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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sportello" data-source="post: 3238456" data-attributes="member: 55299"><a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/obamas-environmental-legacy-in-two-buttes/511889/" target="_blank">Obama's Environmental Legacy, in Two Buttes</a>First, in protecting the land, the president extended federal protection to a beautiful and biodiverse part of the country while also broadening the “American story.”Five sovereign Native nations—including the Navajo, Hopi, Zuni, and Ute—had petitioned the president earlier this year to grant federal monument protections to the area. All five tribes attest that the area is dense with burial grounds and cultural sites. In the 19th century, Navajo leaders used the area’s canyons to hide from the U.S. government’s campaign of forced relocation, “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Walk_of_the_Navajo" target="_blank">the long walk to Bosque Redondo.</a>” Outside archeologists know the area for its unmatched record of rock carvings, which go back thousands of years before the common<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/12/28/proclamation-establishment-bears-ears-national-monument" target="_blank">the president’s proclamation</a> was that it recognized Native people still use and need public lands today.<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/obamas-environmental-legacy-in-two-buttes/511889/#bottomanchor" target="_blank">*</a>“The Antiquities Act was a statute that was very paternalistic toward Native people. It said that Native people are part of America’s past, they’re part of America’s history,” Tsosie told me. “If you read the president’s proclamation, it extends the act toward contemporary people. It’s a wonderful notion—it doesn’t freeze anything in the past.”</blockquote>

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