Obama's Environmental Legacy, in Two Buttes
When historians go searching for the encapsulating symbol of President Obama’s environmental legacy—and all the idealism and ire that accompanied it—they need look no further than two buttes rising from the desert in southeastern Utah.
On Wednesday, with a stroke of his pen, Obama created the Bears Ears National Monument. The monument grants federal protection to the twin geological formations that rise above the horizon, which are called “Bears Ears” in English and nearly every local Native language. It also protects the more than 2,000 square miles of desert and shrub that surround them—a land of hidden canyons, soaring peaks, and starry, silent nights.
For the coalition of environmentalists and Native leaders who had long sought protection for the land, it was a momentous victory.
“It actually brought tears to my face,” said Eric Descheenie, a former leader of the inter-tribal group that had long lobbied for the monument. “It’s so significant. It’s so hard to even try to add up what this really means. At the end of the day, there’s only a certain place in this entire world, on earth, where we as indigenous peoples belong.”
Not everyone was as moved. Utah lawmakers had also long sought to protect most of the area, but they had hoped
