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Letter: So the legislators equate expanding national monuments to stealing land?

FILE - Two buttes that make up the namesake for Utah's Bears Ears National Monument are shown on Dec. 28, 2016, in southeastern Utah. With Joe Biden's capture of the White House comes the likelihood that Utah's two big national monuments will be restored to their original boundaries, reopening yet another front in the West's public lands wars. (Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune via AP)

I see that our state’s politicians are complaining that any action to expand Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante to the original sizes would be stealing land from our backyard.  Our  white ancestor Utahns stole all of the state, except the least fertile sections, from the front yards, living rooms and temples of the original nations.

The legislators are calling for true collaboration in making a decision.

How much did the 19th century white settlers/raiders collaborate with the people already here? Brigham Young called this Zion, God’s kingdom on Earth.  It had been home and sacred land for a thousand years to the native nations.

Cal North, Kearns

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