Winnemem Wintu Tribal Leader Mark Franco is calling all supporters to sign a petition to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) asking for assistance in navigating federal bureaucracy so the tribe can hold their upcoming puberty ceremony without interruption or interference. The McCloud River is sacred to the Winnemem Wintu, who take their name from it: Winnemem [...]

A major new assessment of the current state of biodiversity warns that unless urgent action is taken, the natural systems that support humankind are at risk of collapse.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced Tuesday that the first offshore wind farm to be built in the U.S. has been given the green light.

The Nantucket Sound Cape Wind Project, opposed by the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and the Mashpee and Aquinnah Wampanoag tribes, will be allowed to proceed provided that measures be undertaken in the construction of the energy farm to minimize negative impacts. Efforts to this end include a reduction in the number of wind turbines from 170 to 130 to reduce visibility from Nantucket Island.

The federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation has recommended that the U.S. Department of the Interior reject a proposal for the country’s first offshore wind farm in Nantucket Sound, saying it would have ”destructive” effects on dozens of nearby historic properties, including Native American cultural sites.

Wilma Mankiller, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1985 to 1995, passed away April 6 in her home in Talequah, Okla. Mankiller was the first female chief of the Cherokee Nation

With the U.S. Department of Energy’s March 3 withdrawal of a license application to build a high-level nuclear waste dump under Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, the long-contested project is at last on its way to being closed.

Winnemem Wintu tribal members have embarked on an unusual and historic journey in an effort to bring Chinook salmon back to the McCloud River.

The Ohlone sacred site and burial site at Glen Cove has thus far escaped development, but the city of Vallejo is now moving forward with plans to convert the land into a park with picnic tables, trails, restrooms and a parking lot.

Rising like an island in the center of California’s Sacramento Valley, the Sutter Buttes figure prominently in the traditional creation and afterlife stories of the Maidu and Wintun peoples, whose ancestors once lived within view of this small mountain range. In the 19th century, European settlement and the imposition of private property rights severed the [...]

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.

The National Preservation Institute will be presenting a seminar entitled “Consultation and Protection of Native American Sacred Lands,” to take place April 28-29 in Seattle, Wash.

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.

In a first test of the Obama administration’s promise to honor the needs of Native Americans in policy- and decision-making, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar met with local tribes to determine whether to approve a massive offshore wind-farm project in Massachusett’s Nantucket Sound.

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. [...]

I traveled to Oahu, Molokai and the Big Island last week, continuing discussions with Native Hawaiians about our proposal to make the ongoing saga of Kahoʻolawe Island one of the eight stories in Losing Sacred Ground. This was my fourth research trip over two years to meet with members of Protect Kahoʻolawe ʻOhana and the [...]

In a confrontation that ended with activists declaring transitory victory, a human blockade in California’s Six Rivers National Forest halted logging operations that the local Karuk tribe says is threatening its sacred sites and the survival of the forest. The protest took place near Orleans, about 140 miles northwest of Redding in Northern California.
Logging crews [...]

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the occupation of Alcatraz by the Indians of All Tribes, perhaps one of the most significant acts of activism conducted by Native Americans to date. Led by Mohawk activist Richard Oakes,  Indians from diverse tribes across the country occupied Alcatraz for 19 months from Nov. 20, 1969 to [...]

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 [...]

In recent months we’ve been hard at work bringing some of our older site reports up to date, and we’re pleased to report that a few of these sacred sites have come a step closer toward preservation

A single English cucumber, wrapped in plastic, costs $3.69. Lettuce is upwards of $5 for three ounces. At one of the town’s three restaurants, a plate of French fries with melted cheese and gravy — yes, three great fats, together known as poutine — is about $8.
This is the reality of the cost of living [...]

Fulfilling his campaign trail promise, President Obama will host the White House Tribal Nations Conference on Thursday, November 5th, 2009.
Representatives from the 564 federally recognized tribes are invited to participate in a discussion with Obama and top members of his administration to brainstorm an agenda that works for America’s first peoples.
The conference is unprecedented in [...]

Coming Up From the Roots, a conversation with women leaders at the forefront of the environmental justice movement, will take place at the Brower Center Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. Click here for more information and to buy tickets. Wahleah Johns, Executive Director at Black Mesa Water Coalition,  Vien Truong, Senior Policy Associate at [...]

The utility company PacifiCorp has agreed to a proposal to remove four hydroelectric dams that for decades have blocked salmon migration on the Klamath River in Oregon and California. The Sept. 30 announcement marked a major step forward in a sometimes bitter decade-long negotiation process between PacifiCorp, federal and state governments, Native American tribes, fishermen, [...]

Nestlé officially withdrew its proposal to build a water bottling facility in the northern California town of McCloud on September 11, stating it has decided to locate a new bottling plant in Sacramento instead.
In 2003, the McCloud town government signed a contract to sell 521 million gallons of underground water per year to Nestlé and [...]

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

The date — July 16 — has always had special resonance for me. In the 1970s, during extended wanderings in the Four Corners area, I was amazed that nuclear bombs were still being tested in Nevada, long after the first atomic explosion in history on July 16, 1945 in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Scientific tests that [...]

The National Science Foundation released a supplemental draft environmental impact statement in May for the proposed Advanced Technology Solar Telescope atop Haleakala Volcano in Hawaii.
Comments on the SDEIS must be received or postmarked by June 22, 2009.
Located on the southeastern reach of Maui, Haleakala is managed as a national park, and the summit, with an [...]

On June 8, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the petition by numerous Native American tribes and environmental groups to hear a case to protect the San Francisco Peaks. The Snowbowl ski area’s plan to expand on the Peaks and make snow from treated sewage effluent will now proceed.
“The Supreme Court’s denial of certiorari in the [...]

Over the past month, we’ve published three new sacred site reports—featuring locations in Japan, Colombia and Afghanistan—which we invite you read

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, [...]

On April 20 the Winnemem Wintu Tribe filed a lawsuit against the Department of Interior, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Reclamation and the Bureau of Indian Affairs asking for redress for decades of broken promises and destruction of sacred sites. Continuing the 2004 War Dance at Shasta Dam a traditional ceremony was held [...]

It appears the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump is dead. President Obama’s new budget states that the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository project “will be scaled back to those costs necessary to answer inquiries from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission while the administration devises a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal.”
Declaring victory, Nevada Senator Harry Reid [...]

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 its 2008 List of Endangered, Lost and Saved Sacred Sites, the Berkeley, California-based Sacred Sites International Foundation, a non-profit preservation advocacy organization, selected the upper, middle and lower sections of the McCloud River of northern California for each of the list’s three categories. The McCloud River Watershed is the traditional home of the Winnemem [...]

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 [...]

The U.S. Office of Surface Mining (OSM) will soon release a “Record of Decision” on the “Black Mesa Project” Final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS). This decision will determine if the now closed Black Mesa Mine will re-open more lands for coal strip mining, potentially relocate more families from Black Mesa and give Peabody Coal Company [...]

In its last months, the Bush administration is attempting to complete a longstanding agenda for oil and gas drilling in southern and eastern Utah. Resource Management Plans (RMPs) for six regions were finalized in October, including the Price RMP, which includes Nine Mile Canyon. Nine Mile Canyon, the location of treasured rock art and places [...]

SLFP congratulates youth filmmakers from the Swinomish Tribe for the national debut of the documentary film March Point on PBS November 18, 2008. Cody Cayou, Nick Clark, and Travis Tom worked with the Native Lens program to document the impact of oil refineries on their ancestral land in Washington state. Tribal members continue to fish [...]

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 [...]

We filmed the annual pilgrimage of the Winnemem Wintu to their healing spring on Mt. Shasta this past weekend. Everyone was overjoyed to see the spring bubbling and flowing into Panther Meadows, which is carpeted with wildflowers. As the glaciers in the rest of the world continue to melt, the glaciers on Mt. Shasta are [...]

“Why is this sacred but that is not sacred?” “Is Kaho`olawe deserving of focus if Mauna Kea and Haleakala and Kilauea are excluded?” “Is sacred land separate from knowledge, chants, stories, heiaus?” “The bombing of Kaho`olawe has been stopped, but they are still bombing Makua Valley on Oahu, so why not film there?” These are [...]

Unlike our recent production trips to Siberia and Australia, where we did extensive research at our home base in California and then just went in shooting, the possibility of making a film about Native Hawaiians restoring Kaho`olawe is going to be a long and delicate process. The issues in Hawaii are old, deep and complicated. [...]

In their endless struggle to regain federal recognition, the Winnemem Wintu traveled to Sacramento today to lobby for passage of a non-binding resolution — AJR 39 (Assembly Joint Resolution 39) — which would urge the U.S. Congress to look into their situation and take corrective action. We filmed the Winnemem’s day in the halls of power to [...]

Rising gracefully out of the ocean south of Maui is a presence everyone feels. It’s the island you cannot visit. Littered with “unexploded ordnance” courtesy of the U.S. Navy, access is restricted. Yet the island is the site of a cultural renaissance with international implications. Native Hawaiians control visitation to this sacred place and are [...]

In the post 9/11 world, it’s risky to comment on human tragedies that produce martyrs in places which then come to be regarded as “sacred.” Innocent people who die deserve tremendous respect. The place of their passing comes to have great emotional power for those left behind. So it was quite surreal to find myself [...]

Caleen Sisk-Franco, Spiritual Leader and Tribal Chief of the Winnemem Wintu, discovered last week that the healing spring on Mt. Shasta that is the birthplace of both the Winnemem people and their ancestral river had dried up. Everyone asked why — Global warming? Cremation ashes that have been dumped in the spring by New Age [...]

What do you do when a sacred spring goes dry? Perhaps you cry enough tears to fill it up. Maybe you get scared that this is a sign that the world is ending.
On the southern slope of Mt. Shasta, just below tree line, the Winnemem Wintu revere a bubbling spring that they consider to be [...]

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 afternoon screening of In the Light of Reverence and a panel discussion with Native American leaders Winona LaDuke, Oren Lyons, Henrietta Mann and Caleen Sisk-Franco will be presented during the week of the opening of Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, in Washington D.C., in association with Spirit: The Seventh Fire, a theatrical [...]

The environmental and cultural tragedy continues on the Hopi and Navajo reservations in northern Arizona. For over 30 years, Peabody Coal Company has pumped 1.3 billion gallons of pure drinking water from the Navajo Aquifer beneath Black Mesa, to slurry coal to the Mohave Generating Station in Nevada, 273 miles away. In spite of mounting [...]

The Winnemem Wintu will conduct a war dance from September 12 -16, to protest the raising of Shasta Dam, which could flood more of their ancestral lands – including ceremonial sites, ancestral villages and burials. The War Dance is performed when a serious threat to homeland and culture is perceived, and though there have been [...]

The California State Senate yesterday passed SB 18, a sacred sites protection bill entitled Traditional Tribal Cultural Places. The vote was 30 to 4. On August 20, bill was sent to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for signature. If he does not veto or sign the bill within 30 days it becomes law. SB 18 requires consultation [...]

The California State Assembly today passed SB 18, a sacred sites protection bill entitled Traditional Tribal Cultural Places, by a vote of 72-4. The state Senate will vote on SB 18 on August 19, and passage is expected. The bill will then go to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger for signature. The bill requires consultation between county [...]

Representative Nick Rahall (D, WV) introduced an amendment to an appropriations bill that would ban federal spending on projects that could undermine Native American sacred sites. The House defeated narrowly the amendment, 215-209. Read an Indian Country Today article about the issue.

The Snoqualmie are being broadsided by a triple threat to their Falls. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has approved a 40-year renewal to Puget Sound Energy’s lease to drain water from the Falls; the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is blasting at the rock around the Falls as part of a flood control project; and [...]

President George W. Bush today signed into law H.R. 884, the federal government’s long-standing attempt to extinguish aboriginal title to tens of millions of acres of disputed lands in Nevada, Idaho, Utah and California for 15 cents an acre. The land at issue is the third largest gold producing area in the world and is [...]

Eureka – (Times-Standard): “On Friday, nearly 500 people attended the official deed-signing ceremony between the city of Eureka and the Wiyot tribe. Last month, the Eureka City Council unanimously voted to return a portion of the island. Eureka made history by becoming one of only a small number of cities in the United States to [...]

Coteau Properties Company in Mercer County, North Dakota, plans on expanding an existing coal strip mine, which will destroy approximately 1349 sacred sites, burials and stone effigies, all of which are within the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty territory. The Coteau Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS), the environmental analysis for leasing federal coal in Mercer County, [...]

Despite heavy protests by Western Shoshone tribal councils and traditional people, the Western Shoshone Distribution Bill (S 618/HR 884) will go before the House Representatives on June 1st. The largest tribe of the Western Shoshone came out yesterday with a powerful message to Congress and a hand-delivered a unanimous tribal council resolution objecting to the [...]

The Winnemem Wintu continue their determined struggle for the restoration of federal recognition. Representatives of the northern California tribe assert that they have long been recognized by the U.S. government, and their lack of that official status now is simply the result of being mysteriously dropped from the BIA list of recognized tribes in the [...]

In northern California, the Eureka City Council voted by unanimous consent to approve the return of a portion of Indian Island north of the Samoa Bridge on Highway 255 to the Wiyot People of the Table Bluff Reservation. At a very emotional meeting, United Indian Health Services representatives Jerry Simone and Maria Tripp spoke of [...]

Ancient burial mounds and earthworks in Ohio are being destroyed and damaged and human remains have been dug up and stored in a warehouse. The Octagon Mounds near Newark, Ohio were leveled to build a private country club and golf course. The public and Indian groups are only allowed on the property on four golf-free [...]

Thanks to everyone who contacted their elected representatives to oppose the nomination of William Myers to the 9th Circuit. Today the Senate Judiciary Committee voted Myers out of committee for consideration by the full Senate by a vote of 10-9. All nine Democrats on the Committee voted against the nomination. While the party line vote [...]

In another victory for sacred site protection on National Park lands, a federal appeals court ruled that non-Indians seeking access to Rainbow Bridge cannot sue the National Park Service for violation of constitutional rights. On March 23, 2004, a three-judge panel for the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said that the plaintiffs did not show [...]

Activists won a huge victory in October 2003 when citizens of Albuquerque voted down a street bond measure by a 55-45% margin (see below). This vote ensured that there would be no money available for the construction of Paseo Del Norte and Unser Blvd., which threaten to bisect Petroglyph National Monument. Now, New Mexico State [...]

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 [...]

NASA is preparing an Environmental Impact Study (EIS) to determine the potential impacts of building up to 6 new telescopes on the sacred summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawai’i. Mauna Kea is perhaps the most sacred site to Native Hawaiians. The volcanic peak serves as the zenith of the Hawaiian people’s [...]

Plans for a proposed shooting range near the sacred vision-questing site know as Bear Butte in South Dakota have been dropped in the face of strong opposition by native activists. Charmaine White Face, coordinator for the Defenders of the Black Hills, said prayers and a lot of hard work led the developers to abandon the [...]

The controversy over geothermal development in the sacred Medicine Lake Highlands in northereast California is heating up as public pressure for corporate responsibility grows. Calvert Social Investment Fund has filed a shareholder resolution demanding that the Calpine Corporation, “cease and desist development in the Medicine Lake Highlands.” In the same resolution, Calvert further insists that [...]

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 [...]

We have been asked to report the sad news that Winnemem Wintu elder Florence Jones passed away this morning at the age of 96. Seven days shy of her 97th birthday, the “top doctor” of the Wintu was at home surrounded by family at the time of her passing. It has been a privilege and [...]

This just in from the SAGE Council in Albuquerque: “We won! We’re still in shock, as we’ve lost so many battles, but this was a HUGE victory for all of us and for sacred places across this earth. The final count was 52% – 48% against the Street Bonds. Thank you to all who’ve sent [...]

For fifteen years, native activists in Albuquerque have been fighting a proposed commuter highway which would cut through the middle of Petroglyph National Monument, a Native American sacred area still used for religious practice. Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez is seeking funding for the road via Albuquerque’s Street Bond election measure on October 28. The real [...]

An afternoon panel discussion on Native American Sacred Lands will take place as part of the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual conference in Denver, Colorado, on Friday, October 3, from 1:30 to 5 PM. A two-hour dialogue will follow a screening of In the Light of Reverence. The panel will include moderator Chris Peters [...]

Join us at the historic Elks Theatre for a screening of In the Light of Reverence followed by a discussion with Native American author Winona LaDuke, forest activist Julia Butterfly Hill and filmmaker Christopher McLeod. Proceeds benefit Defenders of the Black Hills, local activists fighting to stop the clear-cutting of the remaining wilderness areas in [...]

In one of the last actions of the California Senate Assembly before adjourning for the year, SB18 – the Traditional Tribal Cultural Site Bill, failed to get enough votes to pass in the Assembly. Senator John Burton (D, San Francisco), kept the legislature in session until 1:30 AM in hopes of passing the bill, which [...]

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 [...]

The U.S. Forest Service announced it would ban rock climbing at Cave Rock on the southeastern shore of Lake Tahoe in Nevada, calling the site a cultural resource worthy of protection. The decision, eight years in the making, was signed by Maribeth Gustafson, forest supervisor of the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. The Washoe Tribe [...]

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 [...]

On Wednesday, June 18 the Senate Indian Affairs Committee will hold the third in a series of oversight hearings on the failure of federal agencies to protect sacred places. The hearing is in Senate Russell Building’s SR-485. Testimony will focus on Medicine Lake (CA), Ocmulgee Old Fields (GA), Medicine Wheel (WY) and Bear Butte (SD). [...]

The Sacred Places Protection Coalition will observe Friday, June 20, 2003 as a National Day of Prayer to Protect Native American Sacred Places. Observances will be held on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol from sunrise to midday and in at least 10 other locations around the country including Phoenix, Albuquerque, Boulder, Sacramento, New [...]

Rep. Nick Rahall (D, WV) has re-introduced The Native American Sacred Lands Act (H.R. 2419), to counter growing threats to holy places like Medicine Lake, Zuni Salt Lake and Indian Pass. The bill would create a process by which Native Americans can petition federal land management agencies to withdraw sacred lands from development, and go [...]

In the first step towards reactivating a state sacred lands bill, the California State Assembly passed AB 974. The bill provides for the planning and regulation of development within the coastal zone, and would require an area containing a sacred site identified in consultation with the Native American Heritage Commission and appropriate local Native Americans, [...]

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 [...]

Seventh Generation Fund and the Yankton Sioux Nation are calling for a boycott of the state of South Dakota due to the ongoing desecration of Indian burials at the North Point Recreation Area. South Dakota is preparing for the Lewis and Clark Bi-Centennial Celebration by sprucing up parks along the Missouri River but native people [...]

A Canton, Ohio court has dismissed an appeal by Barbara Crandell, a Cherokee woman who has been convicted of trespassing on ancient Indian Mounds at the Moundbuilders Country Club golf course. Ms. Crandell has prayed at the site for 20 years, and argues that the land is public. The ruling by the 5th Ohio District [...]

Calvert’s Social Research Department has recommended that the mutual fund no longer invest in Calpine, due to the company’s aggressive pursuit of geothermal energy at Medicine Lake, a vision-questing area for the Pit River Tribe in northern California. Calvert’s Social Index Committee will act at their quarterly meeting in June on the recommendation to delete [...]

Read Sacred Land Film Project Director Christopher McLeod’s two-page report on current threats to sacred places in the latest issue of Earth Island Journal.

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 [...]

At their annual meeting in San Diego, NCAI members passed several resolutions relating to protection of culturally and spiritually significant lands. You can download two important new documents: Protection of Threatened Sacred Places (SD-02-018) and Essential Elements of Public Policy to Protect Native Sacred Places (SD-02-027) from the complete list of 2002 NCAI Resolutions.

The Bush Administration has scrapped protections granted to the Medicine Lake Highlands, a volcanic area east of Mt. Shasta, long used for vision quests and healing ceremonies by the Pit River, Modoc and other tribes in northeast California.  The Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service have granted Calpine Corporation permission to develop a [...]

Read the Sierra Magazine (11/02) cover story on threatened Native American holy places, “Sacred Landscapes” by Valerie Taliman (Navajo). In the same issue, see Winona LaDuke’s story on Zuni Salt Lake, “The Salt Woman and The Coal Mine.”

The upper Missouri River ran freely through Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota until six massive dam and reservoir projects were built during the second half of the twentieth century. This 1,500-mile stretch of river has long been central to the life and worship of 26 local Native American cultures, including the Lakota, Dakota and [...]

Three hours before the signing deadline, California Governor Gray Davis vetoed SB 1828, the sacred land protection bill, though he expressed strong support for the Quechan Indian Nation’s struggle to defeat the proposed Glamis Imperial open pit gold mine in the California desert. In his veto message Davis said, “The protection of sacred sites is [...]

The California State Assembly today voted 53-12 in favor of SB 1828, the sacred lands protection bill authored by State Senator John Burton (D, San Francisco). It was a strong bipartisan vote-with 10 Republicans voting for the bill-and it shows that lawmakers are serious about protecting the sacred places of California’s indigenous people.
Governor Gray Davis
State [...]

Readers of the San Francisco Chronicle awoke Monday morning to a front page headline “Tribes Wager Newfound Clout on Sacred Land,” and Tuesday morning they drove to work and heard KQED-FM’s Forum program devote an hour to a sacred land protection bill that passed the California State Senate in June and will be considered by [...]

Rep. Nick Rahall (D, WV) has introduced The Native American Sacred Lands Act (H.R. 5155, to counter growing threats to holy places like Quechan Indian Pass and Zuni Salt Lake. The bill would create a process by which Native Americans can petition federal land management agencies to withdraw sacred lands from development, and go to [...]

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. As described by NTHP: “Southern California’s Indian Pass and the upper Missouri River basin are more than a thousand miles apart, but they’re linked by an unfortunate [...]

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. As described by NTHP: “Southern California’s Indian Pass and the upper Missouri River basin are more than a thousand miles apart, but they’re linked by an unfortunate [...]

A landmark agreement between a corporation, a nonprofit agency and the federal government has been reached that will protect Weatherman Draw from current oil drilling leases. The Anschutz Exploration Corporation has turned over its leases to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which will hold the leases until they expire, and the Bureau of Land [...]

The stakes at Black Mesa grow higher as the impact of Peabody’s coal slurry gets more press attention and the Hopi Tribal Council considers a new power plant. Peabody has announced that, in addition to its request for a permanent “life of mine” permit, it will seek an expansion of the mine, which will result [...]

The Sacred Land Film Project helped organize a forum on sacred land protection at the Department of the Interior headquarters as part of a week-long conference (from March 19-22) convened to form a national Sacred Lands Protection Coalition. The DOI forum was intended to draw the attention of legislators and federal land managers toward improving [...]

On the slopes of the San Francisco Peaks, north of Flagstaff, Arizona, a 100-foot deep mine pit yields volcanic pumice, a soft white rock used to make stonewashed jeans. For the last three years a determined coalition led by the Sierra Club and thirteen Native American tribes who hold the Peaks sacred have waged a [...]

Hopi elder Thomas Banyacya passed away on February 9, 1999, at the age of 89. He is remembered in our 1999 Annual Report.

Forest Service Says No to Ski Resort on Mt. Shasta
U.S. Forest Service Supervisor Sharon Heywood announced on February 19, 1998 that she would recommend against the construction of a $22 million ski resort that threatened Native American spiritual practices and sacred sites at Mt. Shasta. For fifteen years, a coalition of Indian and other activist [...]

In a stunning reversal, the Keeper of the Register of Historic Places has changed the nomination of Mt. Shasta to the national register. Originally, the keeper found that Mt. Shasta in its entirety was eligible to the list, due in part to the entire mountain’s spiritual significance to numerous Native American cultures. After private property [...]