For this
assignment, I chose to look at Patagonia Action Work’s efforts to block the
Trump administration from declassifying the Bears Ears and Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument areas in Utah. President Obama had
designated Bears Ears a national monument in the last days of his presidency
(Grand Staircase dates back to the Clinton years) after months of conflict
between tribes and local residents over the fate of the area. In December of
2017, President Trump signed an executive order shrinking the federal
protections of the lands by about 84 percent—the largest elimination of such
lands in American history.
This action by the federal
government represents a potential overreach of executive authority. Under the
Antiquities Act, which has been in place since 1906, the president has the
clear and directive authority to designate lands as national monuments. However,
the law does not outline a path for declassification, and no president has ever
tried. In the wake of President Trump’s actions against the Utah monuments—actions
which angered a coalition of tribes who have used the lands for hundreds
of years—Patagonia and their environmental activist branch, Patagonia Action
Works, launched This Is Bears Ears, a campaign and a lawsuit against the
president and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, arguing that the administration
had engaged in executive overreach. The campaign is rich with narratives from locals
and activists, and they paint a picture of just how much danger the now-exposed
areas are in and what they mean to the tribes and residents who have held them in
sacred regard for so long.
The
stories are told in a series of short video clips, grouped together by
category: culture, exploration, sport, etc. In each clip, the narrator speaks for him
or herself; the clip I have selected is of Luke, a trail runner who trains on
the rugged and zigzagging trails in the Bears Ears area. Like each of the
subjects in these clips, Luke is presented in a victim role. Without
protections afforded by the federal government, Bears Ears and the trails he
runs on could be used for economic development (oil drilling, mining,
etc.). While Luke’s story is valuable, I think the main purpose it serves is as
an emphasis on the larger implications of rescinding protections for these
areas, underscoring the reality that these lands are sacred in many different
ways and for many different types of people.
Thinking
about this campaign in the context of the six foundational values laid out by
Matthews et al. (2016), the obvious connection is the care/harm value. Caring
for the land is ensuring its protection, and harming the land, as the president
is doing, is contributing to its destruction. Additionally, sanctity/degradation,
liberty/oppression and even authority/subversion is evident in this narrative. Each
of these are effective in their contribution to the larger narrative because
they do a good job of placing Luke, the victim, in the role of the fighter. He
has something worth saving and he wants people—us—to help him because it should
matter to them to. Without support, the actions of the villain, Trump, will in
some way impact all of us because they are being carried out upon public lands.
When
placed in the larger scope of this campaign, this story and the stories like it absolutely
add depth and meaning to Patagonia’s overall narrative. The call to action is
not a direct part of the video narrative but is included in the main website
and is easy to navigate to from each video. Overall, Patagonia has built a
compelling and structured case against the president that will continue to
inspire and motivate individuals to get involved and work to reinstate the
protections of these public lands. The overall message—“the president stole your land—personalizes it. The stories
that Patagonia has told and are still telling humanize the fight.
Check out
Patagonia’s This Is Bears Ears campaign and Luke’s story: http://bearsears.patagonia.com/sport/trail-run-gods
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