We go to the desert SW most April vacations for hiking trips. We haven’t been to Navajo lands yet, but I think that will be in the next few years. I have no problems hiring native guides and exploring areas that are a bit more controlled access.
Permit system. One permit issued per time slot, with a strict time limit on how long you can stay, secured by a valid credit card number–someone goes and checks periodically and if there’s trash or a problem they know who to go after. Maybe just the threat of oversight and consequences would be enough to keep the riff raff out, I dunno. The breakdown of the social compact is getting horrific and I’m not a fan.
Nice. The Southwest has so much to offer for tourism. I was glad to see there was a Park Ranger at Mesa Verde, but even with his presence, there were kids acting out, trying to get into the old structures.
If I have a nice garden in my back yard, and I allow groups to tour the garden, and then for whatever reason I stop allowing strangers to tromp through my backyard, that’s nobody’s business but my own. Nobody gets to second-guess my decision, tell me what I ought to have done instead, or weigh in. Dear friends might want to talk to me about it, and that’s cool, but the strangers who used to tromp through my gardens? Unless I solicit their feedback, it’s not necessary.
You can’t be seriously thinking Native American oppression is all in the distant past, or mostly “cultural” (whatever that’s supposed to mean).
From an article in the Arizona Daily Sun:
The idea of paid permits or tours in the area also grates with the sensibilities of resident Violet White. She described the sacredness of the area, noting how her ancestors lived in nearby canyon to evade the U.S government during the attempted ethnic cleansing of the Long Walk, when Navajos were marched by the U.S. military hundreds of miles to New Mexico or death — whichever came first. White would rather see Adah’iilíní closed before it was used for profitable ventures.
“We don’t look at our land like money,” White said. “The land takes care of us. So we have to take care of it.”
“The land is its own land,” she added. “We’re just here to protect it. The land right now just needs time to heal.”
While I agree with your right to do so I disagree with getting to “weigh in.” Sure, you can make a unilateral decision, it’s your land. But it would be nice if you’d at least be willing to listen to people who might want to discuss it.
I would also like to gently remind those commenting that I did not–and do not–intend this post to be a discussion of past or present mistreatment of any of the tribes in the country. I wanted to gripe about the kind of people who have driven the residents and the Navajo Nation to close the area down. You know, the scummy wastes of carbon who make it so the rest of us can’t have nice things.
I’ve never understood why people would go to the trouble of visiting natural wonders if they’re just going to spoil them. In my youth, my friends and I used to hike to remote places in national forests. We packed out anything we’d packed in. As they say, “Take nothing but pictures and leave nothing but footprints,” and even the footprints should be minimal in some places. If a site is being destroyed, it’s better to close it than to lose it.
While I get the sentiment I don’t see permits as a profit thing, more of a way to finance the proper care and supervision of the site so it doesn’t get trashed but non-native people can still enjoy it and soak up the history. Actually, guided tours would be a great way for the Navajo to educate a wider audience on their history and struggles and from what I’ve seen, most rezzes could benefit from any new jobs, especially ones that don’t involve gambling or selling cigarettes and fireworks. Guided historical tours seems like a win/win for the site to me.
I’m not disagreeing with you. This site, though, doesn’t really lend itself to guided tours. It’s a road that leads to a parking lot that overlooks the falls. There is a trail to the base of the falls but it’s not particularly long.
Still, I’d rather have that than lose it, but I also understand people saying they don’t think that’s right either.
I think there needs to be a national license system where you prove that you’re a Good Person and are allowed to go almost anywhere. If you don’t have this license, you can only go to supervised places. 
(This is a joke. I know it would be impossible to administer. But I also think there should be a special training and test you can take and only those who pass it should be allowed in airplane exit rows.)
I like this idea.
I climbed Tangkuban Perahu (Gunung Tangkuban Parahu) - a semi-active volcano in Bandung Western Java, Indonesia years ago.
The amount of litter was, to my eyes pretty distaceful. I metioned it to my driver (no westerner is insane enough to deal with Indonesian traffic, I think @CairoCarol can confirm). I am pretty discriminating here, it’s not like the mountain was trashed but every time I stopped for a water break, I could see (and pick up) other peoples thrown away snack wrappings etc.
I am very much in the “leave no trace” ideology, and “if you find shit that doesnt belong, pack it out” theory.
But my driver explained, “we wrap things in leaves, we throw them away.” Unfortunately the same response comes with plastic. Banana leaves rot. Plastic does not.
How much of your life should you have to spend on this?
They may well have listened to people who wanted to discuss it before they made up their minds to close the area, and don’t now want to have to spend indefinite amounts of time listening to everybody who ever came to visit the place as well as those who feel they didn’t get their turn yet.
That is definitely the way to do it; but places can be destroyed by the presence of too many people even if they’re all behaving properly. – it’s quite possible to disturb nesting or other behavior without even realizing one is doing so, also. The creatures humans don’t even see may have had their life messed up by needing to avoid being seen. This isn’t an issue for every situation, and may not be for this one; but it’s an issue many people don’t even think of, and it can be a legitimate reason for closing areas.
I’m not sure I understand. Are you saying the Navajo Nation didn’t consider other possibilities, that they simply decided to close it without considering how it would affect responsible tourists like yourself?
You’d think, and certainly the majority of us had drivers if we could afford them and used other forms of transport when we couldn’t - but I did have a number of foreign friends who not only owned and drove their own cars, but who owned and drove motorbikes 
My approach would be, can we find a better solution to an unacceptable problem? What about controlling the number of visitors and policing their behavior with park ranger? We have many attractive sites in this country that attract a lot of people, and we haven’t had to close those due to lack of control. What are they doing to maintain order?
Maybe the ease of access is the problem.
Years ago some friends and went shooting on a property. The owner’s requirements were that we only drove in as far as the river and then made a very long, uphill hike to the original homestead in the hills. Days later, just before we had said we would be leaving, he turned up in his vehicle and checked out the state in which we were leaving the site. Had we been leaving it any different to how we found it apparently we would never have been welcome back.
One problem is that there is no such thing as “Responsible Tourist Training” or a “Responsible Tourist License”, and another is that practically every person now restricted from visiting see themselves as being a “Responsible Tourist”. Complaining that everything was hunky dory until all those other people showed up isn’t a very strong argument…unless you have a hard and fast rule to never visit places that have become popular to others.
Although the “we” here is misleading. Just as with non-Navajo, there are some Navajo who are diligent stewards of natural resources and respectful of their own sacred sites, and some who couldn’t give a shit when they see $ signs.
But we are not talking about a back yard. All of us have a stake in the diligent stewardship of the natural wonders of the world. Morally, they belong to all of us, you don’t get carte blanche to do whatever the hell you want just because human history drew borders in certain places. Of course it may be that diligent stewardship means limiting access, but if you restrict access for no reason it is indeed everyone’s business.
They’re not restricting it for no reason. They’ve publicly stated a whole batch of reasons. I presume you’ve read the statements? here’s one of a number of sources: Navajo community blockades Grand Falls against an ‘invasion’ of tourism
And even if they were restricting it only on the grounds that it’s holy and they don’t want people in there who aren’t members of that religion: that wouldn’t be “no reason”. You could argue that you don’t think it’s a good reason, but not fairly that it isn’t a reason at all. A church may choose to let tourists in to observe services or to stare at the stained-glass windows, whether or not on paid supervised tours; but they don’t have to.
Plus which: there is a whole lot of land in this country that is restricted purely on the grounds that it’s private property. Some of that land also includes natural wonders of the world. Why should the Diné not have the same right that a private landowner does?
I didn’t say they didn’t have a good reason here, I explicitly said that good stewardship might include restricting access. I was disputing @Left_Hand_of_Dorkness 's claim that the legal owners can do whatever they want to natural resources like this and they don’t need a good reason.