President Barack Obama is weighing whether and how he can leave his own permanent imprint on history by designating about 2 million acres of land, known as the Bears Ears, as a national monument.

A view from atop Cedar Mesa, an area in southeastern Utah where grazing takes place alongside traditional and ceremonial Native American uses, such as firewood collection, hiking, rock climbing and archeological research. (Juliet Eilperin/The Washington Post)

This weathered Navajo hogan, constructed more than a century ago, was used for ceremonies and constructed in a "male" pattern, according to local tribal member Jonah Yellowman. (Juliet Eilperin/The Washington Post)

RIM OF CEDAR MESA, Utah — For centuries, humans have used the red sandstone canyons here as a way to mark their existence.

First came archaic hunter-gatherers who worked in Glen Canyon Linear, a crude geometrical style dating back more than 3,500 years. Then about 2,000 years later, early ancestral Pueblo farmers of the Basketmaker period used more subtle lines to produce a man in headdress. A little more than 700 years ago came their descendants, who used the same kind of hard river stone to make drawings of bighorn sheep and a flute player in the ancient rock.

Now, President Barack Obama is weighing whether and how he can leave his own permanent imprint on history by designating about 2 million acres of land, known as the Bears Ears, as a national monument.

And despite the acknowledged historical significance of the area, some people regard the conservation efforts by the White House as federal overreach. In the current-era conflict between Washington and rural Westerners, the idea of a Bears Ears national monument has produced warnings of a possible armed insurrection.

In a state where the federal government owns 65 percent of the land, many conservatives already resent existing restrictions because they bar development that could generate additional revenue. Out-of-state militias came to San Juan County two years ago, when Commissioner Phil Lyman helped lead a protest ride on all-terrain vehicles through a canyon the Bureau of Land Management had closed to motorized traffic in 2007.

“I would hope that my fellow Utahns would not use violence, but there are some deeply held positions that cannot just be ignored,” Sen. Orrin Hatch, the veteran Republican, said in an interview.

Cedar Mesa is one of the best preserved and most archaeologically rich sites in the United States. The dry climate and rock overhangs have protected important artifacts for millennia, and there are tens of thousands of ancient objects and structures preserved, including ones in which the original wood beams in cliff dwellings remain intact. In a granary where the Pueblo people kept maize, a single dried cob lies on a dusty floor.

But some lawmakers have suggested unilateral action by the president, under the 1906 Antiquities Act, could provoke the same sort of resistance that led to the 41-day armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon earlier this year.

“There is a lot of conflict that has escalated into being on the precipice of violence that is unnecessary and unwarranted,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, who opposes the designation.

Obama has approached the designation of national monuments as a way to bolster the country’s defenses against climate change and as a way to make the national narrative more inclusive.

LOOTING AND DEGRADATION

In the case of Bears Ears, there is no question that the area is imperiled by the kind of looting and pillaging that first inspired the Antiquities Act, as well as more modern threats such as ATVs and motorbikes tearing through the desert terrain.

There have been six confirmed looting incidents in the past six months and at least two dozen over the past five years. Although the BLM has allocated $400,000 over two years to stabilize 10 archaeological sites and trained about 20 people to serve as volunteer “site stewards,” it employs just two law enforcement officers to patrol 1.8 million acres.

Without help from Washington, preservationists worry that the looting and destruction will continue. Word of the region’s treasures has spread from academics and archaeologists to “pot hunters” and other looters, said Don Simonis, the BLM’s archeologist for the area. “For years we’ve been reluctant to talk about it, but if we don’t talk about it, how else can we convince the powers that be that we need protection here, and get the resources we need to protect it?”

But in the Bears Ears region, named for the twin buttes that define the landscape, and surrounding San Juan County there are competing claims to the land and its history. The area has been home over the centuries to Native American tribes, Mormon settlers who reshaped the land in the late 1800s and the energy prospectors, ranchers and thrill-seekers drawn to it today.

On May 19, Utah Gov. Bob Herbert signed a resolution, passed in a special session, opposing a national monument. But even that measure stipulated that the legislature and governor were in favor of “protection and conservation of the Bears Ears area” if done in “a constitutionally sound, locally driven legislative approach.”

LEGISLATIVE EFFORTS

Chaffetz and House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah, have spent more than three years crafting a lands bill that affects seven counties in eastern Utah, spanning 18 million acres.

The lawmakers may introduce a bill this month, and earlier drafts set aside four times as much land for conservation as for development. But those proposals have drawn criticism from environmentalists and tribal leaders, in part because they give state and local officials greater say over managing federal lands and redefine what activities can take place in protected areas.

Scott Groene, executive director of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, has dubbed the plan the “Plundered Lands Initiative.” He said it “gives away vast amounts of public land, sacrifices landscapes to energy development, rolls back existing protection and fails to protect the Bears Ears.”

And a coalition of tribal groups — including representatives from the Hopi, Navajo, Uintah and Ouray Ute, Ute Mountain Ute and Pueblo of Zuni — abandoned what had been fitful talks with Utah Republicans in December, saying they were not given a proper voice in shaping the deal.