In seeking to create and, now, preserve the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah, leaders of the Navajo Nation have held the clear moral high ground.
Centuries of connection to the land and a reverence for its natural beauty, silence and aura have won for the tribe, and its many allies among other native nations, the support of environmentalists, the outdoor recreation industry and, late last year, President Barack Obama.
Now, of course, the 1.35 million-acre monument is threatened by President Donald Trump, who has apparently yielded to the voices that claim ownership of the landscape for the come-latelys and for the extractive economy that values land only for the money it can generate.
Which is why it was good news that the Navajo Nation Council Tuesday voted down a proposal that would not only have defiled a significant portion of the ancient beauty of the Grand Canyon but also have robbed the nation of much of its moral standing as a defender of the natural world.
Dangled before the council was a money-making plan to build a tram that would carry paying from the rim of the Grand Canyon’s eastern edge — on the Navajo Reservation — 3,200 feet down to the banks of the Colorado River in 10 minutes.
It was to be part of a larger resort development called the 420-acre Grand Canyon Escalade, which would also have included shops, hotels, restaurants and vendor sites and which, advocates said, could be up and running as soon as the spring of 2021.
In a part of the country where economic development is scarce, and where the tribal-owned Navajo Generating Station, a coal-fired plant and mine near Page, is set to be shuttered in 2019, the temptation to throw in with such a project might have been fierce.
In the end, though, the council voted 16-2 against the deal. So it wasn’t even close.
The fact that project design would have required the tribe to kick in an up-front investment of $65 million for roads, water and power lines and communications was a red flag for many. Even as the prospect of a promised 3,500 jobs must have been attractive.
Tribal leaders clearly felt that paving paradise now for the promise of even a large amount of cash later was not in the tribe’s — or the canyon’s — long-term best interests.
With Bears Ears, the Navajo and their allied tribes have little political or financial power and have had to work mostly with their moral arguments. With the Grand Canyon Escalade, the Navajo held the power themselves. And they made the right choice.
