In this op-ed, writer Kelly Hayes explains why President Donald Trump’s decision to revoked the protected status of Bears Ears National Monument must be fought, for the sake of the Earth as we know it.

Updated on February 13 at 12:30 p.m.:

After signing an executive order to review national monuments, President Donald Trump ordered a pair of protected monuments in southern Utah to be downsized this past December. The two monuments — the 1.35 million-acre Bears Ears created under former President Barack Obama and the 1.87 million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante formed created under former President Bill Clinton — were collectively downsized by two million acres. The resizing went into effect at 6 a.m. on Feb. 2.

By removing protection on the land, companies and private citizens can engage in hard rock mining in accordance with an old law: the General Mining Law of 1872. The law permits the mining for uranium and other minerals and precious metals like gold, silver, copper. Excluded are coal and petroleum. While the Trump administration previously claimed that the president's decision to scale back the national monuments was not driven by a mining and drilling agenda, reported The Washington Post, it was a uranium firm that lobbied for Bears Ears National Monument to be reduced.

The Guardian reports, citing the Center for Biological Diversity, that roughly 800,000 acres of public land were leased for oil and gas drilling last year alone. For measure, that's larger than the state of Rhode Island.

Previously...

Around this time last year, the American people elected Donald Trump to become president of the United States. Since then, he and his administration have put appalling policy into place, just as one might expect from a president who is stoking white nationalism.

As a Native person, I knew Trump would take aim at us quickly. It seems Trump has long resented Native Americans: In 1993, his attitude was put on on public display when he sat before the congressional Native Affairs committee and insisted that it was unfair that only “Indians” could have reservations and reservation gaming licenses. He also insisted that Natives who had been granted gaming licenses didn’t “look Indian” to him. “You're saying only Indians can have the reservations, only Indians can have the gaming,” Trump told the committee. “So why aren't you approving it for everybody? Why are you being discriminatory?”

Native people living in the United States are up against a great deal, but in Trump’s mind, we actually experience undue privilege. Apparently, having the highest rates of poverty, some of the worst roads, the least Internet access, and the highest rates of assault against our women (mostly by non-Native men) isn’t enough to offset what Trump sees as our unfair advantage. Native people are killed by police at a higher rate than any other racial group, which is likely of no concern to the president.

When Trump took office, we quickly saw Native political victories reversed. The Keystone XL pipeline, halted under President Barack Obama, in large part due to Native organizing, was reauthorized. Under Trump, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cut short an environmental impact study that would have delayed or even blocked completion of the Dakota Access pipeline. Water Protectors in Standing Rock, North Dakota, were violently evicted from their encampments. And on December 4, Trump reversed President Barack Obama’s decision to preserve Bears Ears in Utah as a national monument, reducing it in size by 85%, though the area has long been considered sacred to many different Native tribes.