In a major victory for indigenous land rights, India’s environment minster on Aug. 24 struck down a controversial mining project in eastern Orissa state that would have threatened the survival of the 8,000-member Dongria Kondh tribe.

“An international outcry is needed. Toxic mine tailings dumped into the Bismarck Sea could undermine the marine food chain at its source, potentially rendering all fish unsafe to eat and destroying the livelihoods of the Indigenous people who depend on the sea. Could thousands of letters from world citizens get the attention of the PNG government?”

The government of Papua New Guinea dealt a harsh blow to traditional landowners May 28 when it passed a pair of amendments to the country’s Environment Act barring legal challenges to mining and other resource projects.

Chinese police in Markham County in eastern Tibet have reportedly cracked down on protesters attempting to block the resumption of mining operations on their sacred mountains.

After a nearly 20-year hiatus, uranium mining has resumed on public lands surrounding the Grand Canyon. In late December, Denison Mines Corp. began extracting high-grade uranium ore from its Arizona 1 mine, located about 10 miles from the boundary for Grand Canyon National Park.

In January, the U.N. released its first-ever report on the “State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples,” which presents a global view of the current situation of indigenous peoples, examining poverty and well-being, culture, education, health, human rights, environment and emerging issues.

Reversing an earlier U.S. district court decision permitting Barrick Gold Corp. to proceed with plans for a massive open-pit gold mine at Nevada’s Mount Tenabo, a federal appeals court ordered a preliminary injunction against the mine.

A Department of Interior administrative law judge has overturned Peabody Coal Co.’s life-of-mine permit for operations at Black Mesa on Navajo-Hopi land in Arizona. The controversial permit was granted by the Department of Interior’s Office of Surface Mining in the final days of the Bush administration and was appealed by native activists and environmental organizations. [...]

POWER PATHS, a one-hour film directed by Bo Boudart, written by SLFP’s Jessica Abbe and narrated by Peter Coyote, will be nationally broadcast Nov. 3 on the PBS series Independent Lens. SLFP Project Director Toby McLeod contributed advice and archival footage to this timely documentary on renewable energy development in Indian Country.
POWER PATHS offers a [...]

Over the past month we published one new and three fully updated sacred site reports—featuring locations in the Himalaya, California and Nevada—which we invite you read

In June and July, we published one updated and two new sacred site reports—featuring locations in Malaysia, Bulgaria and Arizona—which we invite you read

The New York Times called the 137-year-old federal Mining Law a “disaster” in a July 20 editorial. The 1872 law was created to encourage development in the West by offering cheap land and allowing hardrock mining without royalties or environmental protections — policies clearly outdated in the 21st century

On April 28, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named Mount Taylor, near Grants, New Mexico, to its 2009 list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. This annual list highlights important examples of the nation’s cultural and natural heritage that are at risk of destruction or irreparable damage.
Located midway between Albuquerque and Gallup, [...]

A federal judge has ruled Barrick Gold Corp. may proceed with plans for a massive gold mine at Mount Tenabo in Nevada, despite Western Shoshone objections on religious grounds.
U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks ruled that there is not enough evidence to force Barrick to postpone digging a 2,000-foot deep open pit at the Cortez Hills [...]

In a last-minute Administration decision, the Office of Surface Mining and Reclamation (OSM) approved a life-of-mine permit for Peabody Western Coal on Hopi and Navajo land. This allows Peabody to continue to operate at the Black Mesa mine and the Kayenta mine for as long as the mine produces coal. This is a devastating decision [...]

Guest post by our researcher Amy Corbin
All summer, the Takla of British Columbia blockaded road access to Bear Mountain and Bear Lake, a sacred landscape in which Imperial Metals wants to set up a copper mine.  It’s another courageous stand against unregulated resource development in British Columbia, one of the most crowded battlegrounds in the [...]

Opponents of sacred site protection have failed again. In our film, In the Light of Reverence, we told the story of an Arizona butte that is sacred to the Hopi and Zuni where mining for gravel has destroyed nine Hopi shrines. The owner of Woodruff Butte teamed up with Mountain States Legal Foundation to argue [...]

An intense fight is underway to prevent the confirmation of former mining industry lobbyist and Interior Department Solicitor William Myers to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Myers was instrumental in overturning the Clinton administration decision to protect Indian Pass in California from a massive open-pit gold mine that would decimate a landscape long held [...]

Glamis Imperial, the Canadian goldmining company, has served notice that it will seek to use NAFTA and UNCITRAL (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law) to challenge through international arbitration a U.S. Interior Department decision that has hindered a Glamis open pit gold mining project because it would have damaged Quechan Indian Pass, a culturally [...]

The Salt River Project (SRP) of Phoenix, Arizona has announced that it will relinquish all permits and coal leases for the proposed Fence Lake coal stripmine, which threatened to devastate the sacred Zuni Salt Lake and surrounding Sanctuary Area in New Mexico. SRP claims in a press release that it has found a cleaner, more [...]

On June 18, the Western Shoshone Distribution Bill (H.R. 884) was heard before the House Committee on Resources. The bill proposes a controversial one-time land claim settlement to the Western Shoshone in a forced buyout of their ancestral lands in Crescent Valley, NV — land now worth billions to gold mining companies and developers. The [...]

The National Trust for Historic Preservation today announced its new list of America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. Topping the list are two landscapes sacred to native peoples: Zuni Salt Lake in New Mexico, which is threatened by the Salt River Project’s proposed coal stripmine, and Ocmulgee Old Fields, a national monument in Georgia, where [...]

In a landslide vote of 63-5, the California State Assembly passed, and Governor Gray Davis signed, SB 22, legislation that will require Glamis Gold Ltd. to fully restore a proposed open-pit gold mine at Indian Pass after mining is completed. The California desert site contains ancient rock carvings and pottery shards and is used for [...]

The California Wilderness Coalition’s list of California’s 10 Most Threatened Wild Places of 2003 includes two areas sacred to Native Americans which were protected by the Clinton Administation only to see the protections reversed by the Bush Administration. Quechan Indian Pass is threatened by Glamis Gold Ltd.’s proposed cyanide heap-leach open-pit mine, while the Medicine [...]