I just returned from my annual May pilgrimage to southern Utah. This year I spent a glorious week each in Grand Staircase-Escalante and in Bears Ears national monuments. The slickrock, slot canyons, cliffside ruins and spring wildflowers were as extraordinary as ever.
I’ve been visiting the area for more than 30 years now as a tourist, explorer, researcher and college field-trip leader. Never have I seen so many people at visitor centers, overlooks, trailheads, vying for camping spots and in the small towns around the monuments. I remember when villages like Blanding, Escalante and Tropic were more dead than alive, and if you had a flat tire on Sunday (which I once did), forget about getting it fixed.
What was once boarded-up is now booming. New houses, buildings and businesses were going up everywhere, and out-of-state license plates far outnumbered those from Utah. Clearly, despite what monument opponents would have you believe, a lot of folks wished to experience these lands for what they are, not exploit them for what they contain. That is not to say that visitors don’t have impact as well, but it’s a different relationship to the land.
International tourists were plentiful too, and the few I talked with were dumbfounded that anyone would reduce or eliminate a national monument. Utah surveys, national polls, five tribes, local businesses and millions of public comments agree with these foreign visitors: If anything is to be done, they said, these monuments should be expanded.
Recent economic data show that tourism is our mightiest economic engine, dwarfing anything these federal lands could produce through fossil fuels, uranium or cattle production. For the current administration (and Utah’s political leaders), though, it’s like ignoring the overwhelming consensus on climate change — the facts and science and common sense don’t seem to matter.
For them, it’s the principle of the thing. And no matter how logical, beneficial, environmentally sustainable, economically viable and well-supported the monuments are, opponents don’t want the government in far-off D.C. telling them what to do with “their” land. To them, it’s as though a foreign dictatorship has come to rob them of their property and lifestyle.
Additionally, there is this deep-rooted, bedrock ethic among many monument opponents that to not use the land is wasteful. To them, leaving coal and oil in the ground, water free-flowing in a stream, trees unharvested or grass uneaten on the prairie is just unacceptable. These folks, too, will not be swayed by arguments of intact ecosystems or beauty for beauty’s sake or the idea of perpetuity. For them, land of no use is useless. And no amount of anything will ever change their minds.
At Kodachrome Basin State Park, they hand you a nice brochure that includes a map of all of Utah’s national and state parks, as well as all of its national monuments, except two. The brochure was printed before 2016, when Bears Ears was established, but, despite existing for 22 years, being by far the largest in the state and surrounding Kodachrome, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is left completely off the map.
The 2018 version of the brochure on the Utah Department of Natural Resources website fixed the typos, continued the misspellings and left the map unchanged. What does this say when Utah doesn’t recognize a national monument legally established on federal lands? Apparently, like facts, the law doesn’t matter either.
What to do, then, when facts don’t matter and sense is so uncommon? We’ll have to do what we’ve always done as Americans: We’ll count on our younger, diverse generations, who are more tolerant and less dogmatic, to lead the social, political and economic revolutions that move our country in healthier and more equitable directions.
As any movie, magazine or music video demonstrates, we already worship youthfulness nationwide. So let’s be honest and give them the chance to transform the state and the country starting in November.
In Utah, we’ve seen what status-quo politics produces for air quality, education and health care. Clearly, then, the time has come to vote out the opponents and their deep-pocketed handlers, and bring about a dramatic change in who represents us.
Eric C. Ewert, PhD
Eric C. Ewert, Ph.D., is a professor and chairman of the Department of Geography at Weber State University, Ogden.