Southeast Utah, home to one of the most culturally and archaeologically complex landscapes in the country, is on the brink of being replaced by a different kind of legacy: oil and gas development.
Tuesday, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke is scheduled to offer oil and gas leases on public lands, specifically targeting the doorstep of Bears Ears National Monument — or what used to be the boundary of the national monument.
In December 2017, President Donald Trump unlawfully used the Antiquities Act to remove nearly 2 million acres from the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah, reducing Bears Ears by 85 percent. This bold move in favor of the oil and gas industry is an assault on the more than 100,000 known archaeological sites within the monument boundaries.
Deer Hill Expeditions has been leading youth-oriented and cross-cultural excursions in the greater Four Corners region since 1984, including the protected public lands Zinke is auctioning off for drilling. We have led thousands of young people to this sacred landscape; taught the ethics of treading softly; and collectively revered this fragile terrain, scattered with rock art images and well-preserved cliff dwellings.
Our groups return year after year to experience the Greater Bears Ears’ rich cultural heritage and share in the tradition of land stewardship. Profoundly moved by the unique knowledge that echoes against these canyon walls and the stories the twisted cedars hold, we return to deepen our narrative within these ancient cultural lands.
Through our ties to the land and community, we at Deer Hill are uniquely poised to be ambassadors of cross-cultural and conservation projects in the Bears Ears area. Paramount to each Deer Hill journey is the connection participants experience with the cultures and institutional knowledge of the area’s indigenous tribes.
Tribal families hosting Deer Hill participants design service projects of meaning to their communities — building Zuni bread ovens, mending fences on Navajo farmland or painting the homes that line the Hopi pueblo plazas. We are nurtured through sharing these ancient traditions otherwise inaccessible to those outside these communities.
In the past several weeks, Zinke has deferred lease sales on public lands in Chaco Culture National Historical Park and in his home state of Montana, near Yellowstone. In making these decisions, he stated that "I’ve always said there are places where it is appropriate to develop and where it’s not.”
We couldn’t agree more. We believe there are areas where energy development is appropriate, but cultural landscapes interwoven with a dozen ancient community centers, dating back 900 years, are not. We cannot stand by as a landscape with connections to modern-day Pueblo tribes, dark night skies, neighboring national monuments and abundant opportunities for responsible recreation is on the chopping block.
Deer Hill believes it is our duty to ensure these pieces of our shared history go unscathed and continue to draw together indigenous traditionalists, conservationists and local Mormon/Anglo communities and advance opportunities for economic vitality.
We urge Zinke to take a hard look at the cultural and recreational interests in southeast Utah so he can come to the inevitable conclusion that oil and gas leasing does not belong among archaeological preserves. As our nation’s largest land manager, it is irresponsible for Secretary Zinke to unilaterally decide to pardon some landscapes and endanger others with similarly irreplaceable cultural and recreational resources.
Zinke, should be protecting, not exploiting, our public lands. We ask him to cancel this lease sale before it’s too late.
Beverly Capelin
Beverly Capelin is founder and mission director of Deer Hill, a program that provides wilderness adventure and cultural exchange in the Four Corners region through community service.