Leonardo DiCaprio foundation backing Utah national monument
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SALT LAKE CITY — Leonardo DiCaprio’s foundation is chipping in to support a new national monument in southern Utah that’s been a flashpoint in the debate over public land use in the West, officials said Friday.
His environmental group is one of several donating to create the $1.5 million Bears Ears Community Engagement Fund, which is aimed at supporting local efforts to preserve natural resources and protect the park’s trove of ancient archaeological sites from things like looting.
The money could fund things like locating and putting up signs at more of the estimated 100,000 cliff dwellings and other archaeological sites tucked amid picturesque cliffs, plateaus and towering rock formations in the Bears Ears monument 300 miles south of Salt Lake City, said Michael Scott with the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
The fund will also support efforts from the five American Indian tribes who will get a say in how the land is managed, a first for a national monument.
