Hours after President Donald Trump announced his scaled-back vision for Bears Ears National Monument on Monday, a coalition of five American Indian tribes filed the first lawsuit of many that were promised to challenge the executive action.
Their argument: Trump does not have the legal authority to shrink the designation.
“They declared war on us today,” said Shaun Chapoose, a member of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee. “If they think we’re not prepared to protect it, they’re kidding themselves.”
The courts have not weighed in on the matter since the Antiquities Act’s passage 111 years ago. That law authorizes presidents to unilaterally set aside public lands to protect “objects of historic and scientific interest,” which President Barack Obama used to designate the 1.35 million acres in San Juan County last year.
The five tribes — Hopi, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Pueblo of Zuni and Ute Indian — pushed for the monument status and are suing Trump and members of his administration for splitting the designation into two areas that comprise less than 202,000 acres. In a brief visit to Utah, the president also trimmed Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument by nearly 900,000 acres.
In their lawsuit, posted late Monday, the tribes argue to the U.S. District Court in Washington that the Antiquities Act does not allow a president to revoke or modify a monument — only to designate one.
The legal challenge is also about “ensuring our tribal members have access to those lands” that hold spiritual significance, said Ethel Branch, attorney general for the Navajo Nation. Members of the intertribal coalition collect plants and water from the Bears Ears region for cultural and medicinal ceremonies. They regard any action against the monument as a rejection of their heritage and their “ties with Mother Earth.”
“Bears Ears is in every way a home to [these] tribes,” the filing reads.
At a news conference after Trump’s announcement, tribal leaders condemned the president and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke for allegedly snubbing their input, criticized the “tremendous affront to tribal sovereignty” and vowed to fight the revised designations.
When he looks out over Bears Ears, Chapoose sees a museum where the artifacts, dwellings and remnants of a culture are displayed in the desert landscape. Without protection, he fears looting, grave-robbing and vandalism will destroy the place he considers sacred.