Trump Administration Works to Erase Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments

Just over two weeks since President Trump decimated Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments, the administration is racing ahead with its work to try and erase the monuments from both the landscape and public awareness. Last week, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) removed signage from Bears Ears National Monument, starting with the Tribal seals representing the five Tribes of the Bears Ears Commission and quickly escalating to the complete removal of the monument signs themselves. By Tuesday, July 28, signs for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument had also been removed from at least five gateway locations.

A sign that previously welcomed visitors to Kanab in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was removed. (Ray Bloxham / SUWA)

These signs play a practical role. They mark the entrances to the national monuments for visitors, indicating that these areas are some of the nation’s most important public landscapes that together protect over a hundred thousand ancestral cultural sites. By clearly communicating to visitors that this is an irreplaceable area created to protect significant cultural and archeological resources, proper signage can help prevent damage. Removing gateway signs, coupled with the administration’s illegal reduction of more than 3 million acres from the monuments, will lead to confusion, uncertainty, and chaos on the ground and in surrounding communities.

The removal of signage carries particular significance at Bears Ears. The signs made visible the role of Tribal Nations in co-managing and stewarding their ancestral lands. Removing Tribal recognition from these public lands erases an indelible part of the landscape. The five Tribal seals were removed from the Bears Ears monument signs following the proclamation that terminated the Bears Ears Commission. The seals represented the formal role of the five Commission Tribes in the collaborative management of their ancestral homelands. Their removal is a visible sign of the dismantling of that framework, but it does not change the Tribes’ connection to the living cultural landscape or their responsibility to care for it.

The Trump administration’s efforts to erase history are not new. Over the last year, efforts by the administration to erase or alter historical interpretation on public lands, including removing signs and displays across national parks, have been met with strong public opposition. People have made it clear that parks and monuments should reflect the full history of these places, including the histories, cultures, and living traditions of Tribal Nations.

A sign that used to welcome visitors to Smoky Mountain Road in Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument was removed. (Ray Bloxham / SUWA)

“Make no mistake, overseeing the removal of gateway signs welcoming visitors to Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears National Monuments is a part of the plan by the Trump administration and Senators Lee and Curtis and Governor Cox to try and eliminate the monuments from the nation’s collective memory,” said Steve Bloch, legal director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “They’re going to find that it won’t be that easy; attacking public lands has consequences. Americans love their national parks and monuments and ‘won’t let them ‘go gently into that good night.’”

“Removing the signage at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument is another example of taking action without prior consent or adequate preparation. It is exactly what we expect from this administration,” said Dr. Jackie Grant, executive director at Grand Staircase Escalante Partners. “The signs at Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument do not just mark the boundary, they keep visitors safe by providing them with navigational markers and on the ground information. The signs should have stayed in place until a replacement solution was ready to go.”

“Removing the signs that announce protected public lands is deeply alarming, and symbolizes the attempted erasure this administration is undertaking of landscapes that are profoundly meaningful,” said chapter director of the Sierra Club in Utah, Franque Bains. “But wiping their existence won’t go without resistance. Utahns have shown up time and time again to defend Grand Staircase-Escalante, and Bears Ears, and this time won’t be any different. We won’t let it.”

“Removing the Tribal seals from Bears Ears first, then tearing down the gateway signs at Grand Staircase-Escalante, tells you everything you need to know about this administration’s priorities,” said Axie Navas, director of designation campaigns at The Wilderness Society. “These monuments exist because Tribal Nations and communities across Utah fought to protect places that belong to all of us. Erasing that history from a roadside sign doesn’t erase our responsibility to pass these lands down intact, so future generations have the same freedom to experience them as we do today.”

“While the Trump administration is removing signage in its attempt to dismantle Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, this destructive gesture does not decide the monuments’ fate,” said Thomas Delehanty, senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain Office. “Just as we did with Trump’s 2017 revocations, we will challenge these illegal rollbacks in court. The intent of the Antiquities Act was clear: to protect our nation’s archaeological, cultural, and scientific wonders; not to destroy them.”

“You can tear down signs, but you cannot erase the history, cultural significance, or overwhelming public support behind Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments,” said Chris Hill, CEO of the Conservation Lands Foundation. “Removing monument signs and the Tribal seals diminishes the lived history and our shared understanding of the cultural continuity that these treasured landscapes hold for the Tribes and all of us. These lands remain sacred, beloved, and worth fighting for. Communities across the country will not allow this administration to erase them from the map or our collective memory.”

“President Trump’s proclamations to gut Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments were already an unlawful betrayal of Tribal Nations and the American people. Now, the rush to remove the names and Tribal seals from the landscape feels deliberately dismissive of the Tribes whose histories, cultures, and enduring relationships are inseparable from these ancestral homelands,” said Cory MacNulty, Southwest campaign director at the National Parks Conservation Association. “The proclamations did more than reduce monument boundaries. They dismantled historic Tribal co-stewardship structures that recognized Tribal Nations as leaders in the care and management of their ancestral lands. Visitors deserve opportunities to understand their profound significance to Indigenous peoples, not federal efforts that conceal, diminish, or erase those connections.”