I recently visited Goblin Valley State Park on traditional Ute homeland. This is a beautiful space, but I was totally appalled by two things that are unfortunately too common on public land in the U.S. - the complete erasure of the Ute from the interpretation and the rampant vandalism and I think these two things are connected. Signs around the park suggest the area was a desert wasteland until settlers first found it and the website’s first line is literally “Cowboys searching for cattle first discovered secluded Goblin Valley.” This is despite the park being home to what interpretations calls “archaic artifacts.” This type of interpretation is designed to create a claim of ownership by settlers over a space. It is “our” land as Americans, right? We can do what we want with it, right? It is this sense of ownership by settler tourists that entitles them to play tic tac toe or draw pseudo petroglyphs on the rocks.

If we want to really address vandalism and misuse of outdoor spaces, the solution isn’t to stop geotagging or restrict access, it is to radically shift tourists understanding of the history and culture of these places and realign their relationship to them. This begins with interpretation and telling the real, difficult history of public lands, but it is really only finished with repatriation and indigenous management of public lands. Tourists aren’t owners, they are guests.