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Article snippet: BEARS EARS NATIONAL MONUMENT, Utah — Ryan Zinke, the secretary of the interior, stepped into the desert last week at the edge of the 1.3-million-acre red-rock expanse that is roiling the West. Mr. Zinke had billed his visit as a listening tour, and a woman trailed with a camera phone, needling him to support her side. “Be nice,” he said, swinging around and shaking a finger at her in the view of those in the crowd, many in cowboy hats. “Be nice!” “Nice” has been difficult recently in this patch of America, where President Trump’s decision to reconsider one of the country’s newest national monuments has thrust southeast Utah back to the front line in the battle over how much control Washington should have over Western lands. President Barack Obama established the Bears Ears National Monument in the final days of his presidency, using the Antiquities Act, signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt, to place special protections on a vast swath of winding canyons and shifting sands imbued with at least 10,000 years of human history. In terms of protection, national monuments are generally considered one step below national parks. All of the newly protected acres are in San Juan County, population 16,895, where the federal government owns roughly 60 percent of the land, and where arguments over who can use those acres — and how — have long held the fervor of religious conflict. Here, the terrain that is now a monument has fed bellies and souls for generations, it... Link to the full article to read more