Ute tribes divided after national monument announcement

The Ute Native American tribe, whose ancestral lands formed the newly designated Camp Hale National Monument, had mixed reactions to the Biden administration’s announcement of the designation this week.

In a statement, the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee said the administration “moved forward with a monument on our homelands without including us. They talk about tribal consultation, but their actions do not match their words. We cannot support a monument on our homelands that does not include the tribe.”

The tribe went on to decry the designation as an “unlawful act of genocide.”

The committee said it learned of the designation only days before President Biden made it official, saying, “Instead of fully engaging the Ute Indian Tribe and its Uncompahgre Band in designating the Monument, the White House rushed forward with its own priorities.”

The tribe previously criticized the Biden administration’s suspension of new oil and gas leasing on public lands in 2021, noting that its fossil fuel sector is a major revenue source for tribal services. Biden amended his executive order to exempt tribal lands on Jan. 25 of that year.

However, not all Ute bands were critical of the designation. Southern Ute Indian Tribal Council Chairman Melvin Baker attended the designation ceremony and told The Colorado Sun the designation was a “game-changer.”

“Others can learn that we can work together, whether it’s states, tribes, governments working together to make this happen on behalf of the earth that we live on and Mother Earth that we protect,” he said. “I think it will be a big help moving forward.”

A third band, the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, also backed the designation. The Ute Mountain Ute are part of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition, which successfully lobbied Biden to restore the Bears Ears National Monument, established under former President Obama, after former President Trump removed the designation.