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.

Citing violations of environmental and human rights laws, Jairam Ramesh denied permission for London-based Vedanta Resources to build an open-cast 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 livelihood. For the past eight years they have been fighting to protect their land and way of life. The tribe had gained the support of NGOs including Amnesty International and Survival International, which ran a successful global campaign comparing the Dongria Kondh’s plight to the Na’vi tribe in the award-winning James Cameron film “Avatar.” (Watch Survival’s film “Mine,” embedded below.)

Vedanta had claimed the mine would cause little disturbance to the hills and that, along with the refinery, it would help alleviate poverty in the region. However, in a report commissioned by Ramesh, a committee of experts found that the project would “drastically alter the region’s water supply, affecting both ecological systems and human communities,” and threaten “the very survival” of the Dongria Kondh. The committee found that Vedanta had acted illegally and with “total contempt for the law,” and that to allow the mine to go forward would be “illegal.”

Vedanta reportedly intends to push for an alternative mine site in the region. “There is no question of abandoning this project,” CEO Mukesh Kumar said. The alumina refinery, which has polluted rivers and damaged crops along with the livelihood of the local people, will also continue to operate.

SLFP Project Director Toby McLeod discussed his experiences filming Losing Sacred Ground and In the Light of Reverence and shared his thoughts on human relationships with sacred natural places on the July 27 edition of the weekly radio program “A World of Possibilities.”

The program, titled “Saving Sacred Lands,” also featured interviews with Gathuru Mburu, director of the Institute of Culture and Ecology in Kenya; Silvia Gómez a consultant for Gaia Amazonas Foundation in Bogota, Colombia; and
Liz Hosken, director and co-founder of the Gaia Foundation in London.

Listen to the full program here.

Widespread illegal harvesting of mahogany — bound for the United States and other world markets — continues inside a Peruvian reserve for uncontacted indigenous tribes, according to a report released this month by the nonprofit Upper Amazon Conservancy.

The UAC’s year-long investigation documented logging settlements and felled trees throughout the 1.2-million-acre Muruanahua Territorial Reserve for Indigenous People in Voluntary Isolation. The reserve and adjacent Alto Purús National Park are part of the largest network of protected areas in Peru and home to at least three uncontacted groups, the largest concentration of isolated tribes in Peru and possibly the world.

UAC initially discovered a large logging operation in the headwaters of the Mapuya River, near the border with Alto Purús, in March 2009. In April of this year, a flyover observation revealed large rafts of recently cut mahogany boards, indicating that the settlement continues to be used as a transport center for illegal wood. The group also identified a separate logging settlement on the lower Mapuya. Both sites, according to local people interviewed by UAC, have been in use for several years.

The report notes that loggers are also targeting titled indigenous community lands along the Yurua River, adjacent to the reserve. In recent years, logging companies have “aggressively pursued” logging agreements with these communities, which contain “some of the last commercially viable mahogany stands anywhere in Peru outside of protected areas.” Unfortunately, loggers often employ exploitative practices with the communities. According to the report, “a vast network of logging roads” crosses the area, “providing a fleet of over a dozen tractors with easy access to the forests all along the Yurua.”

Ironically, along the route out of this remote area, the wood passes a forestry control post constructed specifically to stop the transport of illegal wood. However, according to the report, “the wood is laundered with forestry permits intended for legal logging operations in registered timber concessions and community lands… thus, when the wood is finally trucked to Lima, it contains export documentation required by the United States.”

With the United States receiving more than 80 percent of Peru’s mahogany exports, the 2008 amendment to the Lacey Act — which outlaws the import, possession and sale of illegally sourced wood — is almost certainly being violated. The illegal logging means that Peru is also failing to uphold its forestry obligations under a 2009 U.S. free trade agreement, as well as violating the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Illegal logging harms uncontacted tribes by invading the lands that sustain them. The UAC report also notes that the encroachment of loggers into Murunahua homelands is likely driving some members of the tribe to join settled communities on the Yurua River. But what’s more, loggers bring diseases against which the tribes have no natural defenses. According to Survival International, after the isolated Murunahua tribe came in contact with loggers in the 1990s, more than half the population died, primarily from transmitted infections.

The UAC report urges Peruvian authorities to do more to combat illegal logging, but notes that the illegal activity, and resulting endangerment of vulnerable indigenous tribes, will likely continue “until the U.S. government unilaterally rejects questionable Peruvian mahogany.”

Likewise, Survival International’s David Hill, in an interview with Mongabay.com, said, “The only ways to stop this happening is for U.S. buyers to reject any Peruvian mahogany, or the U.S. government to ban exports temporarily. Until that happens, people in the U.S. have no idea where the wood they’re buying is actually coming from.”

Learn more about illegal mahogany logging and its impact on indigenous tribes in our Alto Purús sacred site report.

After a two-day court hearing, the traditional custodians of Phiphidi Waterfall last week won an injunction to halt the construction of a tourist resort at their sacred site for 20 days, allowing them to prepare for further legal action.

The Ramunangi clan, in South Africa’s Limpopo Province, has been waging a years-long battle to protect the Phiphidi Waterfall area from tourism and other forms of development. The latest threat began on April 19 when bulldozers broke ground on a tourist complex that would include eight chalets, a restaurant and a bar at the head of the falls. (See June 22 story.)

After unsuccessfully seeking other remedies, the Ramunangi and members of Dzomo la Mupo, custodians of a larger network of sacred sites in the Venda region of which Phiphidi is a part, petitioned the Limpopo High Court for an injunction. Construction is being carried out by Tshivhase Development Foundation Trust, which is run by a relative of Venda king Kennedy Tshivhase.

According to the Ramunangi’s legal representative Roger Chennells, the judge, after hearing testimony from both sides, agreed to conduct an on-site inspection of the construction in response to the defendants’ claim that Phiphidi Waterfall was not a sacred site and that the Ramunangi were not the traditional custodians.

Dzomo la Mupo member Mpatheleni Mapaulule said that upon visiting the site and witnessing Ramunangi elders performing a ritual, “the judge said we must not disturb them.” She noted that the judge could see that the whole area, including the surrounding forest, was sacred: “He said the church is the yard, the altar is not only sacred but the whole surrounding.”

For background on this story, read our Phiphidi Waterfall sacred site report.

Update: Read more in this Aug. 1 article from BBC News.

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 or “middle water.” The ceremony is held on the McCloud, on what is now Forest Service land. The Forest Service is declining to allow the tribe exclusive access to the campground and the stretch of river where the ceremony takes place. Sign here to support the Winnemem. To learn more about the Winnemem and the McCloud River, read our sacred site report.

From Cultural Survival:

Defend Indigenous Rights and Protect Marine Life in Papua New Guinea

The government of Papua New Guinea doesn’t want to hear from us. It has authorized a Chinese mining company to dump toxic waste into the sea, and it is determined to stifle dissent from every quarter. It hired scientists to assess potential harm to marine life, but when the scientists warned that the damage could be widespread, it suppressed and ignored their findings. When coastal Indigenous land-owner clans challenged the mining company’s “deep submarine tailings placement” project in court, the government passed a law that denies citizens the right to appeal any permit granted by the Department of Environment and Conservation, no matter how it might affect their health, livelihoods, and cultures. PNG’s license to the Chinese Metallurgical Construction Company (CMCC) violates national laws and international agreements, but the PNG government isn’t listening – yet.

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? Please send your letter today. We must try.

Read more at Cultural Survival’s website.

As tourists flock to South Africa this month for the World Cup tournament, a tribe in the north of the country is urgently struggling to save a sacred site from being destroyed by tourism development.

On April 19, bulldozers moved in on Phiphidi Waterfall, one of the sacred sites of South Africa’s vhaVenda people, breaking ground on a project to build a tourist-chalet complex. The move was the latest blow in the Ramunangi clan’s years-long struggle to assert their role as traditional custodians of Phiphidi and protect their sacred site from development.

For years visitors, lured by government tourism marketing, have been literally trashing the site — trampling vegetation and leaving litter in even the most sacred areas — while the Ramunangi have been denied full access to perform certain rituals. In addition, a road-building project recently destroyed one of Phiphidi’s most holy areas, a rock above the falls.

The current development scheme was undertaken without the legally required consultations. After members of the community notified the developer that it was building on a sacred site, activity temporarily ceased. However, work resumed on May 31. The site is now locked, and the required notice board about the nature of the development, the implementing agency and the name of the developer is absent. According to one Ramunangi elder who visited the site June 8, the damage to this sacred place is already serious.

Phiphidi is part of a network of sacred sites that are central to the traditional belief system of the vhaVenda people. These sites are the home of ancestral spirits, which protect the people, ensure health and well being, and bring rain. The Ramunangi regard themselves not as owners of Phiphidi but as its stewards, with a duty to protect the site and perform rituals there for the whole of Venda. The waterfall, river and surrounding forest are part of a savannah biome in a region known as a biodiversity hotspot.

What You Can Do

The Gaia Foundation is collecting statements of support to aid the effort to obtain a court injunction. Go to their website to sign on to their statement or submit one of your own.

For background on this story, read our Phiphidi Waterfall sacred site report.

You may have heard that Sacred Land Film Project was at the BAVC Producers Institute, an intense new digital-media boot camp leading to a project presentation before a packed house at the The Center in San Francisco.

For 10 days our team was immersed in learning about emerging new media technologies, how to harness them for social and environmental justice, how to nurture and grow communities, and how to motivate positive action using these exciting new tools. Topics ranged from alternate, augmented, virtual and hybrid digital reality, web 3.0, the “intelligent web,” data visualization, interactive mapping, to twitter strategy and crowd sourcing. We were surprised to learn that we are no longer filmmakers, we are “screen content producers!”

The project we developed and then presented at The Center is a global application made for mobile devices, like a smart phone, that will take you on a tour of sacred sites that are now maintained as national parks or, in the case of urban tours, to discover where sacred sites have been paved over.

We partnered with Dorothy FireCloud, the Superintendent of Devils Tower National Monument, to create a tour prototype. With Dorothy’s guidance and the help of our amazing mentors, Anselm Hook, a leading augmented reality specialist, and Paige Saez, a designer and strategist, we created a working prototype and a long-term vision for a mobile phone application that could have a profound impact on our collective understanding of sacred lands.

The tour tells the story of indigenous culture through indigenous voices using video, audio, photos and augmented reality so that a hidden history is unveiled. Augmented reality is when an image is overlaid onto a physical environment, as you can see in the video below.

GPS data triggers your hand-held device to play stories relevant to your exact location. For example, in our Devils Tower prototype, you will be able to look through your smart phone and see an Indian village overlaid onto the modern-day physical environment, then raise the phone to the sky, where you can learn about Lakota star knowledge and see it through the phone.

We love the way this technology encourages people to get out and experience nature while learning a history that is buried, lost, hidden, erased or literally underground, and in doing so recapture what it means to be in connection with the land.

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

Rushed through Parliament on a Friday night, the amendments shelter resource projects from legal challenges over environmental damage, labor abuse and landowner exploitation, and grant the government wide-ranging power to exempt resource developers from state environmental requirements. Thus, the legislation effectively strips citizen’s traditional and constitutional land rights while giving developers greater power and protecting them from liability.

The legislation, passed by a vote of 73 to 10, came after intense lobbying by China Metallurgical Group Corporation, developer of the $1.4 billion Ramu nickel/cobalt mine. Ramu landowners had recently won an injunction to stop a pipeline that would slurry waste from the mine out to sea off Madang Province, once the mine is completed.

Tiffany Nonggorr, a lawyer representing the landowners, said the battle is not yet over, as the matter is already before the courts.

For more detail check out the June 1 blog post by SLFP Director Toby McLeod about his recent trip to Madang Province to document the Ramu nickel mine story for the upcoming Losing Sacred Ground film series.

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.

Radio Free Asia reported on May 15 that five people were beaten and tear-gassed in protests against three gold mines in the county. Some 5,000 troops were in the area, with reinforcements expected.

“Thousands of local Tibetans — young, old, men, and women alike — have attempted to block the Chinese from resuming mining activities,” one local Tibetan source said. “But [Tibetan Autonomous Region] Party Secretary Zhang Qingli has given orders to ahead with the mining, even if this means using force against protesters.”

Last year in Markham similar protests took place against mining on a sacred mountain called Ser Ngul Lo, a site where Tibetans have historically worshipped. However, talks ultimately resolved the standoff with a promise to end mining operations.

According to another local source, on May 4 — the day the mining company was ordered to resume operations at the three sites — 13 Tibetans were detained. “All of those detained were Tibetan businessmen and leading figures who successfully blocked the Chinese mining company in 2009,” the source said.

What you can do

Go to the Intercontinental Cry website for a sample letter to send to China’s permanent representative to the United Nations, calling on the Chinese government to withdraw their police forces and protect the Tibetans’ sacred mountains.

To learn more about the history, beliefs and practices surrounding sacred mountains in Tibet, read our Mount Kailash sacred site report.

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.

The third edition of the Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-3), released May 10 by the Convention on Biodiversity and the U.N. Environmental Program, confirms that governments around the world have failed to meet targets set eight years ago to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. Instead, the five main pressures driving the loss  — habitat change, overexploitation, pollution, invasive alien species and climate change — have either remained constant or are increasing.

“Humanity has fabricated the illusion that somehow we can get by without biodiversity or that it is somehow peripheral to our contemporary world,” Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said in a press release announcing the report. “The truth is we need it more than ever on a planet of six billion heading to over nine billion people by 2050.”

The report is based on 110 national biodiversity reports and other scientific assessments, including an analysis carried out by the Biodiversity Indicators Partnership, published last month in the journal Science, which represents the first assessment of how targets made through the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity have not been met. That assessment noted that since 1970 the world’s animal populations have been reduced by 30 percent, the area of mangroves and sea grasses by 20 percent, and the coverage of living corals by 40 percent.

The GBO-3 outlines a possible new strategy for reducing biodiversity loss, learning the lessons from the failure to meet the 2010 target. It includes addressing the underlying causes of biodiversity loss, such as patterns of consumption, the impacts of increased trade and demographic change.

“The assessment of the state of the world’s biodiversity in 2010 should serve as a wake-up call for humanity,” Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive-secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said. “Business as usual is no longer an option if we are to avoid irreversible damage to the life-support systems of our planet.”

The report will be a key input into discussions by world leaders at a special high-level segment of the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 22, as well as negotiations by world governments at the Nagoya Biodiversity Summit in October.

The GBO-3 draws attention to indigenous sacred sites, noting the thousands of community conserved areas around the world — including sacred forests, wetlands, and landscapes — and observing that “indigenous and local communities play a significant role in conserving very substantial areas of high biodiversity and cultural value.”

This deep association between sacred sites and biodiversity conservation is highlighted in many of SLFP’s sacred site reports. To learn more, check out our Beyul of the Himalaya, Gamo Highlands, Kaya Forests and Mount Sinai reports, among others.

The Free Land project and Indian Canyon with the Sacred Land Film Project, News From Native California and Heyday Books present “Ohlone Presence: An Evening of Storytelling, Theater and Song from Ohlone Land and History.”

8 p.m., Saturday, May 8
David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley, Calif.
Tickets available at the door, $15-25 sliding scale

Enjoy storytelling from all perspectives and sacred spaces and places at this fundraiser for Indian Canyon. The event features:

• Ariel Luckey (Free Land)
• Ann Marie Sayers (Ohlone/Indian Canyon)
• Carl Anthony (Urban Habitat)
• Christopher “Toby” McLeod (Sacred Land Film Project)
• Janeen Antoine (Lakota Sicangu)
• Kanyon Sayers-Roods (Ohlone/Indian Canyon)
• Ken Brower (Author)
• L. Frank (Tongva/Ajachmen)
• Malcolm Margolin (Heyday Books)
• Melissa Nelson (Ojibwe)
• Paloma Pavel (Earth House Center), and
• Willie Underbaggage (Oglala)

Download the flier here.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced April 28 that the first offshore wind farm to be built in the United States 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.

While local reaction to Tuesday’s announcement was mixed, the 2009 passing of Sen. Edward Kennedy, who was a strong voice against Cape Wind, may have played a factor in the Department of the Interior’s approval of the controversial project.

Read previous SLFP news coverage of this story from April 8 and January 17.

In a demonstration to show solidarity with the Brazilian indigenous peoples who will be gravely affected by the recently approved Belo Monte dam project, actress Sigourney Weaver will join members of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues to peacefully protest in front of the Brazilian Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York today, April 28, at 1:30 p.m.

On April 20, after a series of legal battles and last-minute injunctions from environmental and indigenous rights groups, the Brazilian government won out and awarded a domestic consortium—including the state-owned power generator and several construction firms—the $10 billion contract to build the Belo Monte dam on the Xingu River. (See our past stories.)

Construction could begin this year, with the project operational by 2015. Once complete, Belo Monte will be the world’s third largest dam. Its construction will flood some 200 square miles of rainforest while also drying up a stretch of the river—affecting an estimated 19,000 to 40,000 people, including 14 indigenous tribes that live nearby.

Indigenous groups are mobilizing to stop dam. A group of 150 Xikrin Kayapo Indians were moving last week to occupy the planned construction site. “We will build a permanent village there and will not leave so long as the project is on,” chief Luiz Xipaya told Agence France Presse.

Xipaya said he expects to have at least 500 Brazilian Indians there by end of month, with an ultimate goal of 1,000. “The indigenous people feel threatened by this project and are very agitated,” he said.

Since the construction contact was awarded, thousands of people have participated in protests throughout Brazil led by indigenous groups and environmental organizations including Greenpeace and Amazon Watch.

Take Action

If you’re in New York, you can join today’s protest at 1:30 p.m. in front of the Brazilian Permanent Mission to the United Nations at 747 3rd Avenue, between 46th and 47th streets.

You can also help by contacting the Brazilian embassy to express your concern.

All over the world, indigenous people protect places of spiritual significance and hotspots of biodiversity. James Cameron’s symbolic story of the Na’vi, in his film “Avatar” parallels the struggle that indigenous people around the globe face to defend sacred places Western culture seeks to dominate.

“Avatar” has hit a nerve and inspired masses. Grossing nearly $2.7 billion at the box office globally and spawning numerous discussions, Facebook groups, forums, fan pages, activist responses and articles citing examples of real-world Pandoras, the film, if nothing else, has been a catalyst to bring the plight of indigenous people to the forefront as never before.

Cameron himself said has been changed forever by the film and his resulting visit to the Xingu River, where he has been “spurred to action to speak out against the looming environmental destruction endangering indigenous groups around the world.”

With Sigourney Weaver, he traveled to Brazil to attend protests calling for a halt on construction of the Belo Monte dam, the third largest dam in the world, but time is running out. The government intends to auction construction to private investors April 20.

See our previous news post to learn what you can do to help halt the Belo Monte dam, and join Sacred Land Film Project in calling even more people to action in solidarity with the Indigenous Movement. You can learn more about the Xingu River in our related sacred site report.

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.

In seven pages of comments sent to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar on April 2, the council backed claims by two Wampanoag Indian tribes that the Cape Wind project would obstruct their view of the rising sun and the ocean, interfering with rituals and ceremonies, and potentially disturb sacred burial sites on the now-submerged shoal on which the turbines would be built.

”The indirect and direct effects of (Cape Wind) on the collection of historic properties would be pervasive, destructive and, in the instance of seabed construction, permanent,” the council said.

The council also criticized federal agencies — including the Minerals Management Service, the lead agency reviewing the project — for their ”tentative, inconsistent and late” consultation with the Wampanoag tribes.

An excerpt of a recent statement by Cedric Cromwell, chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe reads: “We have repeatedly raised serious concerns over the proposed project for more than six years. For the first time, we believe that our concerns are being heard, and we look forward to continuing the process of consultation until an acceptable outcome has been achieved. This process is long overdue, and we thank Secretary Salazar and President Obama for their commitment to the rights of Native Americans.”

Opponents of the project included the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, who fought Cape Wind up to the months before he died last year of brain cancer.

Salazar must respond to the council’s comments before making his final ruling on the project, expected by the end of April. To learn more, read the April 2 New York Times story and see the Aquinnah Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head website.

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 and left behind a legacy of tribal revitalization and collective self-determination, including instituting community-development projects to improve infrastructure, building a hydroelectric facility and establishing tribal-owned businesses.

In 2002, the Sacred Land Film Project was honored by Mankiller’s support. Read more about the life of Wilma Mankiller in the New York Times.

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 shut down. The department’s motion was filed “with prejudice” — meaning the site could never again be considered for use.

The mountain, located within the Western Shoshone Nation and a sacred place for the Shoshone and Paiute peoples, was selected in 1987 to become the nation’s first long-term geological repository for spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste.

Despite significant ongoing protest and legal challenges from Native Americans, Nevada residents and environmentalists, Congress officially approved the program in 2002. However, last year President Barack Obama, in his 2010 budget request, indicated that the federal government would begin exploring other options, and in February the Energy Department told Congress it planned to shift $115 million from the Yucca Mountain program budget into efforts to shut down the project.

On March 23, a group of House Democrats and Republicans — representing districts in Washington, South Carolina and Michigan that currently store nuclear waste — introduced a resolution to stop the administration from ending the program. Members of a House energy subcommittee also challenged the Energy Department’s actions, claiming it went against Congress’ directions in its energy spending bill for the 2010 budget.

However, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, responding in a letter, said, “We do have the authority within the law to take the reprogramming actions we have planned.” DOE press secretary Stephanie Mueller went further, saying, “Make no mistake, the department will be shutting down the Yucca Mountain project this year.”

To learn more about Yucca Mountain and native struggles to protect it, read our Yucca Mountain sacred site report.

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

On March 19, they traveled halfway across the globe to New Zealand, where the U.S. government once sent Chinook eggs gathered from the McCloud River. The completion of Shasta Dam in the 1940s resulted in the obstruction of seasonal salmon runs in the McCloud.

The Winnemem hope to restore the salmon by stopping the enlargement of Shasta Dam and having a waterway installed that would allow reintroduced salmon to reach the remaining 200 miles of cold water pools and historic spawning grounds critical to their survival.

In New Zealand, they will join with Maori leaders and hold a ceremony culminating with a four-day “nur chonas winyupus,” or middle water salmon dance, which is intended to assure the salmon that the Winnemem are still caring for them and their home river. The Winnemem plan to petition local fish and game officials to return some salmon eggs to the McCloud.

Read about the Winnemem Wintu and their journey to New Zealand in this major New York Times story from March 20. Learn more about the Winnemem and their ancestral homeland in our McCloud River Watershed sacred site report, and you can also follow Winnemem Headman Mark Franco’s blogs for details about their New Zealand journey and other issues.

International outcry is mounting against the Brazilian government’s plan to move forward on the massive Belo Monte dam on the Amazon’s Xingu River.

On March 11, a coalition of 140 international organizations sent a letter to Brazilian President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva demanding an immediate halt to the plans and urging a consideration of alternatives to the mega-dam. The dam project would destroy a vast area of the Amazon rain forest, displacing tens of thousands of people, including tribal people whose livelihoods depend on the river and forest.

Lend your support by sending a message to the Brazilian government.

If you’re in the Bay Area, you can learn more about the struggle to save the Xingu and protect indigenous rights at an event this Friday, hosted by our friends at International Rivers, featuring two films, a panel discussion and live Brazilian drumming:

When: Doors open at 6:30 p.m., Friday, March 19; film starts at 7 p.m..

Where: The David Brower Center, 2150 Allston Way, Berkeley (map)

What: Film screening of Amazonia: Voices from the Rainforest by Glenn Switkes and Monti Aguirre and the award-winning short Battle for the Xingu, directed by Iara Lee, followed by a panel discussion on efforts to protect the Amazon river and the forest it sustains.

Panelists include:

• Aviva Imhof, Campaigns Director, International Rivers
• Leila Salazar-Lopez, Campaign Director, Rainforest Action Network and Board Member, Amazon Watch
• Monti Aguirre, Latin America Campaigner, International Rivers

Afterward, stick around for some refreshments, music by Samba Jam, and great conversation!

Cost: $15 at the door. SAVE $2 IF YOU PURCHASE ONLINE. Purchase tickets here.

For more information, e-mail Karolo Aparicio at karolo@internationalrivers.org, or call 510.848.1155.

The Ohlone sacred site and burial site at Glen Cove was in the spotlight this weekend. Thus far the Glen Cove site has 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.

Local native people and those in favor of keeping the ancient shell mound intact, including the Vallejo Inter-Tribal Council, Sacred Sites Protection & Rights of Indigenous Tribes and the International Indian Treaty Council, have been fighting development plans for years and intend to continue to gather at the ancient site they call Sogorea Te to rally for its protection.

The culturally and spiritually significant shell mounds, sacred to the Ohlone, have largely been obliterated throughout the Bay Area. A widely publicized example is the Emeryville shell mound, which was destroyed to build the South Bay Street Shopping Center.

A portion of the Bay Bridge is built atop an Ohlone tribal burial ground on Yerba Buena Island, partly on state-owned land and partly on federal land. Bodies unearthed on the state land were ceremonially reburied, but those found on federal land were not released for reburial because the Ohlone is not a federally recognized tribe.

Without federal recognition, the Ohlone and supporters face an uphill battle to protect sacred sites like Glen Cove. Norman “Wounded Knee” Deocampo, a member of the Vallejo Intertribal Council, said the tribe is considering a court injunction and searching for a pro bono lawyer to stop the plans at Glen Cove.

• If you would like to get involved in protecting Glen Cove, send an email to protectglencoveATgmail.com.

• For a creative look at shell mounds in the Bay Area, check out this video.

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 Native American way of life — but it is the concept of private property rights that today both preserves the Buttes and leaves them precariously open to development.

A day before his official Jan. 22 inauguration, Bolivian President Evo Morales held a symbolic swearing-in ceremony at the Kalasasaya Temple in Tiwanaku, the seat of an Andean empire that flourished for more than 400 years. Morales, an Aymara Indian, chose the sacred site because the Aymara are the principal descendants of the Tiwanaku empire.

Before addressing a crowd of thousands of indigenous supporters, Morales joined priests and elders for private cleansing rites, then participated in a series of public offerings and prayers to the Andean deities for guidance.

“From this millennial place a new light is born, a light of hope for the Bolivian people and for humanity,” Morales said in a speech delivered in Aymara, Quechua and Spanish.

Morales vowed to continue to fight for the rights of indigenous Bolivians. Last year Morales led a constitutional overhaul that enshrined traditional religions and increased protection for indigenous land rights.

After a nearly 20-year hiatus, uranium mining has resumed on public lands surrounding the Grand Canyon.

In late December 2009, 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.

The mine had been shut down in 1992, never having produced any ore, after a crash in uranium prices. However, with a rebound in prices in recent years and increasing uranium demand — including the Obama administration’s January announcement of major investment in the construction of new nuclear reactors — mining companies are looking to restart old mines and open new ones in northern Arizona, which reportedly holds the most concentrated source of uranium in the United States.

Renewed interest in uranium mining has put Native American tribes, environmental-protection advocates and other stakeholders on alert. In July 2009, members of the Havasupai Nation and their allies gathered at the Red Butte sacred site, on the south rim of the canyon, to address the reemerging threat.

The U.S. Department of the Interior is taking a cautious approach to ensure that communities, landscapes and watersheds are protected, it says. In July, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced a two-year moratorium on the filing of new mining claims on the 1 million acres of federal lands near the Grand Canyon. During that time the department will consider imposing a 20-year restriction on new mine development. Also on the table is the Grand Canyon Watersheds Protection Act, introduced by Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) in January 2009, which would withdraw the lands from mineral exploration.

“Over the next two years, we will gather the best science and input from the public, members of Congress, tribes and stakeholders, and we will thoughtfully evaluate whether these lands should be withdrawn from new mining claims for a longer period of time,” Salazar said in a statement.

The moratorium, however, doesn’t affect existing valid mine claims, which are protected by the outdated General Mining Act of 1872. According to the Bureau of Land Management, six mines are expected to reopen on the federal lands in question.

In November 2009, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Sierra Club and the Grand Canyon Trust sued the Bureau of Land Management for failing to update 1980s-era environmental reviews and mining plans before allowing Denison to reopen the Arizona 1 mine. The groups say the current mine claim is not valid, and thus subject to the moratorium. The suit is still pending.

Of particular concern is potential impact on groundwater and regional aquifers, which supply water districts including Las Vegas and Los Angeles. As a part of the Interior Department’s two-year review, the U.S. Geological Survey conducted a series of studies to determine the effects of uranium mining on the natural resources of the region. The results, released Feb. 17, show elevated levels of uranium in wells, springs and soil around uranium exploration and mining sites.

Elsewhere in the Southwest, uranium mining threatens Native American sacred sites. New Mexico’s Mount Taylor — held holy by the Navajo, Acoma, Zuni and other tribes — sits atop a vast uranium deposit that has also attracted the attention of mining companies since the upsurge in uranium prices. In 2009, native tribes and environmental groups launched an effort to protect the mountain, which resulted in its receiving state protected status as traditional cultural property. (Read an excellent piece of long-form journalism on this complex story in High Country News.)

Visit the websites of the Center for Biological Diversity and the Grand Canyon Trust for more information on uranium mining at the Grand Canyon and ways you can help.

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.

Authored by indigenous peoples, the report offers statistics and information to raise awareness about indigenous development, advance the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and influence the U.N. Development Program’s 2010 Human Development Report, themed “Rethinking Human Development.”

The report highlights the critical situation for indigenous peoples around the world and translates the urgency into hard statistics. Indigenous peoples make up about 5 percent of the world’s population and 15 percent of its poor, as they are the first population to be affected by industries that harm the environment or resource-intensive projects.  In the United States, nearly a quarter of Native Americans and Alaska Natives live below the poverty line, with lower life expectancy and higher death rates from causes including diabetes, homicide, suicide and car accidents. The statistics are grim.

Although indigenous peoples are caretakers of some the world’s greatest regions of biodiversity and enrich global culture in a plethora of ways — from traditional knowledge in herbal remedies and land management to environmental principals — their plight has yet to enter mainstream conversation or find serious discussion in major news outlets.

Yet every effort counts, and actions such as the release of “State of the World’s Indigenous Peoples” will further the urgently important dialogue on global interdependence, land rights, resistance to the loss of biological and cultural diversity, and hope for a collaborative future.

A controversial and long-delayed hydroelectric dam project on Brazil’s Xingu River received the green light on Feb. 1 when the Brazilian Environment Ministry issued an environmental license for the dam’s construction.

If the project goes forward, the Belo Monte dam would be Brazil’s largest hydroelectric complex and the world’s third largest. The dam would flood an estimated 170 square miles of land in the state of Pará, displacing some 16,000 people and and impacting thousands of others, including tribal people, whose livelihoods depend on the river and forest. The dam would also dry up the river around its “Big Bend,” home to the Paquiçamba reserve of the Juruna indigenous group.

First proposed in the 1980s, the project had been stalled for years because of widespread national and international protest. A 2005 lawsuit filed by federal prosecutors claims that indigenous communities were not consulted on the project, as required by Brazil’s constitution.

The Brazilian Environmental Justice Network has launched an international campaign demanding that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and other Brazilian authorities stop the project. The online magazine Intercontinental Cry has details on what you can do. You can also get additional information from our friends at International Rivers, long-time opponents of the Belo Monte Dam.

Read our Xingu River System sacred site report to learn more about indigenous struggles to protect the river.

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.

Designed to provide continuing education and professional training to those involved in the management, preservation and stewardship of Native American sacred lands, the seminar will cover areas including federal laws, tribal and federal land-management guidelines, historical and cultural factors, the consultation process and other tools for achieving protected status for culturally significant places.

For more information, including a detailed agenda, pricing and registration information, visit the NPI website.

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.

Mount Tenabo and its environs are part of Newe Sogobia, the ancestral land of the Western Shoshone, who object to the project on religious as well as environmental grounds. The plaintiffs challenged the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s decision to approve the Cortez Hills mine in November 2008.

In its Dec. 3, 2009, decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the merit of the environmental claims of the Shoshone’s case and said that an injunction was in the public interest, noting “the irreparable environmental harm threatened by this massive project.”

The court thus reversed the district court’s decision, sending the case back to the lower court to issue an injunction pending the preparation of an environmental impact statement that “adequately considers the environmental impact of the extraction of millions of tons of refractory ore, mitigation of the adverse impact on local springs and streams, and the extent of fine particulate emissions.”

Cortez Hills would be one of the largest open-pit cyanide heap-leach gold mines in the country. The proposed mine area had been found, in repeated ethnographic studies by the Bureau of Land Management, to be a place of extreme spiritual and cultural importance to the Western Shoshone. The area is home to local creation stories, spirit life and medicinal plants, and it continues to be used for spiritual and cultural practices.

Learn more in our Mount Tenabo sacred site report.

Backing away from a definitive move to ban climbing Australia’s iconic Uluru, Northern Territory Environment Minister Peter Garret on Jan. 8 approved a management plan that instead would allow for an eventual ban once certain conditions were met.

The red sandstone monolith is a place of spiritual significance for its Aboriginal traditional owners, who have long urged an end to climbing.

Under the new 10-year management plan for Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, the 1,142-foot rock will remain open to climbers until the number of annual visitors choosing to climb drops to below 20 percent, until the park board determines that adequate new visitor experiences are in place, or until the climb is no longer the primary reason visitors choose to come to Uluru.

Those conditions may be hard to meet. “Realistically, I would expect the climb to remain open for at least a number of years,” Garrett said.

Last year — citing respect for Aboriginal belief along with safety concerns — the park board proposed an outright climbing ban in its draft management plan, which caused an uproar in the tourism sector. During a public-comment period on the proposal, the government received 153 submissions, 78 in support of the closure and 75 against.

With the new plan, park management will now focus on adding new attractions, such as more night-time and cultural activities. “The most important thing is to create new experiences — without new activities some visitors will still think the most important thing about Uluru is the climb,” Harry Wilson, chair of the Uluru-Kata Tjuta board, said.

If and when a ban is ultimately deemed appropriate, Garrett said the tourism industry will be given at least 18 months notice so it can adjust its marketing. In the meantime, park management will continue to promote a “do not climb” message to visitors.

To learn more about Uluru, read our sacred site report.

In our latest sacred site reports, monks in China and Mongolia are taking a spritual approach in confronting modern threats to Buddhist and Daoist sacred mountains, while in Malaysian Borneo, one of the world’s last nomadic tribes fights to save its traditional rainforest lands from logging, hydropower and oil palm plantations.

Nine Sacred Mountains, China—Throughout China’s history, Buddhist and Daoist pilgrims have gone to mountains seeking spiritual sustenance and solace; there are five sacred mountains that are preeminent for Daoists and four sacred mountains that are paramount to Buddhists. In the 20th century, political upheaval led to the violent repression of religious expression, and sacred sites across China were destroyed. Despite losses, the devotion of monks and local residents to the holy reputation of these mountains prevented total destruction.

Now, as China gradually moves away from its past of religious intolerance and forges a new social and political identity amid unprecedented economic growth, the sacred mountains continue to attract traditional pilgrims and a considerable number of secular visitors. With these dual roles as spiritual destinations and economic enterprises, the sacred mountains face new challenges, such as uncontrolled tourism and habitat destruction. In this modern era, Buddhists and Daoists are turning to age-old philosophies as an impetus for environmental conservation.

Bogd Khan Uul, Mongolia—Considered the world’s oldest officially and continuously protected sacred site, this mountain massif was declared a sacred mountain reserve in 1778, and evidence of its protected status dates back to the 13th century. During the decades-long rule of communism in the 20th century, religion was repressed and nearly all of Mongolia’s 900 Buddhist monasteries were destroyed.

However, reverence persisted and the post-communist era ushered a revival of the national tradition of nature conservation, the restoration of monasteries and resanctification of sacred natural sites, including Bogd Khan. Unfortunately, real estate and tourism development, including a ski resort, now threaten Bogd Khan, and Mongolia’s deep-rooted conservation ethic must face yet another modern challenge.

Lands of the Penan, Malaysia—Living in the rainforests of Borneo, the Penan people are one of the last indigenous groups in the world with members who still follow a traditional nomadic lifestyle, relying solely on their natural environment for material and spiritual sustenance. In recent decades, logging has destroyed or altered the rainforest, forcing most Penan into a settled or seminomadic lifestyle marked by impoverishment, political marginalization, and increasing difficulty finding traditional sources of food in a diminishing rainforest.

These circumstances have driven many Penan into activism that began in the 1980s with road blockades against lumber companies and legal battles over land rights. Today, the Penan are fighting to save their rainforest home in the face of hydroelectric dam construction and a misguided race to plant oil palm plantations for biofuel.

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 as a step to determine whether to approve a massive offshore wind-farm project in Massachusett’s Nantucket Sound.

Aquinnah and Mashpee Wampanoag tribes have been fighting the Cape Wind project since 2004. They claim the wind farm — which would include 130 turbines, each 440 feet tall — would obstruct their view of the rising sun and the ocean, interfering with rituals and ceremonies. In addition, the shoal on which the turbines would be built was once dry land and contains sacred burial sites.

On Jan. 4 the National Park Service, in response to a claim by the affected tribes, announced that Nantucket Sound was eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, which could potentially delay or deny the Cape Wind project. The claim appears to refer to some 500 square miles of Nantucket Sound; never has a Native American claim over such a large area of water been approved.

Salazar, who must sign off on a federal permit before the project can move forward, met on Jan. 13 with all the major stakeholders, including tribal representatives, to try to reach a compromise.

“This meeting, I believe, is going to be the first test of whether or not we’re getting lip service and rhetoric from the administration or whether they’re truly going to hear the tribal nations — whether they’re going to pay attention and try to help us or whether it’s business as usual,” Cheryl Andews-Maltais, chair of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe, said.

Opponents are asking for the project to be relocated to a less instrusive part of the sound. Salazar pledged a resolution by the end of April.

The Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service is accepting public comments on the historic preservation aspects of the project until Feb. 12. Click here to learn how to submit your comments.

Sacred Land Film Project director Toby McLeod and writer Jessica Abbe will be in attendance at the Wild and Scenic Film Festival’s screening of In the Light of Reverence this weekend. If you are in the neighborhood and can join them please do stop by. The film will screen this Saturday, Jan.  16, at 1:30 p.m. at 106 Union with a special guest appearance by Caleen-Sisk Franco, Spiritual Leader and Tribal Chief of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe and Mark Franco, Headman for the tribe.

In other SLFP news, if you haven’t already checked out our newly posted photo slide shows highlighting our Losing Sacred Ground production trips to the Altai Mountains of Russia and Australia, you can do so here. A gallery from the best of In the Light of Reverence is also included. Stay tuned, we’ll be posting more in the coming weeks.

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. The controversial strip mine has operated for more than three decades under a temporary permit.

Judge Robert G. Holt ruled on Jan. 5 that “OSM violated NEPA (National Environmental Protection Act) by not preparing a supplemental draft EIS (environmental impact statement) when Peabody changed the proposed action. As a result, the final EIS did not consider a reasonable range of alternatives to the new proposed action, described the wrong environmental baseline, and did not achieve the informed decision-making and meaningful public comment required by NEPA. Because of the defective final EIS, OSM’s decision to issue a revised permit to Peabody must be vacated and remanded to OSM for further action.”

For details read more in Indian Country Today.

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 were turned back at about 5 a.m. on Dec. 16 at Orleans Mountain Lookout Road by approximately 15 activists, who lit a large fire in the roadway.

“This morning’s small but important victory marks the beginning of our campaign to defend Karuk sacred sites and protect the health of our forests,” Orleans local Chook-Chook Hillman said.

The blockade was organized by the Klamath Justice Coalition, which claims that current logging does not comply with the fuel-reduction plan agreed to in dozens of community meetings with stakeholders. Following a two-and-a-half-year consultation process, native and non-native community members from the Orleans region agreed to the Orleans Community Fuel Reduction and Forest Health Project, which was intended to enhance forest health and reduce the threat of wildfire through undergrowth removal.

As part of the plan, the U.S. Forest Service agreed to protect corridors of the forest around the Karuk Tribe’s ceremonial trail system. The plan banned commercial harvesting and heavy equipment in the protected areas, and prohibited cutting of hardwood species and large-diameter trees throughout the forest. It also called for multiparty monitoring of the logging operations.

Upon commencement of the plan, Karuk organizers said, subcontractors carrying out the logging work began violating the project guidelines.

“To date, we’ve had trees as large as three to four feet [in diameter] that have been felled in the buffer zone,” Karuk tribe spokesman Leaf Hillman said, noting that loggers have also set up heavy equipment, including a skyline logging system that uses towers and cables to move logs through the forest, inside the protected areas. In addition, the Forest Service failed to implement the promised multiparty monitoring.

Tyrone Kelley, the Six Rivers National Forest Supervisor, told the Associated Press that the current violations are the result of an oversight by the Forest Service, which failed to write the restrictions into the logging company’s contract. The Karuk Tribe is demanding that the Forest Service cease all logging on the 914 acres in question until these issues can be resolved.

The tribe conducts a semiannual ceremony throughout 9,000 acres of the forest, a region they’ve dubbed the Panamnik World Renewal Ceremonial District. Hillman said the area has been nominated for the National Register of Historic Places. During the ceremony, a priest travels through the forest on the tribe’s traditional trails to locations where various dances and prayers are held.

This is the same area that was the subject of the historic “G-O Road” case in the 1980s, in which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Native Americans did not have a First Amendment right to stop a Forest Service logging road from penetrating their sacred High Country.

The Klamath Justice Coalition is investigating legal measures it might initiate to halt the logging.

IUCN has published two new translations of “Sacred Natural Sites: Guidelines for Protected Area Managers,” co-edited by SLFP’s Toby McLeod with Robert Wild. The English, Spanish and Russian documents are available for free download. IUCN, aka the World Conservation Union, announced the new translations in a press release:

“We decided to present the Spanish version of the Guidelines at WILD9 precisely because this important international conservation gathering takes place in the traditional lands of the Maya people of Yucatan, shared by Mexico and Guatemala,” said Gonzalo Oviedo, IUCN Senior Adviser on Social Policy and close collaborator in this work. “This is one of the areas of Latin America with the greatest richness in biological diversity and indigenous spiritual traditions – and one where both are at risk because of many threats. Through this publication, IUCN wants to add its contribution to the efforts for their conservation.”

The Russian publication was presented last Friday at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting on the protection of traditional knowledge in Montreal, Canada.

“The CBD has recognized the importance of the protection of sacred natural sites in various documents and decisions, and produced its own guidelines for it,” said Petr Azhunov, Baikal Buryat Center for Indigenous Cultures. “But mostly these decisions remain on paper. I am attending the traditional knowledge meeting to explore ways in which we can make better use of the CBD to strengthen action on the ground, and I am highlighting the opportunities that the new Russian translation of the IUCN Guidelines offer for working with communities in Central Asia and congratulate all who have made it possible.”

Thanks to the WCPA Specialist Group on the Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas, and to Gonzalo Oviedo, IUCN Social Policy Advisor, for completing new versions of the guidelines accessible to a wider audience around the world. We are also grateful for the support of ProNatura in Mexico for making the guidelines widely available in Latin America, and The Christensen Fund for financial support.

Sacred Land Film Project has completed our 2009 annual report summarizing the year and recent production work on our new film series “Losing Sacred Ground.” You can download the report, titled “If We Don’t Laugh, We’ll Cry” now.

Here’s a sneak preview:

In northern California, soft October light shimmered on the McCloud River as Winnemem Wintu leaders Caleen and Mark Sisk-Franco showed us signs of ancestral villages. The grinding rocks, home sites and burials will be submerged if Shasta Lake, the enormous reservoir held back by Shasta Dam, is enlarged by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, and backs further up into this wild stretch of the McCloud River.

Upstream from the houseboats, marinas and weekend fishermen, a tall boulder balances over a deep, shining pool named for the sucker fish spirit that inhabits it. If the dam is raised, the Winnemem will never see the Sucker Pool again. For generations, young warriors and leaders have swum across the pool as part of their initiation rites.

Mark and Caleen knelt on the shore, lit a pipe, put hands in the water and prayed for the sacred site as Will Parrinello filmed this quiet healing and blessing ceremony. “This is not a recreation area to us, it is a life way,” Caleen said later. “I had to swim across this pool, years ago. To think we might lose it breaks my heart.”

For the Winnemem, it was a bittersweet year. After strong local resistance, Nestlé dropped plans to bottle millions of gallons of pure water from within Mt. Shasta that would have threatened the mountain’s artesian springs. But high on the mountain’s slopes visitors continue to dump human cremation ashes in the Winnemem’s sacred spring, causing ecological harm to a pristine meadow and water source, and wreaking spiritual havoc by defiling the tribe’s origin place.

Facing daunting odds the Winnemem fight on, like indigenous communities all around the world. Their tenacity and sense of humor give me hope. “We will endure no matter what,” says Caleen, “and if we don’t laugh, we’ll cry.”

Read the full version of Sacred Land Film Project’s 2009 Annual Report.

The Ramunangi of northern South Africa — traditional custodians of Phiphidi Waterfall, a small cascade that is central to the clan’s relationship with ancestral spirits — have been engaged for decades in a struggle to protect their sacred site from tourism and infrastructure development.

Subjugated during the country’s apartheid era to the power of larger, government-backed tribes, this small clan was helpless to stop Phiphidi from becoming a popular tourist spot, with visitors freely roaming the site, leaving litter, trampling vegetation, playing loud music and, the Ramunangi say, disturbing the spirits. A rock above the waterfall — one of the site’s most holy areas — was recently destroyed as part of a road-building project, and for years, the Ramunangi have been denied full access to the site to perform their rituals and custodial duties. The clan is now turning to legal measures to restore full access to Phiphidi and receive official recognition as its custodians.

Tshavhungwe Nemarudi, a custodian elder, said in 2008, “It is no longer possible to respect the sacred site as it should be respected. Members of our clan have become sick. The Earth is sick. We know that this is because we have not been able to conduct our rituals properly in the last years. What we request is simply that our sacred site should be allowed to remain a place of pure, untouched nature.”

Read the report to learn more about the Ramunangi and Phiphidi Waterfall, and what you can do to help.

Guardians meeting at the World Conservation Congress in Barcelona in October 2008 issued a statement on protecting sacred sites. After review and editing, the final version is now available for download.

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 June 11, 1971.

The group used humor to make earnest demands aimed at improved rights for Native Americans. Their bold action was the  the first indication that Native American culture could rise again. “Alcatraz was a big enough symbol that for the first time this century Indians were taken seriously,” Lakota scholar Vine Deloria Jr. said.

The occupation led to real changes such as the creation of Indian-studies programs, tribal museums, increases in funding for college students, and legislation that supported self-determination, including the removal of federal Indian termination policy.

The annual sunrise gathering to celebrate indigenous people’s rights will depart for Alcatraz from Pier 33 on Nov. 26 as. early as 4:45 am.

Coit Tower will also be lit with film projections the evenings of Nov. 25 and 26 to greet those attending the sunrise ceremony. The film, titled “Indigenous Renewal: Alcatraz Occupation Remembrance + Ohlone Presence Celebrated!” prefigures the return of the Ohlone to San Francisco and asks viewers to consider what “indigenous” is. Community radio KPOO-FM 89.5 will broadcast a live program to accompany the projection from 6 p.m. to at least 11 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 25.

It’s a night to remember and celebrate the power of unified action for change.

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 unique glimpse into the global energy crisis from the perspective of a culture pledged to protect the planet, historically exploited by corporate interests and neglected by public policy makers. As Anishinaabe activist Winona LaDuke says in the film, “We need to create a way of life where a community is not forced to cannibalize their mother in order to live.”

The film follows an intertribal coalition as they fight to transform their local economies by replacing coal mines and smog-belching power plants with renewable energy technologies. POWER PATHS follows the Just Transition Coalition in its attempts to balance Navajo and Hopi losses from the 2006 closure of the Mohave Generating Station and Peabody Energy’s Black Mesa mine by creating green jobs. This transition would honor their heritage, protect their sacred land, and provide electricity to their homes. At a time when the planet as a whole hungers for alternatives to fossil fuels, POWER PATHS offers proof that going green is not only possible—it’s the only choice we have.

In the Bay Area, POWER PATHS is scheduled to air on Tuesday, November 3 at 11 p.m. on KQED-9. Check local listings for your PBS station, or visit the PBS website.

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:

• In California and Oregon, negotiations are almost complete on a plan to remove three dams on the Klamath River that have blocked the migration of salmon — and impacted sacred and cultural practice of the river’s native tribes — for decades.
• In Australia, at the iconic sandstone monolith Uluru, Aboriginal and park management have stepped up efforts to stop visitors from climbing the sacred rock, with a new viewing area and a commitment to work toward an outright ban on climbing.
• At England’s Stonehenge, the managing agency unveiled its proposal to close and grass over a stretch of road that runs through the middle of the UNESCO World Heritage site, bringing nearly to a close a controversy that has raged for a decade.
• Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge appears safer under the Obama administration. Might Congress finally pass the bill, which has been on the table for years, to protect the refuge’s 1.5-million-acre coastal plain from oil development?
• We’ve also updated reports for Georgia’s Ocmulgee Oil Fields and Utah’s Nine Mile Canyon.

While many of these sites are closer to protection than they once were, there’s still work to be done. Check out the individual reports for ways you can help!

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 U.S. history because all federally recognized tribes have been invited to send a tribal leader to take part in the event.

President Obama said, “I look forward to hearing directly from the leaders in Indian Country about what my Administration can do to not only meet their needs, but help improve their lives and the lives of their peoples. This conference will serve as part of the ongoing and important consultation process that I value, and further strengthen the Nation-to-Nation relationship. ”

To lean more watch Obama’s message for first American’s or read the official White House press release.

In the Light of Reverence, Toby McLeod’s award-winning film exploring American culture’s relationship to nature in three places considered sacred by native peoples — the Colorado Plateau in the Southwest, Mount Shasta in California, and Devils Tower in Wyoming — will be screening as part of the Chico Green Film and Solution Series, at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 22 at 120 Ayers Auditorium in Chico, Calif.

Winnemem Wintu tribal leader Caleen Sisk-Franco and tribal member Marc Franco as well as filmmaker Toby McLeod will attend the screening and be there for Q&As after the film.

Newsreview.com recently posted an article about the history of the Winnemem Wintu struggle illustrated in In the Light of Reverence and quoted McLeod, “It’s meaningful that eight years later we’re collaborating on a screening in Chico where they’re going to continue to tell their story. It’s about having dialogue and opening people’s hearts and minds. Their perspective on the environmental crisis is critically important. They’re determined to prevail and endure.”

To learn more about the screening, visit SLFP’s screenings page.

A decades-long effort to save Stonehenge from the damaging effects of automobile traffic and restore the integrity of its surrounding  landscape is now a significant step closer to fruition.

On Oct. 5, English Heritage, the government-affiliated organization that manages Stonehenge and other national monuments, submitted plans to close and grass over a 1.3-mile section of highway that slices through the World Heritage site very close to the prehistoric stones, along with an adjacent parking lot.

A major component of the plan is a new visitors’ center and parking lot, to be located 1.5 miles west of the monument. The center, which is designed to blend in with the archeologically rich landscape of the UNESCO World Heritage site, will be connected to the site via a shuttle system.

The current plan replaces a previous — and highly contentious one — that proposed replacing the offending stretch of the A344 with a bored tunnel. In December 2007 the British government announced it would scrap the tunnel plan. Transport Minister Tom Harris said the plan’s skyrocketing cost “would not represent the best use of taxpayers’ money” and that “due to significant environmental constraints across the whole of the World Heritage Site, there are no acceptable alternatives to the 2.1-kilometer bored-tunnel scheme.”

Although still subject to planning permission and funding, the new plan is expected to be approved and the project completed in time for the 2012 Olympics.

To learn more about stone circles of Britain and the battle to save Stonehenge, read our Stonehenge sacred site report.

Australia has established two globally significant conservation reserves on indigenous lands in the Northern Territory.

Spanning nearly 1.4 million hectares on the Arnhem Land Plateau, Warddeken Indigenous protected area adjacent to the Kakadu National Park was declared Sept. 24.

A day later, hundreds gathered at Rocky Point on Boucaut Bay about 310 miles east of Darwin to mark the declaration of the Djelk Indigenous Protected Area. Many elders are reported to have shed tears as Environmental Minister Peter Garrett, former front man of the band Midnight Oil, signed the formal declaration. The Djelk Indigenous Protected Area spans from the Arafura Sea to the central Arnhem Land Plateau.

To learn more about this conservation milestone read the Sydney Morning Herald article.

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 Green for All and Caitlin Sislin, Esq., Advocacy Director of the Women and Land Initiative at Women’s Earth Alliance (WEA), will discuss the Navajo Green Jobs victory and the national green jobs movement.

Caitlin will also discuss the work of WEA’s Women and Land Initiative, which unites legal advocates with indigenous women environmental justice leaders to advocate for protection of  sacred sites, environmental health and to work towards energy justice. In 2008, SLFP teamed up with WEA to film the amazing work behind this initiative. You can view the video clip filmed and edited by SLFP staff member Marlo McKenzie here.

SLFP also filmed a meeting between WEA and Jeneda Benally (Diné) from Save the Peaks Coalition. An amazing spokesperson on behalf of protection of the San Francisco peaks, Jeneda shared the history of the battle and the spiritual significance of the mountain in Diné culture. To learn more you can watch the video, read SLFP’s sacred site report or RSVP to events@womensearthalliance.org to check in on a live conference call hosted by WEA’s Weaving the Worlds Conference Call series on Monday, Oct. 12, at 10 a.m. Pacific time. Moderated by Caitlin Sislin, Jeneda Benally and Howard Shanker, Esq., attorney for the Save the Peaks Coalition and principal at The Shanker Law Firm, will discuss the lawsuit Save the Peaks coalition just filed against the United States Forest Service, pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).  Callers will also learn about the history of legal action in this case, what the Ninth Circuit’s en banc decision means for sacred site protection in the U.S., and the Coalition’s allegations under NEPA.

Uluru, one the key tourists destinations in Australia, has a new viewing platform which was unveiled early this month by Aboriginal elders hoping to discourage tourists from climbing the sacred rock. Opened at a dawn ceremony, the $21 million viewing platform Talingru Nyakunytjaku, which in the local Aboriginal Pitjantjatjara language means “place to look from the sand dune,” offers uninterrupted views of mulga woodland, large desert oaks, the southeastern face of Uluru, and the 36 head-shaped domes of Kata Tjuta.

Earlier this year, citing cultural, environmental and safety concerns the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park called for an end to people climbing the 1,100-feet-high monolith in the central Australian Desert. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has come out in support of the climb but the official decision on a proposed climbing ban of Uluru is still under consultation.

To learn more about the viewing platform read the Sydney Morning Herald article. For more information about Uluru please visit our sacred site report.

Vernon Masayesva and 40 individual Hopis have filed a challenge to the U.S. Office of Surface Mining’s decision to issue a life-of-mine permit to Peabody Energy for their Black Mesa coal strip mine. The permit would allow Peabody to continue the destructive surface mining for an additional 15 years after 2011.

The Hopi Tribal Council, ever allied with Peabody, has taken the unusual step of banning environmentalists from Hopi Land, and Navajo President Joe Shirley has endorsed the move.

Read more from CounterPunch.

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, farmers, and environmental conservationists to revive ailing salmon fisheries, restore their habitat and improve water quality.

The Klamath was once the third largest salmon run on the West Coast. To the native people of the region, the river and its fish — particularly the salmon — are sacred. The dams, built during the first part of the 20th century, have been blamed for declines in salmon and other fish populations, as well as water quality, in the Klamath.

The groups involved in the negotiations are expected to sign a final document in December. The federal government would then undertake about three years of studies, environmental review and cost analysis before Interior Secretary Ken Salazar makes a final decision on the plan; according to the terms of the agreement, Salazar must decide by 2012 whether removing the dams is in the public interest and will benefit the fish.

If Salazar approves the dam removal, decommissioning would begin in 2020. The plan, which has a cost cap of $450 million, would be the largest dam-removal project in the world and one of the largest U.S. river restoration efforts.

Click here for links to download the full draft settlement agreement or read a summary. To learn more about the history of the conflict, read our Klamath River sacred site report.

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 the town quickly divided into two factions, some favoring the plant and the economic development it promised and others favoring environmental review and protection of the Mt. Shasta ecosystems dependent on the spring water.

Nestlé cited its withdrawal from McCloud as a result of “a thorough analysis of our business operations in the region,” further stating, “we have determined that the Sacramento plant production will replace the production we expected in McCloud and therefore we do not have a need to build a new facility in McCloud.”

For more information see the articles and the press release in the Redding Record Searchlight and Mount Shasta News.

In August we published a new sacred site report and fully updated three others. Check them out here:

Beyul of the Himalaya; Nepal, Tibet, India — Throughout the famed Himalayan mountains are large, hidden valleys known as beyul, places of peace and refuge revered by Tibetan Buddhists. Because of their remote and isolated location, and the respect with which they have been treated by the communities that reside in or near them, the beyul contain high levels of biodiversity in a setting of tremendous beauty. However, outside influences like globalization, nationalization, cultural assimilation and tourism have begun to erode the power of the traditional beyul concept in many places, while development encroaches on the physical landscape. If modern conservation and management efforts are to be successful, they must find ways to preserve and integrate longstanding traditional beliefs and practices.

McCloud River Watershed, California — The CALFED Bay-Delta Program, adopted by Congress in 2004, proposes to raise Shasta Dam, on the McCloud River, by between six and 200 feet, which would significantly impact the native people in the area. However, the voices of the Winnemem Wintu, whose cultural identity as winnemem or “middle river people” derives from their ancestral homeland along the river, have been left out of the debate. The threat posed by raising the dam led the Sacred Sites International Foundation to include the McCloud River Watershed on its 2008 list of endangered sacred sites.

Mount Tenabo, Nevada — Mount Tenabo and its environs are part of Newe Sogobia, the ancestral land of the Western Shoshone, which has never been legally ceded to the federal government. Nevertheless, U.S. politicians and multinational corporations have ignored an 1863 federal treaty acknowledging Western Shoshone ownership of the land, treating sacred land as a public resource to be mined for gold. Today, Barrick Gold, the world’s largest multinational mining corporation, is planning an open-pit gold mine on Tenabo, the highest peak in the Cortez Range.

Yucca Mountain, Nevada — For more than two decades, the Shoshone and Paiute peoples, scientists, environmentalists, the federal government, Nevada citizens and politicians have wrestled over the fate of Yucca Mountain. The federal government had advocated for the mountain as the nation’s primary dumping ground for deadly, high-level nuclear waste; however, it has recently signaled intentions to phase out the project. Meanwhile, the Western Shoshone fight off federal efforts to sell their land in order to give multinational corporations access to its mineral resources.

Sacred Land Film project is reaching out on social media platforms to expose assaults on sacred landscapes and to promote conversation around protecting the ecological integrity of these endangered places. Please add to the discussion by becoming part of our cause on Facebook, following us on Twitter, connecting to us on Current, hitting our links on Delicious or watching one of our clips on YouTube.

In June and July, we published two new sacred site reports and fully updated one other, which we invite you to read:

Mount Kinabalu, Malaysia — Emerging from the mist that covers the island of Borneo, multi-peaked Mount Kinabalu is known to the indigenous Kadazan as akina-balu, resting place of the ancestral spirits. It plays a key role in their creation stories and legends, which inform traditional land relationships and conservation practices, and it is also home to a spectrum of exotic plants and endangered animal species. From 1975 to 1999, copper mining on the mountainside damaged the landscape, contaminated the water supply, and left behind millions of tons of tailings that continue to pose an environmental threat. Meanwhile, the area has become increasingly exposed to eco-social pressures stemming from logging, oil-palm plantations, settlements and tourism, while the Kadazan are experiencing threats to the durability of their traditions. The Kadazan, NGOs and the Sabah government, however, are taking steps to respond to these threats and preserve the mountain’s cultural and ecolological treasures.

Rila Monastery, Bulgaria — Rila Monastery is a symbol of national identity representing the persistence of Bulgarian culture and faith despite centuries of foreign rule, and the preservation of the surrounding land, the Rila Monastery Nature Park, is intimately linked with Bulgarian Orthodox Christianity, the dominant national religion. As Bulgaria emerges from its recent post-communist era, the government grapples with a legacy of corruption and the pressures of rapid development, even as it positions Bulgaria as a preeminent destination for ecotourism. As part of that strategy, a management plan for the park has been drafted with the participation of the church, establishing specific strategies for managing tourism and conserving plant and animal species. Lingering bureaucratic obstacles, legal conflicts between church and state, and controversies over hydropower, however, hinder Bulgaria’s public commitment to sustainable development in the Nature Park.

San Francisco Peaks, Arizona (updated) — From many places in northern Arizona, the horizon is dramatically marked by three 12,000-foot volcanic peaks that rise out of the Colorado Plateau south of the Grand Canyon and north of Flagstaff. The San Francisco Peaks are sacred to 13 tribes, including the Navajo and the Hopi. However, it is the U.S. Forest Service, not the tribes, that determines what activities can take place on the Peaks, and they have permitted a ski resort since 1979. In 2009, the resort received legal clearance to use reclaimed wastewater to make additional snow — a desecration of the sacred slopes and a threat to the pure drinking water supplied by the mountain aquifer.

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 outdated law has impacted several sacred sites, including the San Francisco Peaks, Mount Tenabo, Indian Pass, and the Black Hills. For more information, see Earthworks’ Web page on the need for mining reform.

Indigenous communities in the Peruvian Amazon are claiming victory after the nation’s Congress on June 18 repealed a pair of decrees that had sparked months of region-wide protests in defense of indigenous land rights. The government’s about-face — including President Alan García’s admission on national television that he had committed “a series of errors” — followed a wave of international and domestic condemnation of a police raid on a peaceful protest in Bagua on June 5 in which dozens of people were killed. (See our June 15 action alert.)

The two contentious decrees, which were passed in 2008 as part of a package of legislation to facilitate implementation of a free-trade agreement with the United States, opened large areas of the Amazon to foreign investment and made it easier for companies to obtain permits for oil drilling, mining, logging, agricultural and hydroelectric projects.

The Peruvian Amazon is rich in oil, gold and other metals, and timber including bigleaf mahogany, drawing foreign investors eager to exploit these commodities. For decades, the indigenous communities have attempted to resist such efforts. The region of the recent violence is host to oil operations, including the bases of the French company Perenco. Two months ago the company announced a $2 billion investment in oil exploitation in the region, including the drilling of over 100 wells from 10 platforms and construction of central processing facilities and pipelines on indigenous lands. Decades of toxic pollution of Amazonia from oil extraction is a major issue for local people who live in the forest and drink river water.

García’s administration had touted the decrees as key to economic growth, and initially refused to acknowledge the protesters’ demands, calling them “terrorists” with a “plot against democracy.” Indigenous groups, however, said the decrees effectively abolished their territorial rights and were passed without their consultation. The decrees also conflicted with international standards: the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the ILO Convention 169, which Peru ratified in 1993, demand that indigenous communities have a say on issues that affect them — free, prior and informed consent.

Peru’s Congress repealed the decrees by a vote of 82 to 14.

“Today is a historic day,” Daysi Zapata, acting president of Peru’s national Amazonian indigenous organization, AIDESEP, said. “We are grateful that the will of the indigenous people has been heard and we only hope that in the future, the government listens and responds to the people, that it does not legislate behind their backs.”

Zapata called on member groups to end all roadblocks and protests, and for the government to repeal seven other related decrees that also pose a threat to indigenous rights and to enter into a “sincere and transparent dialogue for the good of the country.” She also asked the government to drop criminal charges against six indigenous leaders, including AIDESEP president Alberto Pizango, who was granted political asylum in Nicaragua after the government charged him with sedition.

Zapata and other indigenous leaders expressed regret that the decision to repeal the decrees had not been made sooner. “Was it necessary to lose so many lives in order for the government to see that the laws were unjust?” she asked. Although the official death toll of the Bagua violence stands at 10 civilians and at least 24 police officers, indigenous communities have said at least 40 civilians were killed and 150 or more injured, missing or in detention after some 650 security forces opened fire on the protest. Witnesses also reported seeing security forces burning and dumping bodies in an apparent cover-up attempt.

Atossa Soltani, executive director of Amazon Watch, which has been closely involved with this issue, said the repeal of the decrees was “a welcome first step,” but noted that “indigenous peoples are likely to continue to be at risk by Garcia’s policies to open up the Amazon to extractive industries.”

Thanks to Stefana Serafina for contributing to this report.

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 altitude of 10,023 feet, has become one of the most important astronomical research sites in the world. The University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy operates an 18,166-acre High Altitude Observatory there and is seeking to build the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope despite protests by Native Hawaiians who regard the holy site or wahi pana of Haleakala Crater as a sacred site. Conservationists consider Haleakala to be one of the most threatened parks in the U.S. National Park System, as it is the natural habitat of more endangered species than any other national park, including the only seabird on the U.S. endangered species list.

Comments on the SDEIS should be sent to:

Craig Foltz
ATST Program Manager
National Science Foundation
Division of Astronomical Sciences
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Rm 1045
Arlington, VA 22230
Email: cfoltz@nsf.gov

with a copy sent to:

1. Charlie Fein
KC Environmental Inc.
P.O. Box 1208
Makawao, HI 96768
Email: charlie@kcenv.com

2. Mike Maberry
Associate Director
University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy
34 Ohia Ku Street
Pukalani, HI 96768

3. Dept. of Health, Office of Environmental Quality Control
REF: ATST
235 S. Beretania Street, Rm 702
Honolulu, HI 96813

It is with pleasure that we welcome the newest member of the Sacred Land Film Project team, Managing Producer Jennifer Huang. We were humbled by the overwhelming response to our job posting for the Associate Producer position and we thank all of the talented people who applied. Jennifer has been a documentary filmmaker and writer in San Francisco for ten years, working on programs for PBS, TNT, the Travel Channel, HGTV and AZN TV. At the documentary department at Lucasfilm, she wrote and produced Harlem’s Hellfighters: Black Soldiers of WWI, and served as the associate producer for nine other films.

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 Navajo Nation case is unfortunate to say the least,” said Jack Trope of the Association on American Indian Affairs, who is working with DNA Legal Services, representing the Hualapai Tribe, Navajo medicine practitioner Norris Nez and Hopi spiritual practitioner Bill Preston. “It means that the San Francisco Peaks, sacred to so many tribes, will continue to be at great risk from the development approved by the Forest Service that allows treated sewage water to be used for snowmaking. It also means that the Ninth Circuit’s narrow interpretation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) – an interpretation which in practice will make that law virtually unavailable to protect sacred lands in the states covered by the Ninth Circuit – will stand.”

According to the previous ruling of the en banc panel of the Ninth Circuit, “the only effect of the proposed upgrades is on the Plaintiffs’ subjective, emotional religious experience. That is, the presence of recycled wastewater on the Peaks is offensive to the Plaintiffs’ religious sensibilities…the diminishment of spiritual fulfillment – serious though it may be – is not a ’substantial burden’ on the free exercise of religion.” The Court dismissed Plaintiffs’ religious beliefs as calling them mere “damaged spiritual feelings.” Regrettably, the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case leaves the en banc panel’s decision in place as the law in the Ninth Circuit.

Please take action by writing a letter or contacting your member of congress and the Obama Administration to urge them to take action to guarantee protection for Native American religious freedom. President Obama stated in his Native American policy statement before his election: “Native American sacred places and site-specific ceremonies are under threat from development, pollution, and vandalism. Barack Obama supports legal protections for sacred places and cultural traditions, including Native ancestors’ burial grounds and churches.” Urge the president to honor this commitment.

Also, June 21 will be an international day of prayer for sacred sites. You can participate from wherever you are. Invite friends, hold a discussion about the issues, spread awareness wherever you may be!

A protest in Tibet that has been sustained for several months has ended with a Chinese firm agreeing not to develop a gold mine at a sacred site. The protest was sparked when local authorities approved plans by Chinese mining and lumbering firm Zhongkai Co. to excavate the area. Hundreds of Tibetans protested the mine’s planned expansion and blocked access to the area. Tibetans have historically worshiped at the site, called  Ser Ngul Lo (Year of Gold and Silver), conducting rituals there in times of drought.

On May 16, a contingent of police and security forces arrived, prompting as many as 500 Tibetans to block the road leading to the mine. The dispute was resolved on June 6 with a written agreement to stop the mine plan and also to clean up poisonous wastes from previous mining.

For further information, check out a web report from Radio Free Asia.

In the worst political violence in Peru in more than a decade, dozens of indigenous people in the remote Amazon region of Bagua were killed on June 5 when police attempted to shut down a peaceful road blockade. Since April 9, tens of thousands of indigenous people throughout the Peruvian Amazon have blockaded roads, railways, bridges and a state oil pipeline to demand that the government repeal a set of decrees that make it easier for foreign oil, mining and logging companies to exploit their land.

President Alan Garcia’s administration maintained for days that the victims of the Bagua clash were mostly policemen and that only three indigenous protesters had been killed. However, emerging eyewitness reports depicted a scene of unprovoked violence in which some 600 police attacked the protestors, firing automatic weapons on two sides of the blockade and launching teargas grenades and live ammunition from helicopters. The several thousand indigenous protestors were unarmed or carried only wooden spears.

Indigenous groups report that at least 40 protestors were killed, scores more injured, and at least 150 are missing or in police detention; some witnesses say they saw security forces dumping the bodies of protestors into a nearby river. According to government reports, 23 police officers were killed.

In the wake of the violence, the Peruvian Congress has temporarily suspended two of the contentious decrees. The Peruvian cabinet minister met June 15 with the leaders of nearly 400 indigenous communities and signed a pact in which he agreed to present a proposal by Thursday to Peru’s Congress to revoke the decrees. Indigenous groups are demanding full repeal in order to protect their ancestral lands and right to self-determination.

The mainstream media has typically ignored the spiritual basis of the indigenous resistance. “We respect the Mother of the forest, the Mother of the rivers, the Mother through whose wisdom we receive knowledge about healing,” Antonio Iviche Quique, president of the Native Federation of Madre De Dios, said in an interview with Stefana Serafina. “Through that knowledge, our people have survived for thousands of years. This might be difficult to see with mercantile eyes, but for us the land is the fountain of life and survival.”

Please take a moment to speak up. Send a message to Peru’s President Alan Garcia and demand a peaceful end to this conflict, repeal of the executive decrees and full respect for indigenous land rights. You can also write to U.S. President Barack Obama, asking him to denounce the violence in Peru and consider the effect of a further implementation of the free trade agreement between the U.S. and Peru — the impetus for the decrees at the heart of this conflict — which will be discussed in Washington, D.C. this week.

Amazon Watch has set up an emergency fund to support indigenous communities in the region. Please consider making a personal or organizational donation to this effort. The funds will go to medical relief for the wounded, media campaigns led by indigenous organizations, and legal defense for those being charged.

Over the past month, we’ve published three new sacred site reports, which we invite you read:

Kii Mountain Range, Japan—For over 1,000 years, the people of Japan have walked pilgrimage routes that wind through the densely forested slopes of the Kii Mountain Range. Today, the mountains are a site of active devotion, but also of increasing tourism, which has fueled concerns about negative human impact on the site. Fortunately, the Japanese have a long history of preserving the ecological and cultural landscape of these sacred mountains, and that dedication persists as they respond to meet the challenges of increased visitors.

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia—For the indigenous peoples living on the steep slopes of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, sustaining the balance of the spiritual and ecological world is their sacred task. They call themselves the Elder Brothers, the guardians of the Earth, remaining vigilant while their Younger Brothers, modern civilization, have harmed the mountain’s ecosystem—and, by extension, the rest of the planet—though logging, mineral extraction and, most recently, two dam projects and massive ocean port development that will export mined natural resources while blocking access to a sacred site.

Bamiyan Valley, Afghanistan—In March 2001, the world watched helplessly as Taliban forces in Afghanistan methodically dynamited two of the largest standing Buddha figures in the world. Located in the imposing Bamiyan Valley, the figures, standing 125 and 180 feet, had been carved out of sheer sandstone cliffs some 1,500 years earlier under the direction of Buddhist monks. Today, amid efforts to preserve the now-unstable cliffs and indecision over how to best honor or rebuild them, the statues are only a collection of car-sized boulders and dust, a reminder of the worst excesses of the fundamentalist regime that brought them down.

On Sunday, May 10, from 11 AM – 7:30 PM, the David Brower Center will host a grand opening celebration. This is a great opportunity for you to tour the Center, visit the new resident organizations, hear live music and lectures, view documentaries, and learn how to engage in a variety of environmental and social issues. The Center is located just steps from the Downtown Berkeley BART station. For more information about David Brower Center and the open house, click here.

After 26 years headquartered an hour south of San Francisco in the remote hamlet of La Honda, we are pleased to announce that SLFP has moved to the new David Brower Center in Berkeley, California. We are now housed in a beautiful green building, sharing space for the first time with our fiscal sponsor, Earth Island Institute, and many like-minded environmental organizations, including other Earth Island projects. We are very excited to be part of this historic move, which we anticipate will offer us great new potential for collaboration with other environmental projects.

Our new address is:

Sacred Land Film Project
David Brower Center
2150 Allston Way, Suite 440
Berkeley, CA 94704

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, Mount Taylor, at nearly 12,000 feet, is a startlingly beautiful, sacred place. Visible from 100 miles away, the mountain has long been a pilgrimage site for 30 Native American tribes, with special significance for the Acoma and Navajo people. Centuries before the mountain was named for President Zachary Taylor, it was known to the Acoma as Kaweshtima, or “place of snow.” Mount Taylor is rooted in Acoma history and tradition and is an intimate part of the tribe’s cultural identity. It is one of the four sacred mountains encircling the Navajo Nation. Mount Taylor is still used for a variety of cultural practices and holds value for many tribes. Currently, the mountain is under threat from exploration for uranium. Mining and milling in the Grants area has already left a toxic, radioactive legacy, and expanded uranium mining would have a devastating impact on cherished cultural resources, including pilgrimage trails, shrines and archaeological sites.

To read more about Mount Taylor, click here.

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 near the Sacramento River on the eve of the lawsuit filing. There was good media coverage of the event, including an NPR report on Capital Public Radio. Will Doolittle filmed the event and posted a YouTube video of Winnemem leader Caleen Sisk Franco speaking at the State Capitol in Sacramento after the lawsuit filing.

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 reported on his website: “Today was an extremely important day in our fight against the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. In his budget request for 2010, President Obama will announce plans to devise a new strategy to find another solution to deal with the nation’s nuclear waste that does not include storing it in Nevada.”

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our recently departed Associate Producer, Ashley Tindall, who helped bring Losing Sacred Ground from research and development through our second year of production. Ashley has moved on to new career horizons, and we thank her for her two-plus years of service. We are currently in the process of canvassing a broad range of talented applicants to fill the associate producer position. For more information please visit our website.

To keep us up and running during this transition, five-year project veteran Vicki Engel has rejoined SLFP, helping to maintain project development and with the “heavy lifting” of our move to Berkeley. We were fortunate that Vicki was available in our time of need, and welcome her seasoned expertise and institutional knowledge back into the equation.

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 mine on Mount Tenabo, 250 miles east of Reno, until a trial is held.

“The effect of the proposed mining project is on the plaintiffs’ subjective, emotional experience. It is offensive to their sensibilities and in the mind of some will desecrate a sacred mountain,” Hicks said. “Nevertheless, the diminishment of that spirituality — as serious as it may be — under the Supreme Court’s holdings it is not a substantial burden on religious freedom,” he said.

Barrick — the largest gold mining company in the world — is planning to spend $640,000 a day for the next 15 months to develop the mine.

Read the Associated Press story.

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 Wintu people, with whom we have been working for two decades to protect their remaining undisturbed sacred land below Mt. Shasta and above Shasta Dam.

This year, the list recognizes natural and built sacred sites that are threatened by industrial and civic development projects, mismanagement, neglect and age, while it also highlights two outstanding sacred site preservation and restoration efforts. Sacred Sites International Board members, including co-founder Nancy and Leonard Becker, Becky Urbano, a historic preservation manager with the architectural firm of Garavaglia Architecture, and Steven Post, founder of the Geomancy Education Project, selected the sites for the 2008 list with aid from various nominating organizations, including the Sacred Land Film Project.

This year Sacred Sites International listed the McCloud Watershed (ranging from Mount Shasta down to Shasta Lake) as threatened. According to their website:

The U. S. Bureau of Reclamation has proposed a plan to raise the Shasta Dam from between 6 feet to 200 feet. Any expansion would flood many of the Winnemem’s last remaining sacred sites, as well as much of the McCloud River. This would force the Winnemem to dig up the remains of their ancestors and rebury them elsewhere, just as they did when the dam was originally constructed. Ceremonial sites such as Puberty Rock would be entirely submerged. The government is expected to release an Environmental Impact Report in the Spring of 2009.

The Upper McCloud River (above Shasta Dam) including Mt.Shasta and the Winnemem’s sacred Panther Spring, all within the boundaries of the National Forest Service, is listed as saved. On the other hand, the lower McCloud River is listed as lost due to the tragic inundation of Winnemem lands and burial grounds (and forced exhumation of remains) at the time of Shasta Dam’s construction.

For more information, see the 2008 list.

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 for the local Navajo and Hopi communities, made especially injurious by the timing of the announcement during the Hopi Soyalung ceremonies when the people plant their prayer feathers for the renewal of the earth and for peace and harmony.

To learn more about the history of the mining conflict at Black Mesa, you can read our site report and get involved with Black Mesa Trust.

To express your opposition to this decision, you can sign the online peititon at http://www.blackmesatrust.org/ and please contact:

Dirk Kempthorne, Secretary of Interior
US Department of Interior
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20240
Phone: 202/208-3100

or

Al Klein
Western Regional Director
Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement
P. O. Box 46667
Denver, CO 80201-6667
Phone: 303/293-5001
aklein@osmre.gov

Brent Wahlquist, Director
Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement
1951 Constitution Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20240
Phone: 202/208-2719

Dennis Winterringer, Director
Western Region, Southwest Branch
Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement
P. O. Box 46667
Denver, CO 80201-6667

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 a Life-of-Mine permit to mine on Black Mesa. A “Record of Decision” in favor of Peabody Coal Company’s “Black Mesa Project” would also allow the company the use of the Navajo Aquifer, which has been a center of controversy for the past 30 years and gives Peabody Coal Company the right to mine untouched coal reserves indefinitely. This has been a high priority unfinished piece of business in Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy plan.

Black Mesa is the ancestral homelands to thousands of Navajo and Hopi families and is regarded as a sacred mountain to the Navajo people and plays an integral role in the cultural survival for the future generations of both the Navajo and Hopi people. Many Navajo and Hopi people stand firmly in opposition to this mine expansion plan and are organizing to voice their concerns.

You can join Hopi and Navajo activists in Denver on December 8 at OSM, send a donation to support their travel, or learn more here. Please also call, e-mail, mail, or fax a letter to the U.S. Office of Surface Mining and/or the U.S. Secretary of Interior. Tell OSM NOT to issue a “Life-of-Mine” permit for Peabody’s “Black Mesa Project”!

Addresses to send letters to:
Dennis Winterringer
Western Regional Office
Office of Surface Mining, Reclamation and Enforcement
P.O. Box 46667
Denver, CO 80201-6667
Phone: 303-844-1400, ext 1440
email: bmkeis@osmre.gov

OR

Dirk Kempthorne
Secretary
Department of Interior
1849 C Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20240
e-mail: webteam@ios.doi.gov

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 sacred to the Ute and the Hopi, is to be surrounded by vastly increased drilling on its upper rims and adjacent canyons. Drilling around Nine Mile Canyon stirs up dust and vibrations that threaten the rock art, as well as potentially disturbing undocumented archaeological sites.

Overall, the Price RMP chooses the second most environmentally degrading option (out of six options), selects only 10% of “wilderness character” lands to protect, and allows even these areas to be accessed via slanted drilling (which avoids only the surface). The new RMPs determine the treatment of Utah wilderness lands for the next two decades, allowing environmental and cultural damage that may not be reversible. Once pipelines cross the land, air quality is diminished, and roads have been constructed, industry can argue more easily for further drilling because the lands will have lost their “wilderness” criteria. All six RMPs were released in quick succession with only a month-long protest period before the Secretary of the Interior made them official policy.

The Bureau of Land Management also announced on election day that it would conduct a major sale of drilling leases for these same lands, including parcels surrounding Nine Mile Canyon, on December 19. The BLM has largely acted on its own in selecting the parcels; it made superficial efforts at consultation with the National Park Service and environmental groups, but ultimately proceeded with drilling as its top priority. Once these parcels are sold, the Obama administration will have to choose between two difficult alternatives if it wishes to reverse course: either buying back the leases or trying to legally nullify them. The latter option will be more difficult because of the adoption of the RMPs.

For more information, see the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance’s information page on the RMPs and its November 26, 2008 press release on the lease sales.

See also the following newspaper articles and editorials:

“U.S. Moves Ahead on Oil, Gas Leases on Public Land” The Washington Post November 29, 2008

“Last-Minute Mischief” The New York Times October 18, 2008

“Drill, drill, drill: BLM plan for Carbon, Emery counties goes for the gas” Salt Lake Tribune September 8, 2008

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 and clam, but worry that their once-healthy diet is now full of toxins. Making the film is a journey for the teenagers, who learn from their tribe’s elders, interview their Congressional representatives in Washington DC, and face their own personal struggles. March Point is an inspiring piece of environmental journalism and of youth self-expression.

Check for future TV broadcasts at PBS’s Independent Lens site, or organize a screening with your local community group.

As the Sacred Land Film Project continues to film stories of indigenous communities working to protect sacred lands around the world for our documentary series Losing Sacred Ground, we are blogging about our experiences and sharing what we’re learning about issues indigenous peoples are facing. Read about our exciting film trips: three weeks in the Republic of Altai, four weeks in Australia’s outback, three weeks in the Andes of Peru, and our ongoing work in northern California and Hawaii.

After several years of negotiations, Russia and China have agreed to postpone a deal on the Altai pipeline until 2030. The proposed pipeline would have delivered natural gas from western Siberia to northern China and traversed the Ukok Plateau in the Golden Mountains of Altai, one of Russia’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites. The Sacred Land Film Project filmed in the Altai Republic in the summer of 2007.

Local NGOs and communities have opposed the pipeline, citing potential impacts from the construction phase, including  damage to the habitat of the endangered snow leopard and argali sheep and an influx of outsiders who may not share Altaian values.

Russia and China signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2006, with Russia agreeing to supply natural gas to China by 2011. According to various press reports from both Russia and China, negotiations on the Altai pipeline broke down when the countries disagreed on the pricing of gas. As prices have fluctuated and the costs of exploration and construction have risen in Russia, China began looking to the Central Asia republics, especially Turkmenistan, to provide cheaper natural gas.

Although local NGOs point out that Russia’s Ministry of Energy has not officially canceled the Altai pipeline project, the project is no longer included on the country’s 2030 energy blueprint released on October 8. Furthermore, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin signed an energy agreement on October 29, which included a deal on an oil pipeline in the Amur Province of far eastern Russia but no mention of the Altai gas pipeline.

You can read more in the Moscow Times or Forbes magazine.

Thousands of sacred natural sites are in jeopardy around the world despite the fact that many lie within formal “Protected Areas.”

At the upcoming World Conservation Congress in Barcelona, Spain, this October,  IUCN and UNESCO will launch the latest in the Best Practice Guidelines Series on Protected Area management. The new guidelines are entitled “Sacred Natural Sites – Guidelines for Protected Area Managers” and the 100-page volume focuses on improving protection of sacred natural sites within (and near) Protected Areas.

Around the world there is growing interest in, and recognition of the importance of, sacred natural sites as critical elements to both biological and cultural preservation, especially in light of the accelerating loss of biocultural diversity as an unintended by-product of globalization. These new Guidelines summarize experience to date in recognizing, planning and managing sacred natural sites in a variety of Protected Areas. The Guidelines will be used to share experience with protected area managers and their colleagues around the world who are concerned about and interested in protecting sacred natural sites.

The new publication includes 44 guidelines and 16 case studies from around the world. While focusing primarily on the sacred places of indigenous communities, the guidelines are also relevant for the sacred sites of mainstream faiths. Case studies include: Tongariro, National Park, New Zealand; Kaya Forests, Kenya; Devils Tower National Monument, United States; Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia; Adams Peak, Sri Lanka; Uluru, Australia; Rila Monastery Natural Park, Bulgaria; Vilcanota Spiritual Park, Peru; Misali Island, Zanzibar; Bogd Khan Mountain, Mongolia, Dhimurru Indigenous Protected Area, Australia; Chewa sacred grove, Malawi; and others.

There are now 108,000 protected areas worldwide encompassing 11.75 million square miles (an area greater than the African continent), but the definition and practice of protection is not uniform and indigenous peoples are sometimes excluded or forcibly removed from their traditional territories and separated from sacred natural sites they have cared for over many generations.

The Best Practices Series Volume #16 was produced by the World Commission on Protected Areas’ (WCPA) Task Force on the Cultural and Spiritual Values of Protected Areas (CVSPA), and was co-edited by Robert Wild and Christopher McLeod. The series editor is Peter Valentine. WCPA’s Allen Putney and UNESCO’s Thomas Schaaf developed the initial version of the guidelines, and subsequent drafts have been reviewed by indigenous and spiritual leaders around the world over the last three years.

The Sacred Natural Site Guidelines are co-published by IUCN and UNESCO with support from The Christensen Fund, WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature), LTS International and the Sacred Land Film Project. You can download a PDF copy here.

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 world when it comes to indigenous land rights. Dozens of mining and logging projects are ongoing and planned—while the First Nations there struggle to negotiate an overarching framework for land management instead of having to react defensively against each individual project (see our reports on Amazay Lake, Klabona, and Haida Gwaii for details).

Just as they halted a gold mine that would have filled Amazay Lake with acid-rock waste, the Takla watched Imperial Metals begin to drill test holes on Bear Mountain. When the B.C. government allowed the test drilling to occur before an environmental assessment is completed, and when negotiations with the government stalled, the Takla stood their ground—literally. Blocking the roads needed to access the test holes, Takla Chief Dolly Abraham said, “The situation is urgent… Takla has made it clear to successive Mines Ministers and to Imperial Metals that this area is off limits for mining and will be protected at all costs.” The Takla fear irreparable damage to salmon spawning grounds, and are also protesting the lack of clean-up at other mine sites that are leaking toxic chemicals. They recently ended the blockade in an effort to resume talks with the government, now that Imperial’s drilling has been temporarily halted.

The Takla Nation is one to keep an eye on. They are determined and organized in their campaign for long-term land use planning, and their communication to those of us outside the province is a model for grassroots organizing. See their new Web site and lend them support during the next few months. Spokesperson J.P. LaPlante tells me that the upcoming winter months are their window of opportunity to make progress on the negotiations before the spring thaw makes it possible for Imperial to start drilling again.

In 2008 the “Sacred Kaya Mijikenda Forests” was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The inscribed area includes 11 separate forest sites spread along 125 miles of coast, including the Giriama, Jibana, Kambe, Kauma, Ribe, Rabai, Duruma and Kinondo kayas. This designation will help to further strengthen protection for the kaya forests. UNESCO helps countries protect their World Heritage sites by providing technical assistance and professional training and supporting public awareness-building and conservation activities.

For more information read our Kaya Forests site report.

On June 13 the Federal Court in Darwin, Australia delivered a blow to the spirits of the Gudanji, Yanyuwa, Garrawa and Mara peoples. As many of you know, we have been following the events surrounding the zinc mine expansion and diversion of the McArthur River in the Northern Territory since last year. Now, in a decision that has been awaited since last August, the Court upheld the government’s decision to allow Swiss-based Xstrata Corporation to pursue a $110 million mine expansion project at the McArthur. This expansion plan includes a 5.5 kilometer diversion of the river which would allow Xstrata to tap a large deposit of zinc, a mineral which is skyrocketing in value on the world market, in great part due to Chinese demand. Since July 2007 the mining company has been forging ahead with the construction of the diversion canal anticipating this decision. Opponents of the diversion plan continue to charge that the diversion of the river will destroy sacred sites and have deleterious environmental effects on the fisheries and mangroves downstream.

The Gudanji and Yanyuwa people of Borroloola, with whom we filmed last August, have been persistent in their opposition to the diversion as moving the river would cut their rainbow serpent and turtle dreamings and forever damage the community spirit of the people. They also fear that Xstrata’s subsidiary, McArthur River Mining (MRM) has dug up burial grounds and removed bones from the site.

The traditional owners, as Aboriginal peoples are known in Australia, and the Northern Land Council – an agency that was set up to administer land rights claims for Aboriginal peoples in the Northern Territory – had sued the former federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell a year ago, charging that he had not followed correct procedure or analysis when he issued a permit for the mine’s expansion plan. This lawsuit followed a back-and-forth series of politically and culturally charged events, including the a decision by the NT Supreme Court halting the river diversion in April 2007 and the Northern Territory government’s highly contentious passage in May 2007 of last-minute legislation to allow for the diversion to begin.

In response to the litigation and publicity, MRM had refused to allow the traditional owners onto the property to conduct ceremonies. Last month, led by our friend Jacky Green, the Gudanji formed a roadblock at the mine entrance in protest. Xstrata issued several trespass notices to the protesters and police stepped in on behalf of the mining company.

After the June 13th decision, the Gudanji again gathered at the mine entrance with about 80 people, including Yanyuwa, Garrawa and Mara people, asking to be permitted onto the site to perform a farewell ceremony to the sacred sites. MRM refused and accused the Northern Land Council of staging a media stunt. The council fired back, charging that MRM was in violation of Australia’s Sacred Sites Act by refusing permission to the people to access their sites and perform ceremony. On June 19th, the police once again cleared off the protesters.

The Northern Land Council will now press its case with the new Environment Minister Peter Garrett. They hope he will agree to conduct a federal environmental impact assessment and halt the mining company’s river diversion work. We’ll keep tabs on news from the McArthur River and let you know how you might be of help!

To read the national press coverage, check out the recent articles in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age (Melbourne) and The Northern Territory News (Darwin). To find out what actions may be taken in Australia in the coming months, check out the Environment Centre of the Northern Territory’s page and their McArthur River blog.

We applaud the United Nations’ passage of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and congratulate the many, many indigenous elders and activists who collaborated over decades to enshrine these fundamental human rights in international law. However, in the spirit of dialogue and debate we offer these thoughts on the removal of the words “sacred places” from the document, in final negotiations behind closed doors as the declaration moved toward the General Assembly in 2006.

Throughout the 1990s, as indigenous people around the world worked to build support for the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, sacred places were explicitly mentioned. In 1994, the draft stated (bold text for emphasis):

PART III

Article 12

Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artifacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature, as well as the right to the restitution of cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property taken without their free and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs.

Article 13

Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practise, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of human remains.

States shall take effective measures, in conjunction with the indigenous peoples concerned, to ensure that indigenous sacred places, including burial sites, be preserved, respected and protected.

In the 2006-7 version that was approved this week by the General Assembly (with adjusted Article numbering in which the old Article 12 became 11 and 13 became 12), this very important language was changed:

PART III

Article 11

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to practice and revitalize their cultural traditions and customs. This includes the right to maintain, protect and develop the past, present and future manifestations of their cultures, such as archaeological and historical sites, artefacts, designs, ceremonies, technologies and visual and performing arts and literature.

2. States shall provide redress through effective mechanisms, which may include restitution, developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples, with respect to their cultural, intellectual, religious and spiritual property taken without their free, prior and informed consent or in violation of their laws, traditions and customs.

Article 12

1. Indigenous peoples have the right to manifest, practice, develop and teach their spiritual and religious traditions, customs and ceremonies; the right to maintain, protect, and have access in privacy to their religious and cultural sites; the right to the use and control of their ceremonial objects; and the right to the repatriation of their human remains.

2. States shall seek to enable the access and/or repatriation of ceremonial objects and human remains in their possession through fair, transparent and effective mechanisms developed in conjunction with indigenous peoples concerned.

Our attempts to discover why the words “sacred places” were removed in what appears to have been a small committee meeting in 2006 have so far failed to bear fruit. States probably objected to a fearful concept that seems to threaten economic development and private property rights, and a committee of indigenous negotiators may have compromised to undercut resistance as a promised vote by the General Assembly finally was approaching.

The Declaration was tabled and did not come to a vote in November 2006, and thus the compromise may not have been necessary. It is definitely unfortunate. Including the specific mention of “sacred places” would have been a huge, historic step forward — indeed for twenty years the draft declaration included the requirement that states cooperate with indigenous people to ensure respect for and protection of sacred places. This language reflected a consensus built and sustained over many years.

We are left with “archaeological and historical sites” and “religious and cultural sites” — terms that governments and modern societies do not understand in the indigenous context and hence usually reduce to human built structures, places where there is archaeological evidence, material sites related to the human past. This omission can effectively and conveniently eliminate sacred natural sites, where an undisturbed geophysical formation is understood to be sacred, imbued with power and spirit, experienced on a level beyond the physical — a mountain, a spring, a tree or grove, a lake, a river, a rock — “sacred places.”

Perhaps it is arrogant for humans to try to enshrine “rights” to sacred places, when the proper relationship is one of voluntary, deeply felt “responsibility.” But in an instrument of international policy, sacred places could have used explicit protection.

The UN General Assembly passed the controversial Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by a majority vote of 144 to 4 with 11 abstentions. The Declaration protects the rights of indigenous peoples to determine their own social and economic development and practice their cultural and religious traditions. It prohibits discrimination and political disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples. It also sets an international standard of free, prior and informed consent by indigenous peoples to development on their lands. Tonya Gonnella Frichner, North American Regional Representative to the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, said, “This was an historic day, and a step forward to help assure Indigenous Peoples’ treaty rights, human rights, and self-determination.”

The 46 Articles of the Declaration were negotiated over three decades between UN agencies, governments, indigenous representatives and numerous human rights groups. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour noted that “the hard work and perseverance of indigenous peoples and their friends and supporters in the international community has finally borne fruit in the most comprehensive statement to date of indigenous peoples’ rights.”

Notably, the four votes against the measure were cast by the United States, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, nations with substantial and politically active native populations. The abstaining nations were Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Burundi, Colombia, Georgia, Kenya, Nigeria, Russian Federation, Samoa and Ukraine.

Canada expressed a position shared by the countries that voted against the measure that the Declaration would give indigenous peoples too much power to renegotiate or revisit previously settled treaties or land and resource agreements. Canada released this statement: “‘In Article 26, the document states: ‘Indigenous peoples have the right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired.’ This could be used by Aboriginal groups to challenge and re-open historic and present day treaties and to support claims that have already been dealt with.”

Pleased with the passage of the Declaration, but wary of international political realities, indigenous leaders pointed out that their work is not yet done. Chris Peters, President of the Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development, said, “This is a significant and momentous day in our history. A time when Indigenous communities and nations should take a lead role in breathing life into this new human rights document.”

Read the adopted text of the Declaration.

A Federal Court of Appeals has upheld the U.S. Forest Service’s ban on climbing Cave Rock, a sacred site on the shore of Lake Tahoe. Cave Rock is a 360-foot high, 800-foot wide dome sacred to the Washoe as a home for spirits that have medicinal powers. The area supports many recreational uses, including hiking and fishing, but it is best known as an advanced climbing spot. The Forest Service, which manages Cave Rock under the jurisdiction of the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, recognized the damage done to Cave Rock through the insertion of bolts and other climbing hardware into the rock. In 2003, it banned climbing on Cave Rock in an effort to maintain the physical integrity of this sacred place.

The Access Fund, a non-profit organization of climbers, sued to overturn the ban, alleging that it violated the First Amendment’s establishment of religion clause. While a Federal District Court dismissed the action in January 2005, the Access Fund persisted and brought the case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. In August 2007, a three-judge panel ruled that the Forest Service’s climbing ban is constitutional because the Forest Service is protecting Cave Rock as an archaeological, cultural, and historical national resource, not because it is sacred to the Washoe. Thus the Forest Service is not supporting a specific religious practice. The protection of Cave Rock from egregious recreational use is an important victory; however, the legal reasoning used to arrive at this verdict does not appear to provide a precedent for sacred land protection based on ongoing religious use of a place. Read more in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals August 27, 2007 decision and in our full report on Cave Rock.

While the Forest Service supervises museum exhibits and archaeological sites dedicated to Washoe culture, the contemporary Washoe are still separated from their land. The tribe continues to lobby for the return of some of its traditional land base around Lake Tahoe. The Access Fund has not announced any further legal action, so as of this writing, Cave Rock is off-limits to climbers, though other recreational uses around it continue.

Today, Brazil formally set aside 125,000 acres of richly biodiverse rainforest as Yanawawa native territory, protecting the sacred land from deforestation and further resource development. The land is sacred to the community, not least because several burial sites are located in that swathe of pristine forest. Aveda Corporation, an American cosmetics and health products company, played a critical support role for the community in its efforts to secure rights to their traditional sacred land.

Aveda has used ukuru dye from the community in its makeup since the formation of its partnership with the Yawanawa in 1993. This was Aveda’s first partnership with an indigenous community and led to the development of a new village and ukuru plantation, financially enabling the Yawanawa to protect their lands from logging and rubber development. “After years of struggling together, it is extremely special for us to regain this important land,” says Tashka Yawanawa, Chief of the Yawanawa. “We thank Aveda so much for always supporting our efforts.”

“This land’s ecosystem supports the great web of life that the Yawanawa are a part of,” said Dominique Conseil, president of Aveda. “It is also the foundation of their cultural identity, history and dreams—and enshrines the burial sites of legendary warriors, Chiefs and Shamans. In a world plagued by climate crisis, it is still possible to reverse the trends; by taking action,we can all create a legacy of beauty and diversity for the benefit of future generations.”

The addition of this acreage to native lands means that a new total of 450,000 acres is under Yanawawa control. The community and Aveda will continue to work on securing formal rights to other areas of the Yanawawa traditional lands.

Project Director Christopher McLeod and crew—having just returned from three weeks in the Altai Republic of Russia where they filmed the first segment of our new 12-part series, Losing Sacred Ground—are now in their second week of filming in Australia. Read about their recent adventures in this article published on 7/31/07 in the Northern Territory News.

The McArthur River watershed floods during the monsoon, and perhaps the Aboriginal people keep track over tens of thousands of years, relating the severity and length of flooding to the health of the people and their land. When a mining company wants to put an open pit zinc, lead and copper mine in the center of the river course, build a giant 28-foot high earthen berm wall around the open pit to try to keep monsoon water out, and dig a 5.5 kilometer diversion channel to re-route the river away from its normal channel, the corporation is clearly rising to a major engineering challenge. Do the engineers care if it all fails?

Or is this another experiment in domination and control posing as science and certainty? In these aerial photos, there are two prominent sacred sites visible in addition to the channel of the river itself, which the local people revere as the dreamtime pathway of the Rainbow Serpent. The mining company has fenced off the sacred sites and threatens to fine any employee who trespasses or defaces the sites. Keep an eye on rainfall totals for Australia’s Northern Territory as we head into the wet season…

The National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) endorsed new sacred land protection legislation at their mid-year meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, which was held June 10-13. Resolution #ANC-07-020 calls for a strong “cause of action” to allow Native American tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations to litigate in court to protect threatened sacred sites, and calls on Congress to hold hearings and pass sacred land protection legislation.

The operators of Arizona Snowbowl ski resort on the sacred San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, Arizona, cannot use treated sewage water to make snow, the 9^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today.

In a unanimous decision, the judges said there is no evidence that denying the operators of the Snowbowl the ability to use reclaimed wastewater for artificial snow would force the facility (on U.S. Forest Service land) to shut down. The Court ruled there is no “compelling governmental interest” in having artificial snow on the San Francisco Peaks. The judges found that the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act requires government agencies to use the “least restrictive” means of interfering with any religious practice. This overruling of a district court decision is one of the most important in recent years under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Judge William Fletcher wrote that, even assuming the federal religious protection law did not apply, the Forest Service improperly approved the permit. He said the Service did not consider whether there would be any danger to skiers who ingested snow made entirely from treated sewage water. The ruling states:

“The record in this case establishes the religious importance of the Peaks to the Appellant tribes who live around it. From time immemorial, they have relied on the Peaks, and the purity of the Peaks’ water, as an integral part of their religious beliefs. The Forest Service and the Snowbowl now propose to put treated sewage effluent on the Peaks. To get some sense of equivalence, it may be useful to imagine the effect on Christian beliefs and practices — and the imposition that Christians would experience — if the government were to require that baptisms be carried out with ‘reclaimed water.’”

Read our report on San Francisco Peaks. Read the Arizona Republic’s front page story.

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 that Arizona’s Department of Transportation policy banning the use of material mined from the sacred butte in state construction projects represented an endorsement of native religion in violation of the First Amendment establishment clause. On September 1, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that rather than advancing any particular religion, safeguarding Native American sacred sites “has historical value for the nation as a whole.” Judge Betty B. Fletcher wrote: “Native American sacred sites of historical value are entitled to the same protection as the many Judeo-Christian religious sites.” Read the decision here.

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 celebration of American Indian history and identity. The screening and panel discussion will be held from 2 to 5:00 PM on Thursday, September 23 in the tent stage of Spirit: The Seventh Fire, on the Mall in the 14th Street Center Panel near the Washington Monument. Admission is free.

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 opposition and thousands of comments submitted to the Office of Surface Mining (OSM) in 2002, Peabody (the world’s largest coal company) continues to seek more coal and more water. In July 2004, Peabody submitted a revised application to OSM to combine the Black Mesa Mine into the nearby Kayenta Mine. With this application, Peabody proposes to: increase its coal production by 20%; build a coal washing facility that will use more precious water and fill impoundments used by farmers with toxic materials; take 6,600 acre feet from the Coconino Aquifer which supplies water to many northern Arizona cities; and continue pumping from the Navajo Aquifer through 2008, if not indefinitely. The Office of Surface Mining is accepting public comments on Peabody’s application until October 15, 2004.

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 many threats the dance has not been performed since 1887. The Bureau of Reclamation is studying raising Shasta Dam by between 6 and 200 feet to store more water for the Central Valley and southern California.  Read the Winnemem Wintu press release.
Read a Redding Record Searchlight op-ed piece about Shasta Dam by Caleen Sisk-Franco (September 6, 2004).
UPDATE (Sept. 14):  Read the New York Times War Dance report.

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 between county governments and tribes when counties are adopting or amending general plans or specific plans for major developments, and gives California tribes new tools to protect sacred places, such as being able to hold conservation easements and to include such places in open space designation. Read the text of the bill.

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 governments and tribes when counties are adopting or amending general plans or specific plans for major developments, and it gives tribes new tools to protect sacred places in California, such as being able to hold conservation easements and to include such places in open space designation. Read the text of the bill.

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 the City of Snoqualmie recently approved an expansion of the nearby Salish Lodge. The tribe and the Snoqualmie Falls Preservation Project are now developing a strategy to react to these attacks. Initially, they are asking for letters of support sent to the tribe’s office. See our page on Snoqualmie Falls for more information and the address.

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 the site of the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.

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 return a sacred site to indigenous people.”

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, ND, was recently released. The deadline for comments on this project is early to mid-July. The Bureau of Land Management is the lead federal agency. The contact people are:

Lee Jefferis, Project Manager

701-227-7713

and

Doug Burger, Field Manager

701-227-7703.

Written comments can be sent to:

Coal Team

Bureau of Land Management

North Dakota Field Office

2933 Third Avenue West

Dickinson, ND 59601.

For more information, read an editorial by Charmaine Whiteface, member of the Oglala band of the Tetuwan Oceti Sakowin and Coordinator of Defenders of the Black Hills, published in the Sioux Falls Argus on February 22, 2004.

The Bureau of Land Management is also hosting the following public meetings in North Dakota:

June 1, 6:30-8:30 pm, Four Bears Casino & Lodge, New Town, ND

June 2, 6:30-8:30 pm, Civic Center (120 7th Ave NE) Beulah, ND

June 3, 6:30-8:30 pm, Prairie Knights Casino, Fort Yates, ND

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 Distribution Bill, which proposes a settlement to the Western Shoshone in a forced buyout of their ancestral lands in Crescent Valley, NV. The lands at issue are the third largest gold producing area in the world, cited as the next “Saudi Arabia” of geothermal energy production and home to the Nevada Test Site, where the Bush Administration has been hinting at renewed full scale nuclear testing, and the proposed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository. To speak out against the passage of this bill, contact your local Representatives (House receptionist: 202-224-3121), Speaker of the House, J. Dennis Hastert, 202-225-0600, and Majority Leader Tom DeLay, 202-225-4000. Read more about Yucca Mountain and threats to Western Shoshone land.

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 late 1980s. Federal recognition would help them fight the raising of Shasta Dam, which would cause the McCloud River to back up further and drown what remains of the Winnemem’s traditional homeland.

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 the healing — not only of the Wiyot, but the entire community of Eureka and Humboldt County as well — which will come from this historic action. After 145 years, the Wiyot descendents of the massacre that occurred on a fatal night in 1860 will be able to once again hold their World Renewal Ceremony on Indian Island. To learn more about the 1860 massacre that almost wiped out the Wiyot tribe, read Bill Kowinski’s poignant story from the San Francisco Chronicle of February 28, 2004.

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 days during the year. For more information about the July 4th demonstration or to make a donation, contact John Beckett, 740-435-8471, naeda50@hotmail.com, or John Wills, 330-339-5359, redhawk@tusco.net, or visit the Native Earthworks Preservation Group website.

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 still means that the full Senate will now consider Myers’ nomination, the vote sends a strong message to the other Senate Democrats and sets up the probability of another filibuster. You can read Senator Patrick Leahy’s statement here. Further information on Myers, including the Alliance for Justice report on his record can be found at Independent Judiciary. Please contact your Senator to oppose the Myers nomination. For alerts already prepared on-line and ready to send to your Senators, please visit The Alliance for Justice or Earthjustice.

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 that they were harmed by their lack of access. Currently, signs at Rainbow Bridge request that visitors not walk under or near the bridge due to Native American religious practices. This suit is part of an ongoing effort by the Mountain States Legal Foundation to fight National Park Service policies which request that visitors respect certain sacred areas. MSLF also fought the voluntary climbing ban at Devils Tower in Wyoming. For more information, see the March 31, 2004 Indianz.com article.

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 Senator Joseph Carraro is mounting a campaign to get Governor Bill Richardson to fund the construction of Paseo Del Norte. Calls are needed to Gov. Richardson to ask him to oppose the funding for the Paseo Del Norte road. Please call Governor Richardson today at 505-476-2200. Tell him to oppose funding for a road through the petroglyphs! Native American religious values and beliefs should be respected in the state of New Mexico.

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 sacred by the Quechan people. On February 5, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the Myers’ nomination. More than 100 environmental, American Indian, civil rights, women’s rights and labor groups oppose Myers’ nomination. Senators at the hearing noted the unprecedented number of groups and breadth of opposition to this nominee. Please contact your Senators and urge them to vote against Myers’ confirmation. For alerts already prepared on-line and ready to send to your Senators, please visit The Alliance for Justice or Earthjustice.

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 ancestral connection to the spirit of creation. The deadline for written comments is February 16, 2004. Comments can be provided in writing or electronically to:

Office of Space Science Code SZ

NASA Headquarters

300 E Street, SW

Washington D.C. 20546-0001

otpeis@nasa.gov (please cc: kahea-alliance@hawaii.rr.com)

For more information: KAHEA, The Hawaiian-Environmental Alliance.

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 controversial proposal: “Thank you to all of you for your prayers, support, and encouragement. This could not have been accomplished without all of us working together.”

2003 Annual Report.

Our next film will feature struggles to protect sacred places in countries around the world. As part of our initial research and development, we are expanding our project focus to include site reports on some of the well known sacred places around the world. Additional lesser known site profiles will be appearing regularly in the months ahead, so stay tuned! Check out our new map of the world, and find site profiles on Uluru in Australia, Machu Picchu in Peru, The Ganges River in India, Mt. Kailash in Tibet, Mt. Kenya and Jerusalem.

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 Calpine “develop, implement, and make public a formal written policy on the rights of indigenous peoples by September 01, 2004.”

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 sensitive site in southeast California. Glamis is also claiming that the state of California expropriated $50 million by passing environmental legislation in early 2003 requiring backfilling of open pit mines. Read the text of Glamis’s Notice of Intent to File.

The World Bank recently launched a new facility to provide small grants ($10,000 to $30,000) directly to indigenous peoples. The deadline for the first round of grants is December 15th 2003, and proposals will be reviewed in January 2004. Sacred sites, intellectual property rights and the mapping of indigenous peoples’ territories are all mentioned in the guidelines. Read additional grant information (including Spanish and French versions).

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 an honor to work with Florence over the last twelve years. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the Winnemem, who are mourning the loss of a great healer and caretaker of sacred places on and around Mt. Shasta. Florence’s strength will surely live on as the wonderful people she taught and healed carry on the Wintu traditions. Read obituaries from the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle.

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 us prayers, money and time.” The defeat of the bond measure means that Petroglyph National Monument will be protected from highway construction for at least two years.

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 estate development industry has raised $150,000 to push the bond measure and activists are trying to raise $100,000 by October 16 to put a television ad on the air. Please donate and mail your check to P.O. Box 27733, Albuquerque, NM 87125. Thank you for your support!

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 (Pohlik-lah/Karuk), Executive Director of Seventh Generation Fund, Vine Deloria, Jr., Lakota scholar and author of God Is Red, For This Land, and Custer Died for Your Sins, Bambi Kraus (Tlingit), President of the National Association of Tribal Historic Preservation Officers, Arden Kucate, Zuni Tribal Councilman, Andrew Gulliford, author of Sacred Objects and Sacred Places, and Director of the Center of Southwest Studies, Fort Lewis College, and Christopher McLeod, Director of the Sacred Land Film Project and producer of In the Light of Reverence.

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 the sacred hills. For more information about this event, click here.

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 would have established a Traditional Tribal Cultural Site (TTCS) Register. The proposed legislation was an amendment to an existing law that established the state’s Native American Heritage Commission. It would have authorized the commission to bring legal action to prevent severe and irreparable damage to (and ensure access for California Indians to) a Native American sanctified cemetery, place of worship, religious or ceremonial site, or sacred shrine located on public property. Read the full bill text here.

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 economical source of coal in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming, but the Zuni Tribe and the Zuni Salt Lake Coalition can rest assured that their intense, well-organized, and spiritually-based opposition to the 18,000 acre industrial disaster was the real reason SRP is pulling the plug on the coal mine. Congratulations to everyone who worked on this important victory!

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 considers the volcanic formation a sacred site that has historical and cultural significance to the Washoe people, including religious rituals that were practiced there until 1965. Gustafson said she weighed the decision like she would any other, backed by guidelines that exist in the forest plan and that it is no different than other resource decisions she makes on behalf of the American public. The Forest Service said it expects the decision will be appealed. If not appealed, the ban would take effect September 2nd. Read more here.

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 U.S. continues to treat Western Shoshone land as public land, allowing mining, military testing and preparation of a high-level nuclear waste storage facility in Yucca Mountain. Since last September, the Department of the Interior has forcibly removed hundreds of cows and horses from Western Shoshone grazing lands in the Crescent Valley area. If the bill, which has the strong support of the Nevada Congressional delegation, is passed by the House Committee, it will go before the U.S. House of Representatives for a full House vote. Native activists and attorneys warn that payment of the land claim would extinguish Western Shoshone aboriginal title to most of Nevada. For further information, visit the Western Shoshone Defense Project website, or  read a June 27 editorial in Indian Country Today.

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). You can watch and listen live on-line at 10am east coast time at http://Indian.senate.gov.

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 York, and several sites along the Missouri River. For more information, please read this press release issued by the Native American Rights Fund.

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 to court to seek protection if the land managers fail to protect culturally significant places. Rahall is the ranking Democrat on the House Resources Committee, and the bill’s future is uncertain. The draft legislation is not perfect but it is an important first step, and along with the oversight hearings currently underway in the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, H.R. 2419 demonstrates that enforceable sacred land protection is once again a Congressional priority. Concerned citizens should keep the pressure on! Write your Representatives and ask them to co-sponsor H.R. 2419 and hold hearings to seek additional input from Native American leaders to make The Native American Sacred Lands Act a strong and effective law.

In contrast, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R, CO), Chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, introduced the Indian Contracting and Federal Land Management Demonstration Project Act (S. 288) on February 4, 2003. One of this bill’s stated purposes is “to prevent significant damage to Indian sacred land” and if passed it would mandate co-management of some Native American sacred sites on public land. The legislation creates a program to provide $100,000 planning grants to Indian tribes to prepare for co-management of sacred places with the federal agencies on whose land the sites are located.

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, to be protected against significant disruption. The bill now goes to the State Senate Appropriation Committee.

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 ancestral mounds may soon be destroyed by highway construction. For more information see our pages on Zuni Salt Lake and Ocmulgee Old Fields, or check out our map of endangered sacred lands (currently threatened) and our map of historic sacred places (where conflicts have been essentially resolved and lessons learned).

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 have long warned of the presence of numerous burials and sacred places. Human remains have been scattered around the park in landfill and the Yankton have set up a protest camp.

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 Court of Appeals states that Ms. Crandell “has not shown that a constitutional right exists to permit exercise of her wishes to utilize private property as she chooses.” In June 2002, Crandell went to pray at the Octagon Earthworks, which was built around 250 A.D. by the Hopewell culture. The Ohio Historical Society owns the site and has leased it to the Moundbuilders Country Club, which prosecuted Crandell because members of the public are not allowed to walk on the site when golfers are playing.

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 Calpine from the Calvert Social Index because the company does not meet the Social Analysis Criteria for Calvert’s progressive indigenous peoples’ rights screen. Calvert Social Investment Fund currently holds 41,000 shares of Calpine. For information contact Calvert’s Director for Corporate Communications, Elizabeth Laurienzo at 301-657-7047.

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 religious ceremonies by members of the Quechan Indian Nation, who for centuries have run from the Colorado River through Indian Pass for spiritual cleansing and prayer. Glamis has stated that the reclamation requirement will make the mine uneconomical. As he signed the new legislation, Governor Davis said: “We are sending a message that sacred sites are more important than gold.” For more information on SB 22 see the following:

SB 22 Chaptered Bill Text

From http://www.assembly.ca.gov/acs/acsframeset2text.htm

2003-2004 Senate Session, SB 22: Surface mining and reclamation.

Author: Sen. Byron Sher (D, Palo Alto).

Governor Davis Signs Bill to Protect Quechan Indian Pass

James May, Indian Country Today — 4/14/03

From http://www.indiancountrytoday.com/archive/28182179.html

Governor Davis Signs Mining Bill

Steve Lawrence, Associated Press — 4/7/03

California Passes Complete Backfill Bill to Protect Quechan Indian Pass

Press Release issued by Quechan Tribe — 4/7/03

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 Lake Highlands face massive geothermal development by Calpine.

Read the Sacred Land Film Project’s 2002 Annual Report.

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 $120 million, 48-megawatt geothermal power plant and to drill geothermal wells on a 15-acre site known as Telephone Flat, one mile from Medicine Lake. In 2000, the same two agencies denied Calpine’s request because of the Telephone Flat Project’s impact on Native American cultural values and the environment.

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.”

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 a matter that must be addressed.” The Governor asked his Resources Secretary to work on the issue and said he will introduce a bill next year that meets the concerns voiced by tribes and people like you. Our work to achieve a strong sacred land protection bill in California will go on!

Read the press release of the Quechan Nation.

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 Capitol Building

Sacramento, CA 95814

Phone: 916-445-2841

Fax: 916-445-4633

Thank you for your phone calls and letters of support!

Now we urgently need letters to California Governor Gray Davis encouraging him to sign the bill into law! This is a national issue, and California can lead the way, so we need letters from all over the United States! Please write or call!

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 the state Assembly in August. Read the California state legislation (SB 1828), sponsored by State Senator John Burton (D, San Francisco).

What you can do:

We urgently need letters from California residents to your state Assembly representative.

• Complete list of Assembly members and contact information.
• Search for name/address of your state Assemblyperson by entering your zip code.

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 court to seek protection if the land managers fail to protect culturally significant places. Rahall is the ranking Democrat on the House Resources Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Jim Hansen (R, UT) and the bill’s future is uncertain. While the draft legislation is far from perfect, it is a very important first step, and along with the oversight hearings currently underway in the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, H.R. 5155 demonstrates that enforceable sacred land protection is now a Congressional priority. Concerned citizens should keep the pressure on! Write your Representatives and ask them to co-sponsor H.R. 5155 and hold hearings to seek comments from Native Americans to help make The Native American Sacred Lands Act a strong and effective law.

Read a commentary on the proposed legislation by Charles Levendosky and a report from Indian Country Today.

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 distinction. These lands of great beauty and spiritual significance, home to Native Americans for thousands of years, are both threatened–one by mining, one by government neglect.” For more information see our map of endangered sacred lands.

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 distinction. These lands of great beauty and spiritual significance, home to Native Americans for thousands of years, are both threatened–one by mining, one by government neglect.” For more information see our map of endangered sacred lands.

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 Management has pledged not to issue any new leases until a management plan for the area is developed. For more information, visit our Weatherman Draw page.

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 in a 38% increase in water use for the slurry line. Meanwhile, the Hopi Tribal Council has begun negotiations with the Houston-based Reliant Resources, Inc. to explore the feasibility of a 1200 megawatt coal-fired electric power plant on Black Mesa. For more information, see the following recent articles:

Down To a Trickle Arizona Daily Sun (3/31/02)
Students Take Water Cause to Washington Arizona Daily Sun (3/31/02)
Hopis Make Power Play Arizona Daily Sun (3/27/02)

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 protection of sacred places. Vine Deloria spoke after the film screening at DOI and urged coalition members not to get bogged down creating a new organization: “Identify the places that are threatened and get to work protecting them,” he counseled. The following day we showed In the Light of Reverence at the Pentagon. A meeting with the staff of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs yielded a commitment to hold five oversight hearings on whether existing federal laws regarding sacred sites are being enforced. The first Senate hearing will be held June 4.

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 protection of sacred places. Vine Deloria spoke after the film screening at DOI and urged coalition members not to get bogged down creating a new organization: “Identify the places that are threatened and get to work protecting them,” he counseled. The following day we showed In the Light of Reverence at the Pentagon. A meeting with the staff of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs yielded a commitment to hold five oversight hearings on whether existing federal laws regarding sacred sites are being enforced. The first Senate hearing will be held June 4.  Suzan Shown Harjo offers a commentary on the history of the movement for sacred land protection and its current prospects.

From June 12-15, 2002, the Indigenous Environmental Network is hosting a strategic meeting of Indigenous peoples impacted by mining and mineral extraction related to gold, zinc and copper mining, uranium mining, coal mining and other mining activities.

Read the Sacred Land Film Project’s 2001 Annual Report.

In October of 2001, the Sacred Land Film Project received a grant from the Ford Foundation to expand the distribution opportunities for In the Light of Reverence. The $200,000 grant allows us to produce a DVD version of the film, hold more community screenings around the country, expand our website, publish a Teacher’s Guide and Sacred Land Reader, and develop a curriculum for Native American teachers and students. Support from the Ford Foundation will make a tremendous difference in our ongoing efforts to educate the public on issues of sacred land protection.

Since the tragic events of September 11 there have been several major attacks on sacred lands. The Sacred Land Film Project has sent out e-mail action alerts in an effort to keep citizens informed about emerging policy decisions. It is important not to let these decisions go by unnoticed, in spite of the pressures and distractions of the current international situation.

October 25, 2001: Re: Zuni Salt Lake and Glamis Gold Mine/ Indian Pass
October 23, 2001: Re: Zuni Salt Lake and Glamis Gold Mine/ Indian Pass
September 25, 2001: On the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

The Sacred Land Film Project co-hosted a Native American Sacred Lands Forum in Boulder and Denver, Colorado. More than one hundred native activists and tribal leaders came together with federal land managers, professors, journalists and students to discuss strategies for strengthening protection of sacred places.

In the Light of Reverence was nationally broadcast on PBS, on P.O.V., the groundbreaking series of independent documentaries! It was the highest-rated POV show of the summer, with 3 million viewers tuning in.

The Television Race Initiative published a great facilitator’s guide to accompany the broadcast.You can download the Discussion Guide from the POV website at http://www.pbs.org/pov/inthelightofreverence/resources.html.

Two jam-packed screenings of In the Light of Reverence highlighted this year’s Telluride Mountainfilm Festival. After each screening, viewers were treated to a discussion between Lakota scholar Vine Deloria, Jr. and filmmaker Christopher McLeod. In the Q&A, an angry rock climber challenged Deloria’s contention that climbers should stay off Devils Tower in Wyoming, but when given an explanation about the deeper meaning of the tower’s sacredness, the climber fell silent. At the festival’s conclusion, the film was given a Jury Award.

The PBS series POV (“Point of View”) – the premiere broadcast venue for independent documentary films – has accepted In the Light of Reverence for national broadcast on public television on August 14, 2001 at 10:00 PM (check your local listings).

Read the Sacred Land Film Project’s 2000 Annual Report

In the Light of Reverence was awarded the Best Documentary Feature award at the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco on November 11, 2000. Though the film is not yet 100% finished – as we await word from the PBS series POV (Point of View) – we presented a “special advance screening” of the film at the Palace of Fine Arts on November 9. A San Francisco premiere of the completed film is being planned for February 17, 2001 at Palace of Fine Arts.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has released a new study on the impact of Peabody Coal Company’s coal slurry on Hopi springs. “Drawdown” reports that the Department of the Interior’s own hydrology data indicates that the aquifer beneath Black Mesa is being seriously depleted and Hopi springs are drying up as a result of Peabody’s daily use of 3.3 million gallons of pristine underground water. The water carries pulverized coal 273 miles through a pipeline to the Mojave Power Plant in Nevada.

Former Hopi Tribal Chairman Vernon Masayasva has formed Black Mesa Trust to stop Peabody’s consumption of underground water. Tax-deductible donations can be sent to:

Seventh Generation Fund will convene a “Sacred Earth Conference” from April 19-22, 2001 at Seattle University in Washington.

The goal of the conference will be to form a native directed coalition to address the issue of sacred site protection. In the Light of Reverence will be screened on the first night of the conference. For more information contact Seventh Generation Fund at 707-825-7640.

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 campaign to stop the proposed expansion of the White Vulcan mine. On August 28, 2000 their campaign ended with success.

At a ceremony at the mine pit, James Lyons, Undersecretary of Agriculture, Mark Squillace of the Department of the Interior, and Douglas Martin, attorney for Arizona Tufflite Inc. signed an agreement to shut down the mine and reclaim the 90-acre site over the next five years. Tufflite will receive $1 million and will be allowed to remove pumice already stockpiled on the property for the next ten years. Tufflite will also relinquish 49 mining claims in the area, covering 8,000 acres of land.

Read the Sacred Land Film Project’s 1999 Annual Report

The Sacred Land Film Project has received completion funding from the Independent Television Service (ITVS) to finish the documentary In the Light of Reverence for public television. This ensures completion of the broadcast version of the film by July 2000. A simultaneous grant from Native American Public Telecommunications (NAPT) gives the film a second important ally in the effort to distribute the film through PBS.

This funding enabled us to complete filming at Mt Shasta in September 1999 and in Hopi country in October 1999.

The Museum of the California Indian will present a screening of a 30 minute rough cut of In the Light of Reverence at the Presidio, in conjunction with Earth Day. A panel discussion will follow with Chris Peters (Pohlik-lah/Karuk) Executive Director of the Seventh Generation Fund, Christopher (Toby) McLeod, Director of the Sacred Land Film Project, and Malinda Maynor (Lumbee) Co-Producer of In the Light of Reverence.

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

Read the Sacred Land Film Project’s 1998 Annual Report

Lakota scholar Vine Deloria, Jr. (University of Colorado, Boulder) and Richard Stoffle (University of Arizona) have released an exhaustive new report titled “Native American Sacred Sites and the Department of Defense” which is available on-line. The report contains chapters on Native American Concepts of Sacred Sites, U.S. Military Impacts on Sacred Places (state by state), A Consultation Model, and a summary of laws related to sacred site conflicts.

A Victory for Devils Tower

On April 3, 1998 a Federal judge in Wyoming ruled that the National Park Service’s attempt to protect religious practices at Devils Tower is constitutional. The Park Service had instituted a climbing management plan which included a voluntary ban on climbing during the month of June, at the height of ceremonial activity for the 20 Native American tribes that consider Devils Tower a sacred place. (Eighty-five percent of climbers chose not to climb the tower in June of 1996 and 1997).The U.S. District Court’s ruling dismissed a lawsuit filed in 1996 by several commercial climbing guides who argued that the voluntary ban violates the First Amendment prohibition of government sponsorship or establishment of religion. Judge William F. Downes wrote, “the government may (and sometimes must) accommodate the religious practices and…it may do so without violating the Establishment Clause” of the First Amendment.

Mountain States Legal Foundation has appealed the decision. Steve Gunn of the Indian Law Resource Center observed, “These appeals are very expensive,” and this is a clear indication of how high a priority it is for conservatives to stop government recognition of and protection of Native American sacred sites on federal land.

“It’s not that Indians should have exclusive rights at Devils Tower. It’s that that location is sacred enough so that it should have time of its own. And once it has had time of its own, then the people who know how to do ceremonies should come and minister to it. That’s so hard to get across to people.” — Vine Deloria, Jr., Lakota scholar –

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 groups have been battling local political leaders and residents who see the resort as a key to the area’s economic development. Mt. Shasta is a ceremonial site and is central to the cosmologies of many native communities in northern California. Supervisor Heywood cited native concerns as primary in her decision to recommend against the construction of the resort. Heywood does not have final say in the matter, but agency higher-ups in Washington D.C. are likely to follow her recommendation.

Activists celebrated the decision and the apparent statement of concern for Native Americans’ religious freedom and cultural preservation. Lawsuits, appeals, and a proposal to expand an existing ski area lower on the mountain may follow, so the fight isn’t over.

Read the Sacred Land Film Project’s 1997 Annual Report

The Sacred Land Film Project’s documentary A Thousand Years of Ceremony: Florence Jones and the Struggle to Save Mt. Shasta, will premiere on the opening night of the American Indian Film Festival in San Francisco. The 37-minute film is an intimate portrait of Wintu “top doctor” Florence Jones and her community’s efforts to protect sacred sites around Mt. Shasta in northern California. The film was produced as an archival record and a gift to the Wintu people. It will not be publicly distributed. The film will screen on Thursday November 6th at 7:30 pm at the Palace of Fine Arts, 3601 Lyon Street in San Francisco. Filmmaker Christoper McLeod will be on hand with Wintu leader Caleen Sisk-Franco and her husband Mark Franco.

The Richard and Rhoda Goldman Foundation of San Francisco today announced that three Bay Area environmental groups – Earth Island Institute, Rainforest Action Network, and International Rivers Network – will each receive a $1 million grant over the next four years to further their grassroots work. The grant to Earth Island is to assist with “project development.” The Sacred Land Film Project is one of Earth Island’s 26 projects.

Read the Sacred Land Film Project’s 1996 Annual Report

Read the Sacred Land Film Project’s 1995 Annual Report

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 owners around Mt. Shasta objected, and after the November 1994 elections, the keeper reversed his decision and decided that only the mountain above treeline is eligible for the national register.