Here’s a closer look at what Trump cut out of Bears Ears National Monument

When President Trump reduced the size of Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument by more than 1.1 million acres, his administration assured the public “important objects of scientific or historic interest” would still be protected.

Many areas the Trump administration removed from Bears Ears are rich in uranium and oil deposits and may eventually become more accessible to developers. They had been off-limits under Barack Obama’s 2016 proclamation creating the monument.

And many sites significant to the Native American governments that lobbied Obama to designate the monument now lie outside the redrawn boundaries.

Along the San Juan River, for example, an extensively etched cliff wall lies outside the redrawn lines. “The oldest drawings on this wall could date to 4000 BC, according to Sally Cole, an archaeologist who lives in Bluff, Utah. They help identify how society developed, from groups of hunter-gatherers to agrarian communities.”

The Abajo Mountains too, in the northeast portion of the Obama-era monument, were removed from the boundaries. Cliffside caves once provided shelter to the ancient Puebloans, to whom the Hopi and Zuni people trace their ancestry. “A thousand years ago, the Abajo Mountains harbored human life in every ravine and gully.”

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