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President Donald Trump's announcement last week that he intends to reduce the size of two national monuments covering millions of acres of Utah wilderness has stoked local divisions over land use, with all sides anticipating a protracted battle over the move. On one side, Native American groups and environmentalists expressed anger and are ready to sue the U.S. government.
U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell heard emotional statements Saturday from both sides of a divisive proposal to create a national monument at a sacred American Indian site. Jewell's 3A1 2-hour meeting in the town of Bluff capped off a four-day research trip to Utah as a coalition of tribes urges President Barack Obama to turn 1.9 million acres around the twin Bears Ears buttes into a national monument.
The proposed 1.4 million acres of the Bears Ears region contained in a massive public lands bill being unveiled this week would actually be split in two, with the southern portion set aside for traditional Native American uses. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and chief architect of the measure, said the region on federal lands in southeastern Utah will come with a new management structure that includes a tribal committee to ensure traditional access for wood gathering, ceremonies and gathering of plants.