About Bears Ears National Monument

What has happened since (updated 20 October 2026)

This page describes the monument as it was proclaimed in December 2016. Its boundaries have changed several times since, and each change is dated here:

• 28 December 2016: proclaimed at about 1.35 million acres.
• 4 December 2017: reduced to about 201,876 acres in two units, Indian Creek and Shash Jáa.
• 8 October 2021: restored to the 2016 boundaries, now given as about 1.36 million acres because the 2021 proclamation also kept about 11,200 acres that the 2017 one had added.
• 13 July 2026: a new proclamation reduced the monument to two units again, the Shash Jáa and Indian Creek units, and dissolved the Bears Ears Commission.
• 11 September 2026: the 2026 proclamation took effect, and the excluded lands opened to new mining claims.
• Mid-October 2026: a federal judge in Washington, D.C., lifted the stays on the lawsuits filed in 2017 and required 48 hours’ notice before any ground-disturbing work on the removed lands.

The official figures do not agree to the acre. The starting size appears as about 1.35 million acres in the 2016 proclamation and about 1.36 million in the 2021 and 2026 documents, the difference being the 2017 addition. The 2026 proclamation’s text gives about 121,096 acres, while the White House fact sheet that accompanied it rounds to about 121,100.

December 2016

On Wednesday, December 28, 2016, President Obama signed a proclamation establishing Bears Ears National Monument on about 1.35 million acres of federal land in San Juan County, Utah. The boundary takes in Cedar Mesa and Grand Gulch, much of Comb Ridge, Elk Ridge and the twin buttes that give the monument its name, Indian Creek in the north and the canyons running down to the San Juan River. The same afternoon the president also designated Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada.

What the proclamation protects

Monuments rest on the Antiquities Act of 1906, which lets a president reserve federal land to protect “objects of historic or scientific interest.” Much of the Bears Ears text reads as a catalog of those objects. It describes cliff dwellings, granaries, rock art, and villages with the ancient roads that linked them, left by people whose presence here reaches back about 13,000 years, and the region’s continuing importance to the Hopi, Navajo, Ute, Zuni and other tribes, who still gather plants, hunt and hold ceremonies there. It also lists fossil beds, geology, wildlife and plant communities, along with the area’s value for future archaeological and paleontological research.

Two agencies and five tribes

The monument stays in federal hands under two agencies. About 290,000 acres are national forest land, which the U.S. Forest Service will manage as part of the Manti-La Sal National Forest. They cover Elk Ridge and the forested high country around the buttes. The remaining 1 million acres or so belong to the Bureau of Land Management. The two agencies are to write a single joint management plan, and the proclamation sets no deadline for finishing it.

A new body sits beside them. The proclamation creates a Bears Ears Commission made up of one elected officer from each of five tribes: the Hopi Tribe, the Navajo Nation, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, the Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation and the Pueblo of Zuni. The agencies must engage the commission in planning and draw on tribal traditional knowledge. If they decline one of its written recommendations, they have to explain why in writing.

A separate advisory committee under federal law will bring in state and local governments, tribes, recreation users, local business owners and private landowners.

What changes, and what does not

The federal land inside the boundary is withdrawn from new mining claims and from oil, gas, mineral and geothermal leasing. Leases and other rights that existed on December 28 remain valid. Grazing continues under the same permits and rules as before. Tribal members keep access for traditional uses, including the gathering of medicines, berries, plants and firewood for personal use.

Motor vehicles and mountain bikes will be limited to roads and trails the agencies designate in a transportation plan, and new motorized routes can be added only for public safety or to protect the monument’s resources. Hunting and fishing remain under Utah’s authority. The proclamation also asks for a report by January 19, 2017 on exchanging state school trust land caught inside the boundary.

How it got here

The five tribes formed the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition in July 2015 and that October asked the president for a monument of about 1.9 million acres, managed jointly with them. In Congress, Utah Reps. Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz offered a different plan, the Public Lands Initiative, which paired conservation areas with land set aside for energy and recreation. Their bill was introduced in July 2016 and did not pass. Interior Secretary Sally Jewell spent four days in the region that July and heard from a crowd of well over a thousand people at a public meeting in Bluff. The final monument is about 550,000 acres smaller than the tribes’ request.

A contested future

Utah’s elected leaders denounced the designation within hours. Sen. Mike Lee called it a lame duck action and promised to work with Congress and the incoming administration to reverse it. Sen. Orrin Hatch said he would raise the matter with Rep. Ryan Zinke, the nominee for Interior Secretary. Many San Juan County residents, Navajo families among them, fear limits on grazing, firewood and access in a county with little other work. The coalition tribes and their supporters point to decades of looting and fast growing visitation as the reason stronger protection was sought.

President-elect Trump takes office on January 20. No president has ever abolished a monument created under the Antiquities Act, and the Act does not say whether one may. Earlier presidents have reduced the boundaries of some monuments, but whether a president may abolish one has never been tested in court. Congress can change or undo a monument by passing a law.

Visiting in the meantime

For now nothing changes on the ground. Until a monument plan is written, the BLM’s Monticello Field Office and the Forest Service manage the land under their existing plans. Permits are still required for hiking and backpacking in Grand Gulch and the other Cedar Mesa canyons, issued at the Kane Gulch Ranger Station during the spring and fall seasons and at trailheads, and cultural sites everywhere on this federal land are protected by law, monument or no monument. Visitors should treat every dwelling, granary and rock art panel as a place that still matters to the tribes whose ancestors made it.