The Biden administration has signed an agreement with five Tribes to share management of Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service.
It marks one of the first times federal agencies and Native American Tribes will jointly manage a national monument. The five groups are the Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Pueblo of Zuni, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation.
“This is an important step as we move forward together to ensure that Tribal expertise and traditional perspectives remain at the forefront of our joint decision-making for the Bears Ears National Monument,” said BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning.
“This type of true co-management will serve as a model for our work to honor the nation-to-nation relationship in the future.”
In October 2021, President Joe Biden issued a proclamation that restored the Bears Ears National Monument and recognized the importance of Tribes in managing the monument by reconstituting the Bears Ears Commission as established by President Barack Obama in 2016.
