Tenth year for Visit with Respect program

by David Boyle
News Director
A campaign to educate visitors about visitation to the region is celebrating 10 years.
Semira Crank is the program director for Visit With Respect, a part of the nonprofit Bears Ears Partnership.
In a recent conversation with Redrock92 radio, Crank explained the Visit With Respect campaign was launched in 2016 to mediate the effects of increased visitation in the greater Bears Ears area.
The original campaign began with a handful of rules and has evolved to a set of 20 guidelines aimed at encouraging positive interactions between visitors and the land.
Guidelines include practical advice such as leaving cultural belongings where they are found and refraining from touching or creating rock imagery.
Crank added that over time the campaign has evolved by working to incorporate traditional indigenous knowledge and western science together. That approach encourages visitors to view the landscape as a cohesive whole rather than a series of isolated sites.
"We want visitors to view the landscape as whole, as one," Crank explained, noting that the campaign provides a "digestible" framework for everyone visiting the area.
But Crank says the Visit With Respect program now goes beyond the borders of Bears Ears National Monument.
Adding that over the last 10 years, organizations across the Southwestern US have adopted their guidelines and Visit With Respect is hopeful that the framework will continue to expand to serve as a model for preservation in parks and monuments across the nation to ensure those spaces remain for future generations.
A series of events are coming up for Bears Ears Partnership including the Celebrate Bears Ears event March 6-8, with a theme “The Land Can’t Wait”.
The event features a keynote address by the 23rd US Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. Harjo is a member of the Muscogee Nation and the first Indigenous American to be named the US Poet Laureate.
On March 6 includes a fundraising dinner in Bluff with pre-registration required.
A full day of programming Saturday in Bluff and Sunday guided tours in Monticello with their “new shared Canyon Country Discover Center campus”.
In addition to the Celebrate Bears Ears event, Crank also highlighted opportunities to volunteer through the Visit With Respect Ambassador program. The program requires training of volunteers to monitor sensitive sites and talk to visitors about respectful practices. The next training is scheduled for Saturday March 21 in Bluff.
Information for both events can be found at BearsEarsPartnership.org.
Crank also emphasized the ultimate goal of the program is to help shift the mindset of those entering the Bears Ears area. "Our history and our cultural connection is within the landscape itself," she stated, urging visitors to treat the land with the reverence it deserves.