Here is part of an article quoted on Wayne's Words the Lake Powell website. It looks like some tribes support it and some not so much.
"On its website, the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition describes how the coalition was founded in July of 2015 by the leaders of five tribes who came together.
The coalition's formation, however, was written about months earlier in a rock climbing magazine, which listed Friends of Cedar Mesa, the Conservation Lands Foundation, the Grand Canyon Trust and Utah Dine' Bikeyah as groups that had "banded together."
Josh Ewing's group, Friends of Cedar Mesa, was still in talks that same year with Chaffetz and Bishop over provisions in the yet-to-be unveiled public lands bill that promised the establishment of national conservation areas for the region — designations that differ from monument protections.
Ewing, however, registered the coalition's domain name in 2015 and is listed as its administrative contact. The Grand Canyon Trust notes on its website the voluntary assignment to create the map for the proposed Bears Ears monument and its Native American program manager sends out press releases for the coalition as the media contact.
Those close ties lead monument critics to question the authenticity of the movement.
"This is not a grass-roots Native American effort to protect sacred lands," said Blanding City Manager Jeremy Redd. "This is an effort by environmental groups to get what they want. … People feel like they are being run over by the money and the organization that these special interest groups have. Sadly, local people don't have that kind of money behind them."
Redd added that the Utah portion of the Navajo nation, Native Americans who live off reservation in San Juan County and the Blue Mountain Dine are nearly "across the board," opposed to the monument designation.
"The general consensus among local people is they feel the process has been co-opted by the environmental groups and special interest groups who want to use the power of the federal government to get their way.
"The farther you get away from being local, the more you are influenced by special interest groups and the money they have," Redd said.
Common ground
Ewing said it is natural for Friends of Cedar Mesa to help the tribes because of the common goal of all entities to protect cultural resources in the region.
"Those who don’t have common ground with the tribes and want to continue the status quo are trying to manufacture something that doesn’t exist," he said. "It is no secret we have worked to find common ground and we have common interests in protecting cultural resources."
Support for a Bears Ears monument includes outdoor business leaders, who came together Thursday in a press conference at the Outdoor Retailer Show. In a packed room in downtown Salt Lake City, they outlined why 15 leading companies are in support of a national monument designation.
"It is a place that is absolutely iconic in the form of recreational opportunities that are available such as climbing, hiking and water sports. It is an incredible treasure in the state of Utah," said Hans Cole of Patagonia. "As an industry we rely on these protected places, and so for us it is an economic driver. But it is also deeply personal because of the landscape."
Carlton Bowekaty, a Zuni tribal councilman from New Mexico, was at the Bears Ears meadows gathering in July, addressing Jewell on the need for protections in the area.
Later, he dismissed the notion that his people had been overly influenced by environmental groups.
"We rely on them for support, but if I felt like it was not something I could personally support, I would not bring it to the Zuni people," Bowekaty said.
But Clarke said most of the tribal leaders who visited Bears Ears for the Jewell meeting had probably never been there before and likely will not be back again.
"The more distant you are as a Navajo and tribal member the more likely you are to support the monument because you view it as an abstraction or concept or theory of tribal sovereignty," he said. "The closer you get to the monument, the more likely you are to view it as land that can and should be used properly."
The Conservation Lands Foundation boasts on its website that the marathon listening meeting in Bluff attended by more than 1,500 people for Jewell was an "incredible success," with huge showings from their Friends Grassroots Network that includes multiple Colorado-based organizations.
Supporters of monument designations sported blue T-shirts to draw attention to themselves at the event designed for Jewell to hear the issues surrounding the monument debate.
"Secretary Jewell, you came to Utah seeking local input. Unfortunately, what you saw and what you heard was theater staged by radical environmentalist outsiders intent on smothering local voices. This wasn't local grass roots. This was Astroturf," blogged Matthew Anderson, the Sutherland Institute's policy analyst for the Coalition for Self Government in the West.
Chaffetz said he has no doubt tribal leaders are being influenced by environmental groups seeking monument designation.
"I sat with the president of the Navajo Nation last August and he had no idea what Bears Ears was or where it was," he said.
Clarke wonders at what he says is a contradiction inherent in the monument designation.
"Everybody who came out here says it's beautiful, it's wonderful and pristine and we want to keep it that way. I say 'thank you,' because we have been taking care of it the last 100 years," he said.
Monument opponents, he said, are characterized as extreme conservatives who don't care about the land.
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Clarke said he doesn't believe tribal officials who support a monument designation could name the landmarks at Bears Ears or know if wood gathering is good at places like Babylon Flat, Duck Lake, Little Dry Mesa or Sweet Alice Springs.
"I'd be met with blank faces. The people who came here from a distance and will return to a distance had to GPS the Bears Ears to get there. I've never had to use GPS out there," he said. "Their idea of protection is to essentially make it famous. How is making it famous and putting it on the map for careless visitors protect it."
