After President Trump reduced the size of Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, environmentalists feared the lands would be opened up to environmentally destructive mining. However, in the first six months, only one claim had been staked, a protest claim by public lands activists.
The conflict over mining in the former lands of Bears Ears is just the latest high-profile example of a long-simmering conflict over U.S. mining regulation. It is governed by the Mining Law of 1872, which declares federal lands “free and open” to prospectors. Although environmental and federal land regulations have modified that wild-west approach over the subsequent century and a half, it remains largely possible for anyone to go out on many federal lands and stake a claim. (But actually mining and profiting from that claim is another story. . .)
Opponents of this approach have lodged protest claims in areas they wish to…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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