous ideas that would pay for parks independent of congressional funding, from national park franchises to higher fees, as Zinke has suggested.

Funding parks independent of Congress presents another ethical quandary, one Lee addressed in 1967. 鈥淭he offensive multiplication of hot dog stands, tourist traps of all kinds, fake museums, and other money-making enterprises near or in areas of serious importance become in some cases a public disgrace,鈥� he wrote. Lee felt national parks were no place for commercialization.

Yet Interior Department leaders have tried just that. Jonathan Jarvis, the park service director under Barack Obama, opened up the ability for corporations to on projects they sponsor in national parks, a policy that was quietly enacted in January 2017. Zinke has angered many with plans to fund national parks via visitor fees and oil and gas development. (Renewable energy would also contribute, but the vast majority of energy development on federal land is of a carbon-heavy nature.) But perhaps critics鈥� anger is misdirected. As DeVoto wrote in his 1953 贬补谤辫别谤鈥檚 article that suggested closing the parks, the true fix lies in the hands of voters: 鈥淏uild a fire under your Congressman.鈥�

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On December 15, 2016, four members of Utah鈥檚 congressional delegation sent a letter to President Barack Obama, who was about to designate Bears Ears National Monument. The legislators鈥攕enators Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee, and representatives Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz鈥攖old Obama that a monument designation, made under the Antiquities Act, could harm some of their most vulnerable constituents.

鈥淪uch a unilateral designation infringes on the rights and the way of life of the Federally Recognized Indian Tribes in the area,鈥� they wrote. 鈥淭his decision could abruptly and permanently close off a substantial area of land respected and used by generations of local Indian Tribes.鈥�

The letter was part of some 25,000 pages of documents by the New York Times that related to the Obama administration鈥檚 creation of Bears Ears, and President Donald Trump鈥檚 downsizing of it last year. The documents suggest that Utah and federal officials were motivated to change the monument boundaries principally to free up potential mineral reserves. Along the way, documents show how these leaders鈥攊ncluding that group of four in their December letter鈥攎isrepresented or ignored the Native American voices that sparked the monument鈥檚 creation.

鈥淚t鈥檚 in keeping with the incredibly paternalistic view that the Utah delegation has shown to date,鈥� says Ethel Branch, the Navajo Nation鈥檚 attorney general who is suing the Trump administration over downsizing the Bears Ears monument. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just a disregard for tribes as governments.鈥�

In 2011, Navajo activist group Utah Din茅 Bik茅yah called for the area to be protected in some fashion. Five years later, the Bears Ears Commission鈥攎ade up of representatives from the Hopi, Navajo, Ute Mountain Ute, Ute, and Zuni tribes鈥攆ormally requested a national monument designation from Obama. It was the first monument proposal driven by Native Americans, and Obama鈥檚 designation gave the commission an integral role in deciding how to manage the monument.

But the Times documents show that the commission, under the Trump administration, was given no such role. In a letter dated March 17, 2017, the Bears Ears Commission told Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and Michael Scuse, then the acting secretary of the Department of Agriculture, that the tribes it represents were ready to fulfill their end of the management agreement. Of Zinke and Trump鈥檚 reported interest in shrinking or doing away with Bears Ears, they wrote, 鈥淲e would consider it essential that we are able to have full discussions with you about those possibilities. Of course, from our standpoint, any such actions would be absolute tragedies.鈥�

Instead of establishing a communication channel with tribes, the emails show that as soon as Trump took office, the Department of the Interior and Utah officials began an exhaustive survey of the mineral potential in the area, while ignoring tribal calls for a seat at the table. (The Interior Department never responded to the commission鈥檚 March letter, and several people on the commission told 国产吃瓜黑料 there was almost zero communication from Zinke鈥檚 office.) A staffer for Senator Hatch even offered up a map in March 2017 with boundaries 鈥渢hat would resolve all known mineral conflicts.鈥� Even among monument allies, the tribes got short shrift. During Zinke鈥檚 May 2017 trip to Bears Ears, according to a schedule in the Times emails, he spent three hours apiece with Friends of Cedar Mesa and a group of outdoor industry executives, while the Bears Ears Commission received just an hour.

That meeting, according to a summary published in the Times documents and follow-ups 国产吃瓜黑料 made with people in the room, was uncomfortable. Charles Wilkinson, a University of Colorado law professor who was present, presented Zinke in the summary as 鈥渋ll-informed on the Antiquities Act and tribes鈥� and initially dismissive of claims the tribes had repeated ad nauseum. Wilkinson wrote that the tribal leaders present 鈥渆xplained that, yes, it really does make a difference to have a monument declared; no, there is nothing wrong with the collaborative management; yes, this really is sacred land to the tribes; and so forth.鈥�

Branch and Shaun Chapoose, the Ute tribe鈥檚 representative on the Bears Ears Commission, agreed that Zinke was unprepared for the meeting, but said that he seemed more open to tribal concerns as the conversation went on. Significantly, Zinke promised no recommendation would take place without further conversation. 鈥淭he assumption we had was that he would come back and talk to us after he visited, but we didn鈥檛 hear anything after that,鈥� Chapoose says. (The Interior Department did not respond to a request for comment.)

Instead, Zinke听went on the public record saying things听the Native representatives call untrue, like that the monument, or that the monument 鈥渢raditional uses.鈥�

The Bears Ears Commission deconstructed many of these arguments, point by point, in a scathing letter to Zinke that July:听contrary to Zinke鈥檚 public comments, the commission wrote, the tribes were not happy with his interim report on Bears Ears;听shrinking the monument would remove protection from one of the most archeologically and historically rich places in the West;听and they were content with the collaborative management scheme Obama laid out. (The inaccuracies persist: Senator Lee, in a Senate hearing last week, said the Bears Ears monument would have restricted the religious freedom of Native Americans nearby.)

Members of the commission also chafed at Zinke鈥檚 repeated insistence that a San Juan County commissioner, Rebecca Benally, have a seat on the management group. Benally is Navajo and opposed the monument, and she routinely appeared with Hatch and other Utah leaders in . To the Bears Ears Commission members, all of whom are elected leaders of tribal nations, the notion that a county commissioner should be elevated to their level was an insult. 鈥淪tate and local government representatives elected by San Juan County residents鈥o not represent the sovereign Navajo Nation government, or any other Indian Nation鈥檚 government,鈥� they wrote in the July letter.

鈥淚t鈥檚 something you think of more as a 19th-century phenomenon, the type of paternalism where 鈥榳e know best,鈥� and the idea that tribes are not really able to compete or understand the way things work,鈥� University of Utah history professor Greg Smoak says of the diplomatic strategy with tribes.

Yet despite the commission鈥檚 protests, in December 2017, President Trump, with Benally and Zinke by his side, cut Bears Ears into two monuments, reducing them to a combined 15 percent of the original size.

The Times documents bolster arguments that while Hatch, Lee, Zinke, and others may have claimed to care for Native interests, they did so only in a superficial manner, and their real concerns were the mineral deposits. Then again, you don鈥檛 need the Times emails to come to this conclusion鈥�: 鈥淭he Indians, they don鈥檛 fully understand that a lot of the things that they currently take for granted on those lands, they won鈥檛 be able to do if it鈥檚 made clearly into a monument or a wilderness.鈥�

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As of 9 a.m. on Friday, the protections for what was once Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national听monuments ceased to exist, and all the surrounding public lands opened to resource extraction.

Sixty days ago, President Trump signed an order in Salt Lake City to reduce the size of the two monuments鈥擝ears Ears by 85 percent and Grand Staircase by half. Today, they officially open to mining claims. There's in the media about how these claims work, because they're governed by the General Mining Law of 1872. That means anyone with motivation and four stakes can, technically, rush out and claim their own plot,听.听But there probably won't be听an 1800s-style land rush.

What鈥檚 more likely is the energy industries that lobbied the Trump administration and Utah Republicans to slice up the monuments in the first place will take out big leases. But conservationists who worry the area will fill up with oil platforms and diesel work trucks can rest easy, because not much will change, at least not in the short term.

The land around the two monuments is still public land. It just reverts to its prior under the BLM, the Forest Service, and the state. Large pieces in the area still have protection as Wilderness or Wilderness Study Area, which ban any development, cars, even bicycles. But within and around these protected areas are chunks of land now open to the energy industry.

Before Obama designated the land a monument in the last days of 2016, energy companies had put in 88 requests to the听BLM to lease more than 100,000 acres in or near what later became Bears Ears. But oil companies looking to drill there will now suffer the same problem they do elsewhere in land that is remote and difficult to work: oil is cheap. As of September last year, there were 27 existing oil and gas leases within听Bears Ears, according to BLM figures. But in the past decade production in the area has dropped, and there鈥檚 cheaper, more accessible oil as close as Northern Utah.听Even though existing oil leases were grandfathered into the monument,听none were active. In fact, the last听active well inside the monument . Last year, the associate director of oil and听gas at the Utah Division of Natural Resources, John Rogers, told Inside Energy听there was a lot of interest in drilling听the area in the 1960s and 1970s. “But听nothing significant was found,鈥� he said. “So all the wells out there have been plugged and abandoned.”

What鈥檚 more likely to happen is that companies will buy the leases cheap during Trump鈥檚 public lands bonanza, then hold onto them and wait for prices to rise. Until that happens, there probably won鈥檛 be many more oil platforms. 鈥淭hat area is just too inaccessible,鈥� John Ruple, a law professor at the University of Utah who focuses on public lands, . 鈥淭he oil and gas potential is very low and the cost of getting any product out to a refinery and to market would be very high.鈥� 听

It鈥檚 a similar situation for uranium mining, although the industry applied a lot of pressure on Republicans to shrink the monuments. Trump and Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said over and over that the cuts had nothing to do with energy extraction. But, as The Washington Post鈥�s Juliet Eilperin , Canadian-owned mining company Energy Fuels Resources had pressed local Republicans, hired lobbyists, and met with the Trump administration in an effort to open certain lands up. The company even emailed Utah Senator Orrin Hatch maps that specified the land it wanted out of the monument.听If resource deposits in the area, there鈥檚 a fluid stain of potential uranium deposits through the center of Bears Ears. In Trump鈥檚 map, his two new monuments largely fall to either side.

The idea of a uranium resurgence is especially insulting to Native Americans who live in the area, due to of groundwater contamination. There are people who still won't drink tap water, , who told The New York Times last month she sends her daughter听to school with bottled water.听鈥淚t鈥檚 like we are all scarred by it, by the uranium,鈥� she said.听

Energy Fuels runs the only uranium processing mill in the U.S., but it faces the same dilemma as the oil industry. Uranium is cheap, about $22 a pound. That鈥檚 about $20 too cheap, the Post, to justify mining in Bears Ears. There are more than 300 uranium mining leases in the former monument's territory, more than one-third of which are owned by an Energy Fuels subsidiary.听And while it might be too cheap now to mine new claims,听Energy Fuels is playing the long game, hoping America will get over its fears of nuclear energy and uranium prices will surge.听

The most visible and obvious changes to Bears Ears or Grand Staircase-Escalante may well be the increased听presence of cars and ATVs. Both were still allowed on existing roads in the monument, but Obama's order put priority on preservation, so their access was restricted. Four-wheeling was听actually a huge point of contention in Utah鈥攊t got San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman thrown in jail four years ago, after he, Ryan Bundy, and their militia illegally rode four-wheelers . Now ATVs will be allowed anywhere on the areas 1,800 miles of road and trail they could drive before. And aside from the general annoyance of whining engines in the backcountry, the conservation argument for not allowing motorized vehicles in the area is that Bears Ears is home to thousands of ancient and sacred archeological sites. Many have 听or damaged, and quick access increases risk.

For now, though, the immediate effects of Trump鈥檚 decision will mostly be unnoticeable. Mining companies and maybe even a few prospectors will lease land. But promises to revive the coal industry, or cries to open public land and reclaim American energy independence鈥攁t time when we鈥檙e producing than ever鈥攚ill likely remain more symbol than reality.

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There鈥檚 a new acting director for the National Park Service, and he has an interesting past. Most notably, P. Daniel Smith made headlines for the time he helped the owner of the Washington Redskins cut down trees on federally owned, protected land to .

The Park Service has been without an official director since Obama-era appointee Jonathan Jarvis retired last January. Since then, Michael Reynolds has been acting director, but he and the Trump administration have been on poor terms since day one. The day after his inauguration, Trump Reynolds, upset over a retweet from the official NPS Twitter account that compared Trump鈥檚 inauguration crowd size with the much larger crowd that gathered to watch former President Barack Obama take the oath of office. Then, last summer, backed by the National Rifle Association that would restrict the NPS from regulating hunting or fishing within park boundaries. (It also would have allowed hunters to shoot hibernating bears in Alaska.) But the administration crossed out Reynolds鈥� comments on the legislation, siding instead with the NRA.

Smith, mind you, is a former lobbyist with the NRA. Here鈥檚 what his r茅sum茅 could look like, including his history of putting the concerns of the rich over park protection.

The Job

As acting director, Smith will oversee some 20,000 National Park Service employees who protect 417 national parks. The Park Service has a $3 billion budget, but it also has a $12 billion backlog of deferred maintenance on park infrastructure.

Noteworthy Work History

Smith was born in Maine and is an Eagle Scout and Vietnam War veteran. He has a bachelor鈥檚 degree in political science and a master鈥檚 degree in recreation administration from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

1970 to 1975: Smith gets his start in Washington, D.C., working on Capitol Hill as a staff member for Senator Sam J. Ervin, an independent-minded Democrat from North Carolina (who also served on the Senate Watergate Committee).

1978 to 1980: Smith works as a lobbyist for the NRA.

1982 to 1986: He gets a job in the Department of the Interior as deputy assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks, then with the Park Service as director of legislative and congressional affairs.

1987 to 1997: Smith spends ten years at the General Services Administration, an office that, among other things, helps the government cut costs.

Controversy in the NPS

Smith joined the Park Service in 2001 as a special assistant to then-director Fran P. Mainella. In with the Washington Post, Smith explained that his job there was to 鈥渢roubleshoot important issues,鈥� and it seems that one of his major responsibilities was to clear up disputes between the Park Service and the D.C. area鈥檚 wealthy elite. As a (OIG) points out, that included allowing a land exchange to appease an angry and influential Virginia homeowner whose driveway encroached on federal property.

But the deal that got Smith reprimanded involved billionaire and Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder. For years, Snyder had been pressing the Park Service to let him chop down trees near the C&O Canal National Historical Park because they blocked his mansion鈥檚 view of the Potomac River. Snyder even offered to donate $25,000 to a fund of the Park Service鈥檚 choosing, according to the OIG investigation. But the local park superintendent turned him down. That changed after NPS Director Mainella . Smith was put on the case, and a deal was made to cut down roughly 40,000 square feet of trees, including about 140 native old-growth trees鈥攁ll done without the required environmental surveys.

A local ranger reported Snyder, and that triggered the investigation, which found that Smith had 鈥渦nduly influenced鈥� lower-level Park Service employees. Smith was then transferred to Virginia鈥檚 Colonial National Historical Park, where, as superintendent for ten years, he oversaw a 23-mile strip of scenic parkway and three historic sites. He retired from that post in 2014.

Earlier this month, Smith was brought back onboard with the Park Service, and last week he was promoted to acting director.

Recommendation

鈥淚 can think of no one better equipped to help lead our efforts to ensure that the National Park Service is on firm footing to preserve and protect the most spectacular places in the United States for future generations.鈥� 鈥擲ecretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke

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To heal from within, the Hopi, Navajo, Ute Indian Tribe, the Pueblo of Zuni, and the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe all put past grievances aside to seek a common goal: Protect the Bears Ears region in southeastern Utah.

Healing was at the center of the movement: to preserve and advocate for continued access to the indigenous homelands of our ancestors, the lands that tie their stories of heritage to ours. The land, water, air, animals, and people are what our elders requested the five tribes to support with prayers and ceremony. They鈥檙e what elected tribal leaders sought to protect with law. The traditional and scientific knowledge of the region validated this importance. With each trip we made to Washington, D.C., to ask the federal government to protect this land, a prayer was offered.

On December 28, 2016, former President Barack Obama designated 1.35 million acres as the Bears Ears National Monument. The designation promised to protect the site鈥檚 breathtaking beauty and precious ecosystems. It also reassured us that our historical and spiritual connection to this landscape would be preserved for all time. The decision made on that historic day represented a successful transformation of the relationship between the U.S. and tribal governments. It was the first tribal-led push for a national monument. It had taken years. It was also the first time a group of tribal nations would share in the oversight of land that once belonged to them, establishing a commission where traditional knowledge would become a strong presence in management plans.

It is disturbing then to imagine that one day鈥擠ecember 4, 2017鈥攃ould profoundly set back the historical, deep healing between the five tribes and the federal government. The five tribes requested use of the Antiquities Act as a solution for protection instead of waiting for a solution to be prescribed to them, as had been done with reservation boundaries in the past.

Now that the boundaries of Bears Ears will be reduced by more than 80 percent, the risk of new land leases and permits for mining oil and gas will rise. In the name of economic development, protection of the land will be rolled back. The fragile ecosystems and water supplies will be in jeopardy, and, as many know, water is precious in the West. We have officially entered into a time that our ancestors and elders spoke of鈥攐f betrayal and broken promises.

The time, energy, and resources invested while working alongside President Obama鈥檚 administration was an amazing experience. Under the Trump administration, hope turned to frustration. The open and clear conversations from our governments to the White House and to the Department of Interior disappeared. They returned to the old ways of tribes being disregarded and oppressed. Yesterday, we were flooded with hundreds of years of memories.

When Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke visited Utah this summer, the five tribes had to fight for just one hour of his time. What happened to the respect of the indigenous sovereign voices? The sovereign voice that is written into the U.S. Constitution? He did not listen to us because he did not want to hear what we had to say. Instead, he gave his ear to representatives of the energy industry.

Twenty-seven million acres of BLM land are currently under lease to oil and gas companies in the United States鈥� are sitting idle. Twenty years of coal reserves are under lease on public lands. Interior Secretary Zinke was guided through the Bears Ears region by anti-monument advocates, engaging almost exclusively with energy industry representatives. It is heartbreaking to know that the final resting places of our ancestors, preservation of Puebloan structures, the fragile ecological systems, and the stories written on the land and canyon walls will be auctioned off for destruction and disregarded for the sake of industrial development.

The indigenous people of the United States have always held a strong relationship with the land. Our land is part of our identity, language, culture, and ceremony. Our healers and medicine people collected medicinal herbs and conducted ceremonies for the sick and injured out on the landscape. Our mothers and grandmothers buried the umbilical cords of our babies in the land. We bathed our babies in the snow so they will be resilient and strong-spirited. We never owned any aspect of the land; ownership and possession was a learned behavior after the coming of the nonindigenous people. We live in relationship with our surroundings and the elements, in prayer and everyday living. We are merely humans here to care for our families and the land, and to prepare for the next seven generations.

Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk is a former co-chairwoman of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition and a former tribal leader of the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe.

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Hammond Canyon is a stunning green meadow flanked by white sandstone towers in what, just yesterday, was Bears Ears National Monument. The remote canyon, home of the Three Fingers Ruin, is an archaeological hotspot, but it does not fall within the new Indian Creek or Shash J谩a national monuments, which President Donald Trump created Monday with a disputed use of the Antiquities Act. White Canyon, Valley of the Gods, Grand Gulch, Cheesebox Canyon鈥攑ending litigation, these areas all lost protection when Trump sliced nearly 1.15 million acres off Bears Ears.

鈥淵ou cherish Utah鈥檚 gleaming rivers and sweeping valleys. You take inspiration from its majestic peaks, and when you look upon its many winding canyons and glowing vistas, you marvel at the beauty of God鈥檚 creation,鈥� Trump told a friendly audience at the Utah state capitol. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 why I鈥檓 here today.鈥�

The President then proceeded to sign executive orders opening up such vistas to mineral extraction. His proclamations chopped up Bears Ears, and replaced Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument with three smaller monuments鈥擥rand Staircase, Escalante Canyon, and Kaiparowits. Combined, the boundaries preserve one million acres, down from 1.9 million that were protected by the original 1996 declaration. Oddly enough, in shrinking Bears Ears, protection of which was instigated by Native American leaders, Trump painted himself as a champion of American Indians.

鈥淲e鈥檝e seen how this tragic overreach has prevented many Native Americans from having a voice on their sacred lands, where they practice their most important ancestral and religious traditions,鈥� Trump said. The line elicited applause from the mostly-white audience.

A day prior to Trump鈥檚 announcement, I toured Bears Ears and met with Mark Maryboy, who kickstarted push to protect the Bears Ears region when he began surveying tribal elders about sacred sites in 2010. 鈥淭otal ignorance,鈥� he said of Trump鈥檚 approach to the national monument. 鈥淣o respect for Native tribes, for Native American people across the country.鈥� Jonathan Nez, the Navajo Nation vice president, put it even more simply in a Monday press conference after Trump鈥檚 announcement: 鈥淲hat happened today is a slap in the face.鈥�

Maryboy and his Dine Bikeyah team began considering formal protection for the region about eight years ago. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke came to the decision to shrink Bears Ears after just 45 days. In shrinking the monument, Trump could negate unprecedented tribal collaboration, the first indigenous-led national monument designation, and an expression of tribal sovereignty.

In response, the five nations that supported it will respond in a fashion Utah鈥檚 tribes are quite familiar with: Lawsuits.

The creation of Bears Ears was an unprecedented act of diplomacy. When a legislative push failed in 2016, Utah Dine Bikeyah took its proposal to the elected leaders of the Navajo, Ute Mountain Ute, Hopi, Zuni, and Northern Ute tribes to advance the idea to then-President Barack Obama.

鈥淵ou talk to somebody from another country, it鈥檚 complicated,鈥� says Shaun Chapoose, an elected leader of the Northern Ute tribe and member of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the same thing when you get this many tribes together. We have histories. Good relationships, not so good relationships. This collaboration should be celebrated.鈥�

The tribes鈥� historical link to Bears Ears proved powerful enough to overcome those differences. Their, and the desire to save an estimated 100,000 remains, artifacts, and other cultural sites united a diverse coalition of nations. When Obama designated the monument in December 2016, he听included a requirement that听a tribal advisory group help manage the听monument. As a result, Bears Ears garnered support even among tribes that lacked a direct connection to this corner of Utah. Garon Coriz, a doctor from Richfield, Utah, and member of the Santo Domingo Pueblo tribe, grew up hunting in the Bears Ears region, and continues to climb and backpack there. 鈥淲ith Bears Ears … there鈥檚 a whole cultural dimension to the landscape. It was acknowledged by the tribes, and fought for by the tribes.鈥�

With his Monday proclamation, Trump has followed a consistent pattern in U.S. history: the federal government making a land-management promise to Indians, only to later renege. 鈥淚 wasn鈥檛 surprised,鈥� Chapoose told me in November, shortly after news broke that Trump would modify Bears Ears in some way. 鈥淭he history of the relationship between the federal government and states and tribes has always been based off of lies, broken promises.鈥�

The role of tribes in creating and managing the monument has been seemingly ignored by both Trump administration officials and Utah politicians. Orrin Hatch, the Utah senator who pushed the Trump Administration to change the monument boundaries, previously said, 鈥淭he Indians, they don鈥檛 fully understand that a lot of the things that they currently take for granted on those lands.鈥� This flies in direct opposition to Obama鈥檚 proclamation, which mentions traditional hunting, firewood harvesting, and herb gathering. (The only access curtailed was for future grazing and extraction.) Yet notions of a bureaucratic choke-hold on the land proliferated in Trump鈥檚 Monday address.听

In fact, the only regulation monument proponents sought was protection for the 100,000 ruins and artifacts in the area鈥斺�攁nd the ecosystem that sustained those who left the artifacts behind. 鈥淭here were Anasazi ruins and artifacts all over the place,鈥� says听Mary Benally, a Utah Dine Bikeyah board member. 鈥淢y family said to leave those alone鈥攖hose are the people who have already been here. Leave it to them.鈥�

Monument opponents have repeatedly been framed as disaffected locals overpowered by the federal government, but that ignores the Navajo residents who advocated for the protections. There鈥檚 precedent for this in San Juan County, which is approximately half Navajo. Tribal members, often led by Maryboy, a former county commissioner, have had to file suit over school-district measures, access to ambulances, and other county-provided services. for decades.

To combat Trump鈥檚 action, the tribes will do what they鈥檝e been required to do in San Juan County for years. A series of lawsuits filed by tribes, outdoor retailers, and environmental groups in the coming days will argue in federal court that the Antiquities Act doesn鈥檛 allow a president to modify national monuments. The lawsuits won鈥檛 just seek to clarify the Antiquities Act;听to those being represented, they will serve as a statement of tribal sovereignty and communities flexing greater political influence.

鈥淣o matter what happened today, history was made,鈥� Chapoose said of Bears Ears. 鈥淔ive sovereign nations worked together, and saved this land for the benefit of the American people. And that attitude of cooperation will save this monument.鈥�

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On Friday, President Donald Trump told Utah Republican Senator Orrin Hatch that he will shrink the controversial Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, .

The President听met with Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke early Friday before calling Hatch, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. The President will visit Utah in December to make the formal announcement.

In August, as part of a larger review ordered by Trump, Zinke recommended that the President shrink the 1.35-million-acre Bears Ears and the 1.9-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante, both in Utah.

What鈥檚 next? The public now waits to see if the President听acts on his promise to Hatch, and if so, by how much he tries to reduce the monuments. Even if he does make good on his word, the two monuments' boundaries will听remain the same until at least December. And even then, any action by Trump to shrink them is likely to be stopped or delayed by lawsuits. Native groups and environmentalists said they are ready to sue as soon as the President signs any changes to the monuments.

鈥淟et's be perfectly clear: the President does not have the legal authority to听shrink the boundaries of these treasured national monuments鈥攑eriod,鈥� Drew Caputo, Earthjustice vice president of litigation for Lands, Oceans, and Wildlife, said in a statement. 鈥淭he public has made clear in overwhelming numbers that they want to protect these cherished lands.听If President Trump chooses to ignore these voices as well as the law, we will see him in court.”

Grand Staircase-Escalante has been widely听debated since President Bill Clinton established it in 1996. Some studies have shown that the gateway area around the monument has benefited economically, leading to broad local support.听鈥淧resident Trump and Ryan听Zinke鈥檚 attack on the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is an attack on southern Utah's entrepreneurs and the thousands of jobs that depend on the Monument,鈥� says Suzanne听Catlett, president of the听. 鈥淭he utter disregard for our thriving community and the views of local business owners like me, shows that President Trump could care less about jobs in rural America.鈥澨�

Yet plenty of听politicians loathe the designation, while听energy companies want another crack at its coal and other resources. Bears Ears, meanwhile, which President Barack Obama established听just before leaving office,听has angered people听who feel that it was imposed from above and shuts down resource-extraction opportunities.

Across the country, though,听the monuments seem to have strong public support. During the review, Zinke solicited comments about the fate of the protected lands. Over 99 percent of the respondents said they wanted the national monuments to remain as they are.听

In the short term at least, they probably听will. 听听

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