"We're powered by love": Utahns gather across the state to show support for national monuments

Nearly a thousand people gathered across the state of Utah on July 20 to protest President Donald Trump’s illegal attempt to slash Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments by roughly 90 percent each, stripping protection from nearly 3 million acres of public land in total. The rallies, organized by the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, filled public spaces in Salt Lake City, Ogden, Provo, St. George, Moab, and Bluff.

Trump signed the orders on July 13, flanked by Utah’s congressional delegation and Gov. Spencer Cox. Protesters directed their anger at those officials, including Representative Celeste Maloy and Senator Mike Lee, who backed the rollbacks.

“I think that anybody who’s voted into office should listen to what the people want, and people don’t want this,” said Katie Panushka, a protester in Salt Lake City. “People don’t want this in Salt Lake. People don’t want this in Ogden, and people absolutely don’t want this at the Grand Staircase.”

Polling backs this up. A 2024 poll conducted on behalf of the Grand Canyon Trust found 71 percent of Utah voters support keeping Bears Ears as a national monument and 74 percent support keeping Grand Staircase-Escalante, including majorities of Republicans. Three-quarters of Utah voters support presidents’ authority to protect public lands as national monuments.

For many demonstrators, the fight is personal. “We are not protesters. We are protectors,” said Corrina Bow, a Southern Paiute elder from the Kanosh Band, one of the Grand Staircase Tribes.

Trump also disbanded the Bears Ears Commission, a five-Tribe body that worked with the federal government to develop the monument’s management plan, breaking trust with those Tribes and ending the first official government-to-government public land management relationship in the country.

Despite the anger amongst Utahns over the cuts, Scott Braden, SUWA’s executive director, framed the rallies positively: “We’re not powered by grievance,” he said. “We’re powered by love of place and just wanting to see these places protected.”

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