Efforts to prevent a sacred Native American site from being destroyed by a copper mine received a setback yesterday, when a federal judge rejected Apache tribal members’ request to halt the site’s transfer to a a multi-national mining company.
While US district judge Steven Logan acknowledged that the mine would “close off a portal to the Creator forever and will completely devastate the Western Apaches’ lifeblood”, he said the activist group Apache Stronghold lacked legal standing in the case since it represented tribal individuals rather than a tribal government.
Logan also said Apache Stronghold’s case did not prove an “immediate burden” or meet the narrow definition of violations under a federal law protecting religious freedoms.
Although the preliminary injunction failed, the larger case is still moving forward and may go to trial, but the ruling removes any legal barrier for the 2,422-acre Arizona parcel called Oak Flat to become the property of Resolution Copper by 11 March.
Called Chi’chil Bildagoteel in Apache, Oak Flat is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its spiritual and cultural significance to at least a dozen south-west Native American tribes. It contains hundreds of Indigenous archaeological sites dating back 1,500 years.
Oak Flat also sits atop one of the largest untapped copper deposits in the world, estimated to be worth more than $1bn. The mining operation will consume 11 sq miles (17 sq km), including Apache burial grounds, sacred sites, petroglyphs and medicinal plants.
Apache Stronghold argued that Oak Flat is irreplaceable as a spiritual “holy ground” for the Western Apache and the destruction caused by the mine would infringe on the rights of the Apache to practice their religion. They also argued that the land transfer is a violation of an 1852 treaty between the United States and the Western Apache that promised the Oak Flat area would remain under Apache control.
“The immediate burden is total desecration of our religion,” said Wendsler Nosie in response to Logan’s decision. Nosie is a member of the San Carlos Apache tribe and leader of Apache Stronghold. He has been camping at Oak Flat for more than a year in protest against the mine. “After March 11, Chi’chil Bildagoteel will become private property and I will be subject to illegal trespassing for praying on my sacred homeland.”
Some legal scholars disagreed with the ruling as well. “Our religious freedom laws wouldn’t allow the government to demolish churches with impunity, and the same should be true of a site that has been sacred to the Apache people for generations,” said Stephanie Barclay, Notre Dame law professor and director of Notre Dame Law School’s Religious Liberty Initiative. The group filed a brief in US district court this week in support of the Apache Stronghold case.
The land transfer to Resolution Copper – a partnership of Anglo-Australian mining firms Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton – was authorized in a last minute rider that was attached unbeknownst to tribes to a must-pass Department of Defense funding bill in December 2014.
In a bid to finalize the controversial transfer and short-cut preservation laws, the Trump administration pressured the forest service to complete an environmental review before Trump left office. The review was published 15 January and, according to legal mandates, a 60-day clock for execution of the land transfer began ticking.
The mining plan faces numerous other challenges. Last Tuesday, the independent Advisory Council on Historic Preservation announced it would not greenlight preservation efforts that the government has proposed to protect cultural and historic artifacts from mining because it deemed them insufficient.
Meanwhile Apache Stronghold has filed a lien on the land, and the San Carlos Apache Nation also filed a lawsuit last month to stop the land exchange that is pending in US district court in Phoenix. Arizona representative Raul Grijalva and Senator Bernie Sanders plan to introduce the Save Oak Flat Act in Congress to repeal the land exchange. And the Biden administration could repeal environmental approvals.
“The government just acts like they can do whatever they want to us,” said Ramon Riley, who is 80 and has been cultural resource director for the White Mountain Apache Nation for 35 years. He still hikes the hills at Oak Flat to gather medicinal plants. “The United States has all these religious and environmental protection laws and none of them are helping the Apache people.”
The Link LonkFebruary 14, 2021 at 12:02AM
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/13/arizona-native-american-holy-land-resolution-copper
'Closing a portal to the Creator': fresh setback for attempt to prevent destruction of US holy land by miner - The Guardian
https://news.google.com/search?q=fresh&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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