What gives me hope (and indeed, pushes me over the line in the pro-monument direction) is the example of GSENM. Both monuments are areal in nature, covering more than 1mm acres. And yet, GSENM is much the same as it was 25 years ago when it was designated. Sure, a small number of sites have served as sacrificial lambs for the madding hordes – Coyote Gulch comes to mind – but by and large, the monument designation really did freeze development (preventing the Kaiparowitz from being strip mined, for one) without killing the golden goose of solitude and wildness. I posit that a monument of that vast a scale is too large and tough to grasp to ever be truly ravaged by the worst excesses of the tourist-industrial complex. There are other examples on the Plateau – Vermilion Cliffs and Grand Canyon-Parashant, just to name a few.

I think you make an excellent point about the dangers of “protected on paper”. For other monuments, it may be enough to freeze development and call it good. Bears Ears is different, in that it demands an immediate enforcement/education presence to stop folks from damaging (either intentionally or inadvertently) irreplaceable arc sites. The “gets more funding and TLC from government agencies” piece is just as important – perhaps more important – than freezing development in this particular case. That’s a major reason why five different tribes (some of whom have been historically at odds with each other) petitioned for Monument designation in the first place.

Not to mention the Native Americans who lived on these lands for around 15,000 years, then got slaughtered or ‘concentrated’ on reservations. All in the name of progress, wilderness, and national parks or monuments.

“wil-der-ness: an uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region.”
Another convenient concept invented by invaders.