As bulldozers began clearing the site of a new wind-energy facility in the desert of western Imperial County, California — ripping up forests of ocotillo cacti, damaging sensitive wildlife habitat and threatening ancestral graves of the Quechan Tribe — tribal members and their allies stood outside the La Jolla corporate offices of Pattern Energy on May 15, demanding a halt to the project.

“How would you feel if the President proposed a wind project on top of your ancestors’ graves, or on top of the Arlington National cemetery?” Keeny Escalanti, president of the Quechan Tribe of the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation, asked at the La Joya press conference, where the tribe formally announced it was going to court to save its sacred land.

On May 11, the U.S. Department of Interior gave final approval to Pattern Energy’s Ocotillo Wind Energy Facility, granting it a 30-year right-of-way to build and operate the project over nearly 15 square miles. It would be California’s largest wind farm on public land, placing 112 giant turbines alongside the desert community of Ocotillo, at the far southern end of the Imperial Valley.

But the Quechan and other area tribes, including the Viejas Band of Kumeyaay Indians, say the area — which contains at least a dozen cremation sites, hundreds of archeological sites like petroglyphs and geoglyphs, and countless sites of spiritual significance — meets the criteria to be designated and protected as a traditional cultural property under the National Historic Preservation Act. The desert region is also home sensitive plant and animal species, including the endangered Peninsular Bighorn Sheep.

The Quechan Tribe filed a complaint in federal court on May 14, seeking an injunction to stop the project, one of 19 renewable energy projects designated last year by the Bureau of Land Management for “fast-track” approval. The complaint alleges that the Department of Interior, in approving the project, violated several federal laws and regulations, including the National Historic Preservation Act and the land’s designation as a Class L “limited use” area, which is intended to “protect sensitive, natural, scenic, ecological, and cultural resource values.”

Prior to project approval, according to a press release issued by the tribe, “motorized vehicles could only travel on designated roads and it was forbidden to move rocks around. With the stroke of a pen, the area can now be bulldozed to dig foundations 25 to 35 feet deep and 70 to 80 feet in diameter to accommodate 112 wind turbines over 440 feet tall as well as 42 miles of new roads.”

The complaint also claims the Quechan Tribe’s efforts to participate in the permitting process were “impaired by Interior’s failure to exchange and share information with the Tribe, and Interior’s failure to consider or incorporate the Tribe’s comments and concerns in the planning process.”

In contrast, the Department of Interior, in its record of decision on the project, said it “sought meaningful consultation with the affected tribes,” and that, in response to tribal concerns, the final project eliminated 43 of the 155 turbines initially proposed, reduced the project area by 2,285 acres, and increased the distance of the turbines from “a number of important resources.” Still, the department acknowledged that the project would “still have an unmitigated adverse effect on resources that are spiritually and culturally significant to the affected tribes.”

For its part, Pattern Energy says it is “committed to building the project in a responsible manner” and that the project’s environmental impact statement “clearly demonstrates that we have designed the Ocotillo Wind Project to minimize impacts on cultural and environmental resources.”

But at the press conference, Escalanti said the final environmental impact statement “does not begin to state the significance this area has for our people, does not contain the voices of indian people.” He continued, “If our concerns were taken seriously, then the administration, which promised a better government-to-government consultation and a better relationship with tribal governments, wouldn’t even think about placing a wind turbine near our cremation sites.”

Escalanti noted that the Quechan tribal council is not opposed to renewable energy. “We believe that the fundamental values underlying renewable energy, such as a harmonious relationship with the earth, are in agreement with our own traditional values.” However, he said the tribe was opposed to the Ocotillo project because it is “unnecessarily leading to the destruction of our cultural resources and heritage.”

Some environmental conservationists and local residents are also opposed to the project. Concerns include threats to plant and animal species and habitats, most notably the authorized “take” (i.e., displacement and even death) of 10 endangered bighorn sheep — five ewes and five lambs — within the project area. There is also the question of the project’s potential benefits: although the Ocotillo Wind Energy project website says the wind farm will be able to power 125,000 homes, the Interior Department’s record of decision sets that number at 25,000.

On May 18, a federal judge heard a motion to consider issuing a temporary injunction to halt construction. That decision is forthcoming. Meanwhile, a train loaded with what appeared to be segments of wind turbines arrived in Imperial Valley on May 20.

Each summer, the Winnemem Wintu, whose home is the McCloud River watershed in northern California, hold a four-day coming-of-age ceremony on the river for the tribe’s young women. But this sacred ritual has, in recent years, been threatened by the presence of outsiders drinking alcohol and shouting threats and racial slurs as they travel on the river.

Since 2005, the Winnemem have repeatedly asked the U.S. Forest Service to close a 300-yard stretch of the river to boating and general access, in order to protect the sanctity of the ceremony as well as the safety of the young initiates as they swim across the river. Instead, the Forest Service instituted a “voluntary closure,” which has only served to make the tribe a target of harassment.

Despite having documented previous disruptions of their ceremony, the Winnemem’s requests for a mandatory closure have been met with a lack of response or an ineffective effort to protect their traditions, which the U.S. government is mandated to do under the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. The tribe’s request is also consistent with Forest Service obligations to protect religious practice under the Religious Freedom and Restoration Act. The ceremony is also protected under the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which President Obama has signed.

This year’s ceremony, to take place June 30 to July 3, holds special importance because it’s being held for the young woman who is training to become the next tribal leader. It will be essential to maintain the security and sanctity of the ceremony, and to protect her from undue trauma — which can only be achieved by closing this small stretch of river for four days.

On April 16, Winnemem leader Caleen Sisk and other tribal leaders met with U.S. Forest Service Regional Forester Randy Moore at his Vallejo office to present their request for a mandatory closure; outside the building tribal members held a protest with signs reading “Respect Native Women. Close the River” and “Our Ceremony, Our Rights, Close the River.” Moore promised to review the request and respond by May 1.

To learn more about the Winnemem struggle to close the river and their meeting with Moore, watch this video on the Winnemem Wintu website.

What you can do

• Please contact Regional Forester Randy More at rmoore@fs.fed.us or by calling 707-562-8737, and respectfully urge him to close the McCloud River to general recreational use along the 300-yard stretch where the Winnemem puberty ceremony will take place from June 30 to July 3. Click here for a sample letter.
• If you represent a tribe and want to support the Winnemem, please print, sign and mail this tribal resolution in support of a river closure.
• Learn more, and sign an online petition, at SaveOurCeremony.com.

For more than 12,000 years, native people inhabited several villages clustered around the roar of Wyam of N’ch-iwana — Celilo Falls on the Columbia River — the center of a vast salmon-based fishing and trading economy and the nucleus of many sacred sites, petroglyphs and burial grounds.

Celilo Falls was a natural wonder, by volume the largest waterfall in North America and the sixth largest in the world, and it was here that the Creator supplied the tribes with countless millions of salmon and other sustenance.

It was unthinkable that any of this would ever be lost. But in 1957, a dam was built downriver at The Dalles, Oregon, and Celilo Falls was flooded to facilitate barge traffic past the rapids and in an attempt to force the Wyam people to abandon their sacred sites and homes, as had been the fate of every other Indian village along the length of the Columbia.

So strong were the tribes’ connections to Celilo, however, that despite the many depredations they suffered, the Wyam people remained at Celilo Village, and have persevered as the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in North America. They await the return of Celilo Falls. Read more…

Nearly two years after the Dongria Kondh tribe in the Indian state of Orissa won a historic victory to halt an open-pit bauxite mining project on its sacred lands, both tribe and land are facing renewed threats.

In the lead-up to an important annual festival held atop their holy Niyamgiri Hills this past weekend, the 8,000-member tribe experienced a crack-down by state security forces. The NGO Survival International said it received reports of arrests and beatings, and that  in the past week alone, police had shut down six meetings where food supplies were being organized for the festival.

Giridhari Patra from the Niyamgiri Protection Committee said, “Intimidating and threatening the Dongria before one of their most important festivals is unforgivable. The mountain is the seat of their god and the basis of their identity. We will never give it up to [the mining company].”

In August 2010, India’s environment minister, citing violations of environmental and human rights laws, denied permission for state-owned Orissa Mining Corporation and a subsidiary of UK-based Vedanta Resources to build a bauxite mine in the Niyamgiri Hill range. The company had set up an alumina refinery in Orissa in 2008 with the expectation that it would be allowed to annually extract three million metric tons of bauxite, the raw material for aluminum.

The Dongria Kondh consider the remote hills — home to their god, Niyam Raja — sacred, and they also depend on the hills for their water, food and livelihood. For the past 10 years they have been fighting to protect their land and way of life.

Now, their way of life is once again in danger. Orissa Mining filed a petition last year challenging the environment minister’s decision, and Survival International says the case is expected to go before the  Indian Supreme Court on April 9.

Visit the Survival International website to learn more about the Dongria Kondh and what you can do to help.

All tickets are now SOLD OUT for our Thursday, March 15 preview of scenes from Standing on Sacred Ground. Thanks to all our supporters!

Reception starts at 6 PM, with special guests Caleen Sisk of the Winnemem Tribe in California, and Danil Mamyev, sacred site guardian from the Altai Republic in Russia. The screening begins at 7:30 PM. at the David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way in Berkeley. Tickets for the fundraiser reception are $100 — and for the screening alone: $15.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Opening Reception & Silent Auction
6:00– 7:15 p.m.
Hazel Wolf Gallery

Film & Talk
7:30 p.m./ lobby doors open at 7:15 p.m.
Richard & Rhoda Goldman Theater

at the David Brower Center
2150 Allston Way (at Oxford)
Berkeley, California

Tickets for the reception and screening
are $100 each

Tickets for just the screening and talk
are $15 each

Join our MC for the evening, Ariel Luckey, and Sacred Land Film Project’s founder and director Toby McLeod for a screening of four segments from SLFP’s new documentary film series Standing on Sacred Ground.

In addition to clips, we’ll hear presentations from two special guests who are featured in the film: Caleen Sisk, chief of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe of northern California; and Danil Mamyev, founder of Uch Enmek Nature Park in the Altai Republic of Russia. Caleen faces a determined U.S. government plan to raise the height of Shasta Dam, which would flood Winnemem sacred sites, and Danil is opposing a Gazprom plan to build a natural gas pipeline through the sacred Ukok Plateau.

Prior to the screening,  SLFP will host a special reception. Guests will have the opportunity to meet Caleen and Danil and sample a special appetizer buffet prepared by Back to Earth catering. Sourced from local, sustainably produced and organic ingredients, the buffet will feature dishes from the regions some of the communities profiled in Standing on Sacred Ground, including Hawai‘i, Altai Republic and Peru.

The reception will also feature a silent auction to benefit production of the film, where guests will have the opportunity to bid on one-of-a-kind items donated by friends of SLFP.

For more information call 510-859-9100.

Media inquiries: Kevin Connelly at kevin@earthisland.org 510-859-9155.

In a report released this week exploring the feasibility of various options to expand northern California’s Shasta Dam and Reservoir, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation identified raising the dam 18.5 feet — the highest possible option — as its “preliminary proposed plan.”

Raising the dam would deal a critical blow to the culture of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, wiping out dozens of their sacred sites and ancient village sites with burials. A preliminary draft environmental impact statement, also released this week, found that raising the dam even 6.5 feet would have a “significant and unavoidable” impact on sacred sites and other cultural properties. The dance ground and bark huts depicted in this photograph would be forever lost to rising waters that would flood ceremonial dance sites, healing places, plant and food gathering sites, and many rocks and caves with great meaningful cultural stories.

Government authorities say a dam raise is needed in order to boost California’s stressed water supply, improve the survival of salmon and other migrating fish, and respond to other water-resource needs. The feasibility study explored a number of options — including taking no action or raising the dam 6.5, 12.5 or 18.5 feet — and found the 18.5 dam raise option to be the most feasible and economically justified.

About nine tenths of Winnemem Wintu ancestral lands on the McCloud River were submerged in 1945 when the federal government built Shasta Dam. Many of the tribe’s sacred sites were submerged then, and the few that do remain — including some of the most important — are now under water for part of the year as lake levels rise and fall with the seasons. According to one estimate, raising the dam would permanently submerge more than 30 sites.

“They don’t talk about us as the people most impacted, or the fact we have nowhere else to go to practice our religion,” Winnemem leader Caleen Sisk said. “We can only teach our distinctive Winnemem lifeway here. It will be extremely hard to teach the tribal youth when you can’t go to the specific ceremonial or sacred site, see it, feel it, pray there, be there and develop a relationship with it as a Winnemem.”

Sisk also said that raising the dam will do nothing to help the salmon.

The story received front page coverage in Thursday’s San Francisco Chronicle.

The release of the reports marks only a step in a lengthy decision-making process that is still years away from resolution. The Bureau of Reclamation will begin holding workshops with stakeholders to solicit input as it develops a draft environmental impact statement, which is expected to be completed in 2014, followed by a public comment period and the release of the final statement. Even if the project is ultimately approved, Congress must still vote to fund the $1 billion project.

In the meantime, the public can send comments to Katrina Chow, Bureau of Reclamation project manager, at kchow@usbr.gov.

In Tibetan culture, where people live in intimate relationship with the natural world around them, reality and mythology have a way of blending together. So it was perhaps no surprise to local villagers when, after a Chinese mining company and local authorities repeatedly repelled efforts stop a gold mining project on the slopes of holy Mount Kawagebo, the mountain appeared to strike back.

Mount Kawagebo, so sacred that climbing is banned, sits on the border between Tibet and China’s Yunnan Province; its eastern side is part of the Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Area UNESCO World Heritage site. In February 2011, a small gold-mining operation started near the village of Abin, which is on the western side of Kawagebo, along the path of an 800-year-old pilgrimage route that circles the mountain, attracting tens of thousands of Tibetans annually.

To the local people, who believe strongly in the sacredness of Mount Kawagebo, direct destruction of the mountain body, through activities like mining, is unthinkable. Further, villagers said the project was started without permission or prior consent. Thus began a community effort to halt the project.

Villagers said their attempts to deal directly with the mining company resulted in threats and violence from agents hired by the company, and harassment and arrests by local police. On two occasions, men armed with wooden sticks with nails attacked villagers, injuring more than a dozen.

After efforts to negotiate with the local government failed, villagers pushed $300,000 worth of mining equipment into the Nu River. A leader of the group was arrested, but later released when 100 villagers surrounded the local police station where he was being held. A few months later, however, mining resumed and tensions grew. Harassment, death threats and attacks on villagers increased, and some women and children fled to other villages to escape the violence.

On January 20, 2012, a village leader who had tried to confront the mining company was ambushed by local police, tased and arrested. Some 200 community members surrounded the police station, and an ensuing riot resulted in violence and injuries on both sides, with at least one villager sent to the hospital with serious injuries. The leader was released, but protests continued as villagers demanded closure of the mine, and hundreds more villagers from the surrounding area joined in.

This time, the local government held negotiations with the community, including the just-released leader, on behalf of the mining company, whose boss had reportedly fled the area. Villagers involved in negotiations said they were offered money in exchange for allowing the mining to continue, but they refused. On January 23, with tensions mounting, a vice-official from the prefecture government ordered the mine closed and the equipment trucked out of the village.

While the persistence of the community to protect its holy mountain ultimately paid off, some villagers suggested the mountain itself had a role to play. During the negotiations, many reported hearing the sound of a trumpet shell—used in Tibetan religious rituals—coming from the mountain, while others reported unusually windy weather, which stopped once the conflict was resolved.

A Tibetan hired to provide catering to the mine workers described being struck by a physical pressure that forced him to drop what he was carrying; only after he prayed did the sensation disappear. Several months earlier, according to another account, a village leader who had accepted bribes from the mining company died suddenly, and a member of his family was seriously injured in an accident.

A Chinese researcher closely involved with the communities of the area, who asked not to be named because of fears for her personal security, described the context of these supernatural accounts. “In a place like Tibet, people have an unusual sense of divinity in nature, based on a whole system of worship and interaction, which sometime seems superstitious to modern citizens,” she said. “But it is not necessarily irrational or unreasonable.”

This sense of nature worship, she said, with its attendant conservation values, is “barely left due to past communism and later economic development.” But in the Himalayas and other mountain areas, where non-Han ethnicities reside and remain somewhat protected, those traditional values can still be found. She described Kawagebo as a success story showing “how sacred nature can be” and how it can “still be respected, protected and continue to make an impact in people’s lives.”

Unfortunately, Abin is but one of many villages threatened by mining activities—in most other cases, marble quarrying—and a greater overarching threat to the region: hydroelectric dam development.

Along the Nu (Salween) River, the longest free-flowing river in mainland Southeast Asia, a proposed 13-dam cascade—including several dams in or very close to the World Heritage site—would wipe out portions of the pilgrimage route around Mount Kawagebo and displace the communities of the river valley, likely dealing a blow to their traditional culture as well. Although the project was put on hold in 2004 in the wake of widespread protest, it is certainly not dead.

Last year, the World Heritage Committee issued a statement expressing concern over reports of unapproved construction under way at one dam site on the Nu River, and surveying work—including road-building and drilling—at three others. It warned that “the many proposed dams could cumulatively constitute a potential danger to the property’s Outstanding Universal Value.”

The committee asked China to submit by February 1 of this year a detailed list of all proposed dams, as well as mines, that could affect the World Heritage property, along with the environmental impact assessments of any proposed projects, prior to their approval. The committee also requested, by the same deadline, a report on the state of conservation of the property and on the progress made in completing a strategic environmental impact assessment on all of the proposed dams and related development that could impact the site’s World Heritage value.

The Sacred Land Film Project (SLFP) of Earth Island Institute is seeking a Development Coordinator to lead its international fundraising effort, including major individual giving and foundation support.

SLFP is a documentary film project dedicated to protecting the earth’s sacred places through education and action (www.sacredland.org). We are currently in post-production on a four-part documentary series for public television about indigenous people around the world confronting threats to their traditional land and sacred sites. The Development Coordinator will play a key role in designing and implementing the fundraising strategy that will see this film project, “Standing on Sacred Ground,” through to completion and into distribution.

Core Responsibilities:

• Strategize, implement and supervise the long-term development plan for the film project, including LOI and grant writing, individual giving and events

• Brainstorm, explore, and implement new sources of untapped funding

• Research and strategize online and digitally-based revenue sources, including crowd-based funding and web partnerships

• Execute and track deliverables and requirements to fulfill grant obligations

• Manage and update five-year project budget for documentary film and Sacred Land Film Project (SLFP) programmatic work; keep budget up to date on server

• In collaboration with SLFP team, manage finances for the project

• Supervise and coordinate fundraising events, including screenings, donor lunches, and incentives

• Promote SLFP by attendance and tabling at local events

Fundraising:

• Identify potential funding sources and deadlines; with project director, develop and implement long-term strategy for foundation support

• Write and submit LOIs, funding proposals and online applications, collaborating with staff as needed; Draft funder-specific budgets for individual proposals. Identify and gather required administrative paperwork (501c3 and IRS Determination letter, BOD list, Audits/990, etc.); File complete copies of sent materials

• Track all relevant deadlines and information in our database and on shared calendar

• Strategize, initiate and develop relationships with foundations and major individual donors

• Plan, and with assistance of staff, produce fundraising and screening events

• Produce, write and update fundraising materials with team, including solicitations, e-mails and our year-end mailing

• Assist in donor management, e.g. drafting thank you letters, updating records etc.

• Work with web producer to strategize online fundraising

Funder Management:

• Manage reporting to funders, e.g. draft narrative reports and financial reports, proof budgets, finalize materials for project director’s review, and send

• Execute and track all required deliverables for grant fulfillment, including budget and accounting guidelines

Qualifications & Experience:

The ideal candidate will be a dynamic, driven and sophisticated professional excited by the opportunity to help shape the future of Sacred land Film Project. The Development Coordinator is excellent with relationships, accountable, and dedicated to the cause.

The successful candidate for this position will have:

• Four plus years experience in grant writing, major gift fundraising, and development

• A successful track record of identifying, cultivating and soliciting major individual and institutional donors in a collaborative environment (experience with film production and/or distribution is a plus)

• Comprehensive knowledge of the local and national philanthropic arena

• Exceptional written and interpersonal communication skills, including the ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with staff and volunteers

• Strong background in leveraging fundraising databases (Filemaker a plus) to achieve the goals of the development department

• Proficiency in MS Office

• Excellent organizational and management skills

• Experience overseeing grants budgets (Quickbooks Pro a plus)

• A sense of humor

About Us:

Sacred Land Film Project produces a variety of media and educational materials —films, videos, DVDs, articles, photographs, school curricula materials and web site content — to deepen public understanding of sacred places, indigenous cultures and environmental justice. Our mission is to use journalism, organizing and activism to rekindle reverence for land, increase respect for cultural diversity, stimulate dialogue about connections between nature and culture, and protect sacred lands and diverse spiritual practices. We are currently in post-production phase of a four-part series on sacred places around the world, entitled “Standing on Sacred Ground.”

We are a project of Earth Island Institute. Our office is located in downtown Berkeley, one block from BART in the David Brower Center, one of the Bay Area’s most advanced green buildings, and the inspiring home of a vibrant community of individuals and organizations committed to a just and ecologically sustainable society.

This is a four-day a week position at $35,000/year (depending on experience) with an excellent benefits package starting after a trial period of two months.

How to Apply:

All applicants must send a resume and cover letter to jobs@sacredland.org, with Development Coordinator in the subject line.

SLFP believes in a diverse work force and applicants from underserved or minority communities are encouraged to apply.

The annual Qoyllurit’i pilgrimage of Peru’s Q’eros and other indigenous groups and the traditional knowledge of the jaguar shamans of Yuruparí in Colombia are among the cultural heritage “elements” added last week to U.N. Environmental, Scientific and Cultural Organization’s intangible cultural heritage lists.

At its annual meeting, held Nov. 22-29 in Bali, the UNESCO Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Heritage inscribed these and 17 other elements to its 2011 Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

According to UNESCO, the list, which the committee began compiling in 2008, was created “in order to ensure better visibility of the intangible cultural heritage and awareness of its significance, and to encourage dialogue which respects cultural diversity.” An additional 11 elements were added to a second list, the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Urgent Need of Safeguarding.

In Peru, indigenous Andean communities including the Q’eros — who are the subject of a segment in Sacred Land Film Project’s upcoming film series Standing on Sacred Ground — participate in an annual three-day festival and pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the Lord of Qoyllurit’i. Some 90,000 people from around Cusco journey to a high mountain site in the Sinakara Valley, a place of reverence that encompasses both pre-Hispanic spiritual practice and Catholic belief, yielding a unique and complex religious expression.

In Colombia, the traditional knowledge of the jaguar shamans of Yuruparí represents the cultural heritage of the many ethnic groups that live along the Pirá Paraná River in southeastern Colombia. The shamans use this sacred knowledge “to draw the community together, heal, prevent sickness and revitalize nature.” According to the Gaia Foundation, whose partner Gaia Amazonas assisted in submitting the UNESCO application, the inclusion of the culture of the jaguar shamans “is probably the first example of an entire cultural complex, rather than an individual song, a ritual, or a tradition, being recognised.”

UNESCO describes intangible cultural heritage as traditions and living expressions that are passed down through generations, evolving in response their environments and contributing to a sense of identity and continuity. Intangible cultural heritage represents a diverse wealth of knowledge that can be applied to food security, health, education, and sustainable use of natural resources, thus making it important to recognize and protect.

Click here to watch a Gaia Amazonas video about the jaguar shamans.

To the disappointment and frustration of the Tsilhqot’in Nation, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency announced on Nov. 7 that it would accept a repackaged proposal for the previously rejected Prosperity Gold-Copper Mine, which threatens the Tsilhqot’in sacred lake Teztan Biny in British Columbia.

The proposed mine site — which encompasses Teztan Biny (Fish Lake), Yanah Biny (Little Fish Lake) and the surrounding area, called Nabas — is traditional Tsilhqot’in territory where the people have hunted, trapped, fished, collected medicinal plants, and shared their knowledge and history from generation to generation through cultural gatherings and ceremonies.

The lakes are home to a genetically unique type of rainbow trout. They are also in the headwaters of the last major viable salmon run that comes up the Fraser River, and water in the area is pure enough that the people are able to drink directly the source — a testament to the protection the Tsilhqot’in have provided their traditional lands for generations. The area also provides important habitat for the threatened South Chilcotin grizzly bear.

For some 20 years, the Tsilhqot’in Nation has been fighting Taseko Mines Ltd.’s proposed open-pit mining project, which the Canadian environment minister rejected last year largely because the plan called for draining Teztan Biny and using it as a toxic tailings dump.

The government environmental report on which the decision was based concluded that “the project would result in significant adverse environmental effects on fish and fish habitat, on navigation, on the current use of lands and resources for traditional purposes by First Nations and on cultural heritage, and on certain potential or established Aboriginal rights [to hunt, trap and fish].” It particularly noted that the island in the middle of Teztan Biny, which would have been destroyed, is “a place of spiritual power and healing for the Tsilhqot’in.”

Three months after the government’s refusal, Taseko Mines submitted a revised plan, which proposes instead to build the tailings facility a little over a mile upstream from Teztan Biny. While the new proposal “saves” Teztan Biny, it would still surround the lake with a massive open-pit mine, destroy Yanah Biny and the Nabas region, endanger the trout spawning grounds, and threaten Tsilhqot’in member homes and graves.

Regardless of the proposed plan, according to a Tsilhqot’in media backgrounder, “the fact remains that the ore body lies immediately beside and under Teztan Biny and that the ore body is a toxic cocktail waiting to contaminate the region’s water.”

The Tsilhqot’in National Government called the new proposal a “repackaged version” of a past option that was already determined to be inferior to the most recently rejected plan, and members are frustrated that they must now endure another lengthy and costly review process.

Meanwhile, the mining company, to the dismay of First Nations members and conservationists, has already received exploration permits to begin building 15 miles of roads and dig dozens of test pits and drill holes in the proposed project area.

“The cumulative impacts from the proposed road building and drilling in this area of proven cultural and spiritual importance is a serious threat to our Aboriginal rights,” Chief Marilyn Baptiste of the Xeni Gwet’in First Nation said in a press release. “Any further destruction would be pointless as the federal government cannot possibly approve this proposal.”

What you can do

Please contact Elaine Feldman, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency president, to voice your opposition to Taseko Mines’ revised proposal:

Elaine Feldman
President
Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency
Place Bell Canada 160 Elgin Street, 22nd Floor
Ottawa, Ontario  K1A 0H3 Canada
Email: elaine.feldman@ceaa-acee.gc.ca
Tel: 001-613-948-2671
Fax: 001-613-948-2208

If you send a letter via email, please CC the following people:
Peter Kent, Federal Minister of Environment (peter.kent@parl.gc.ca)
Premier Christy Clark, Province of British Columbia (premier@gov.bc.ca)
Tsilhqot’in Chiefs (mining@tsilhqotin.ca)

The Grand Canyon is close to receiving federal protection from an increase in uranium mining after the Bureau of Land Management on Oct. 26 issued a final environmental impact statement supporting Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar’s proposal for a 20-year moratorium on new mining claims in a million-acre buffer zone around the canyon.

In June of this year, when a 2009 temporary mining ban was due to expire, Salazar issued a six-month extension, asking the BLM to issue a final environmental impact statement evaluating his proposed action. The bureau examined that and three other scenarios — ranging from withdrawing smaller parcels of land from new claims to doing nothing — ultimately favoring Salazar’s proposed action.

Over the past few years, as uranium prices rose, thousands of claims were filed under an 1872 mining law that allows free access to public lands. This renewed interest in uranium mining put Native American tribes, environmental-protection advocates and other stakeholders on alert, and prompted the government to propose the withdrawal of land from new claims.

Increased uranium mining around the Grand Canyon has the potential to threaten aquifers and drinking-water supplies, tribal interests, the tourism economy and the park’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

BLM Director Bob Abbey said the 20-year withdrawal “would allow for cautious, continued development with strong oversight that could help us fill critical gaps in our knowledge about water quality and environmental impacts of uranium mining in the area.”

(Claims approved before July 2009 would not be affected by the ban. According to the final environmental impact statement, 11 mines could be operating in the area in the near future. Some observers are calling for more lasting protection, such as designating the public land surrounding the Grand Canyon as a national monument.)

Take action

After a 30-day review period, the federal government will issue a final decision. Please send a letter to President Obama by Nov. 25 voicing your support for protecting the Grand Canyon.

A delegation of Wixárika (Huichol) people and their allies converged in Mexico City last week to urge the government to protect their sacred landscape, the Wirikuta Natural and Cultural Reserve in the northern state of San Luis Potosí, from imminent threats by mining and agroindustrial projects.

The Wixárika have sustained their millennia-old culture thanks to their resolve to maintain ancestral traditions, a key aspect of which is a 310-mile annual pilgrimage to Wirikuta, regarded as the birthplace of the sun and of peyote, the sacred cactus though which the Wixárika communicate with their ancestors and deities.

The 540-square-mile Wirikuta reserve — located in the Chihuahuan Desert, one of the world’s most biodiverse deserts — encompasses sacred sites and 86 miles of the pilgrimage route. It is unique in that it was explicitly designed to protect the area’s cultural heritage first, followed by its natural heritage. In 2001, the state government designated it as a sacred natural site under a landmark environmental protection law. And in 2004, the entire pilgrimage route was added to Mexico’s Tentative List for inclusion as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Yet despite these protections, the Wixárika’s sacred landscape faces significant threats. First Majestic Silver Corp. of Canada has been granted 22 mining concessions covering more than 23 square miles, 70 percent of which is within the reserve, while Minera Golondrina, an affiliate of another Canadian mining company, wants to build an open-pit gold mine. Toxic tailings, water pollution, ecosystem destruction, loss of wildlife, and depletion of the water table are among the potential impacts.

In addition, industrial tomato growers have razed miles of fragile desert ecosystem. Both agroindustry and mining threaten the habitat of the peyote cactus, essential to Wixárika spiritual practice.

Apart from the direct environmental impacts, Wixárika leaders say these projects endanger the integrity of the sacred landscape and their ability to practice their traditions. The UN’s special rapporteur on indigenous affairs is also investigating the Wixárika’s claim that their right to informed consent regarding the development of their traditional lands has been violated.

The Oct. 26-27 action in Mexico City, the latest effort in a battle that has been unfolding over the past year, included public marches and ceremonies, a press conference, and a meeting with officials of the federal environmental agency.

Wixárika leaders also entered the presidential complex to deliver a letter asking President Felipe Calderón to rescind the mining concessions, curb the agroindustrial megaprojects, and “implement an alternative plan that will generate jobs for local people while it converts Wirikuta on a protected natural area that is a world-renowned model of ecological conservation.” Wixárika are also calling on Calderón to uphold the 2008 Pact of Hauxa Manaká, in which the president and the governors of four Mexican states guaranteed the protection of the Wixárika culture and sacred sites.

What you can do

Support the Wirakuta Defense Front and visit their website for updates and more information about actions you can take.

Visit Cultural Survival’s Wirikuta campaign page for more information, a sample letter to send to Mexican officials, and other ways you can help.

Join our campaign on Kickstarter to help us develop our new augmented-reality mobile app, Finding Sacred Ground!

Augmented reality, a technology for mobile devices that superimposes images and audio over the user’s actual surroundings, is one of the hottest new developments in mobile media. Developers are scrambling to design new augmented-reality applications using this amazingly immersive, interactive tool for entertainment, education, social media … you name it.

But at last year’s Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) Producers’ Institute for New Media, along with our friends at the National Park Service, as well as Paige Saez and Anselm Hook of Maker Lab, we looked at this new media technology and asked a different question: Can a hyper-modern, cutting-edge augmented-reality application also help protect ancient indigenous sacred sites — and inspire reverence for the natural world?

The app we conceptualized at BAVC, called Finding Sacred Ground, will reveal the hidden indigenous history of many well-known tourist attractions and help users explore alternative perspectives on our relationship with the earth. The first phase in our app’s development is to produce a working audio-only pilot at Devils Tower National Monument. We have the concept and the media, and now all we need is $4,500 to pay for a mobile phone application developer.  We have just launched a campaign on the crowd-funding website Kickstarter to raise the necessary funds, and for our campaign (and our app) to be successful, we need your help!

Please check out our Kickstarter campaign and spread the word to your friends, family and colleagues and contribute to making this fantastic project a reality. As for all projects on Kickstarter, we must meet or exceed our funding goal by the deadline (Saturday, November 12) for us to be able to keep any of the pledges we receive, so getting the word out is key!

Thanks very much for your help. Any size donation will make a difference.

Take me to Kickstarter now!

Russian energy giant Gazprom announced this week that it had reached an agreement on a pricing formula to supply natural gas to China — a key sticking point delaying  finalization of a gas-export agreement that includes a proposed 1,700-mile pipeline that would cut across the sacred Ukok Plateau of Russia’s Altai Republic, part of a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Gazprom said it could sign a contract by the end of the year, after which construction of transportation facilities could begin.

Meanwhile, our friends at Cultural Survival and the Altai Project report that Gazprom has begun intensive surveying work for the pipeline, even though UNESCO has warned that going forward with construction would constitute a threat to the site and thus lead to possible inscription on the List of World Heritage in Danger.

Cultural Survival and the Altai Project are are collaborating on a global campaign to help the Telengit people of the Altai reroute construction of the pipeline. The Telengit say the pipeline would destroy many of their sacred monuments, threaten endangered species such as the snow leopard, and damage the plateau’s permafrost, thus hastening the melting of nearby glaciers — as well as cause economic harm by compromising their sources of food and livelihood.

The Altai Project reports that the Ukok Plateau is undergoing extensive exploratory work, including permafrost drilling. Archeological researchers and other specialists have been hired to study cultural heritage sites such as burial mounds and petroglyph complexes, and have identified some 30 sites that require further research and either excavation or a pipeline bypass.

What you can do

The Cultural Survival/Global Response Campaign is asking for your help by sending letters to Russian and Chinese authorities urging a reroute of the pipeline. Full information, addresses and sample letters can be found here.

For more background, read our Aug. 11 news post.

Gary Snyder warned me years ago that the Western mind naturally wants to translate “sacred site” into an either-or dichotomy: “If this is sacred then that is profane — not sacred.” The unintentional harm we might do by trying to protect sacred places could be to win the protection of a small fenced-off area while everything around it is open for desecration. “Be careful,” Gary counseled.

As we begin editing 350 hours of footage from eight sacred landscapes around the world, it is clear that indigenous cultures have myriad kinds of sacred places, and many different relationships, responsibilities, ceremonies, songs, prayers and stories. To find common themes and to draw distinctions, we have interviewed four “big thinkers” — Satish Kumar, Oren Lyons, Winona LaDuke and Barry Lopez — and we are posting some of their comments as web clips. In a world of sound bites, I see a pattern: the really profound comments take two, three, four minutes to unfold.

Satish Kumar brings a Hindu, Buddhist and Jain perspective to the definition of “sacred place.” For Satish, a UK-based writer, pilgrim and editor of Resurgence magazine, all of the Earth is the home of a divine, life-giving force so vast, mysterious and expansive that it is incomprehensible. As Satish explains it, humans embrace the Ganges River as sacred because all water is sacred, so the Ganges is a local symbol of universal sacredness. Mount Kailash is the home of the divine, a living mountain, but still essentially a symbol that all mountains have spirit and give life, as part of the sacred web of life.

It is a worldview of relationship: “This was Mahatma Gandhi’s idea,” says Satish, “moving from ownership to relationship — seeing that land does not belong to us. We belong to the land. We are not the owners of the land. We are the friends of the land, like friends of the earth. The fundamental shift is in this consciousness that land does not belong to us, we belong to the land.”

In a challenge to the environmental movement, Satish says, “We have to have an ecological worldview and understand that we are part of this web of life. But sometimes in our Western, materialistic and intellectual tradition where rationalism has dominated our thinking, even ecology has become a materialistic discipline — a scientific, rational, description of our relationship with the Earth. When you are thinking in terms of Earth being an abode of the divine, you are going further than a materialistic or a rationalistic worldview of ecology, to what I call reverential ecology. What I would call even spiritual ecology. When you have reverential ecology you see trees, mountains, rivers, forests not just in the visible and material dimension, but you see that all these elements have spirit.”

We found Satish’s explanation of sacred places so compelling that we edited a three-minute piece incorporating some of our best b-roll images, asked Jon Herbst to compose a musical score, and we present it here as a teaser of things to come, to give our friends and supporters a taste of the film series we are shaping. Enjoy!