[ad_1]
The Guardian
Outcry as Trump officials hand over Native American sacred lands to miners
Critics condemn “ruthless betrayal” after Trump officials initiated the transfer of Oak Flat to Rio Tinto and protesters from BHP Billiton to Oak Flat in June 2015. Oak Flat is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its spiritual and cultural importance. Photograph: Ross D Franklin / AP As one of its latest acts, the Trump administration has set in motion the transfer of Native American sacred lands to two Anglo-Australian mining conglomerates. Arizona’s 2,422-acre parcel called Oak Flat is of tremendous importance to the Western Apache and is now on the way to be destroyed in what is expected to be one of the world’s largest mining operations. of copper in the United States. Steps in the controversial transfer of land from the U.S. government, which owns the land, to miners were completed on Friday morning, when a final environmental assessment was released. The government is due to transfer the land title soon. Native Americans in the region compared it to historic attacks on their tribes. “What was once gunpowder and disease is now replaced by bureaucratic neglect,” said Wendsler Nosie, founder of the activist organization Apache Stronghold and a member of the Apache group descended from Geronimo. “The natives are treated as something invisible or missing. We are not. We don’t want to be rushed anymore. The move comes after the administration accelerated the environmental approval process for the transfer by a full year. In a meeting with environmental groups, regional Forest Service officials attributed the accelerated delay to “pressure from the highest levels” from the US Department of Agriculture, although the government says this is only because that the work was completed faster than expected. The beneficiary of the land is a company called Resolution Copper, which was formed by miners Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. “The Forest Service is clearly jumping through flaming hoops to get this done for Rio Tinto before Trump leaves office,” said Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. He called it a “ruthless betrayal of the aboriginal people who regard the land as sacred.” Last May, Rio Tinto destroyed a sacred Aboriginal site in the Juukan Gorge in Western Australia. Public outcry and investor revolt over the destruction led Rio Tinto chairman Simon Thompson to promise the company would “never again” destroy sites of “outstanding archaeological and cultural significance” during mining operations . The Resolution Copper East plant near Superior, Arizona. Photograph: Nancy Wiechec / Reuters Known as 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 Native American tribes in the Southwest. It contains hundreds of native archaeological sites dating back 1,500 years and is a place where Apache tribes have performed ceremonies for centuries. Yet thousands of feet below Oak Flat is a copper deposit estimated to be one of the largest in the world, worth over $ 1 billion. If the mine proceeds as planned, it will consume 11 square miles, including Apache’s cemeteries, sacred sites, petroglyphs, and medicinal plants. Unbeknownst to tribes and environmental groups who had long opposed the Oak Flat mining operation, the land transfer was passed by Congress and signed by Barack Obama in December 2014 as the last runner. minute of a Defense Ministry spending bill. The legislation provides for giving Oak Flat to Resolution Copper in exchange for 5,736 acres of its private land across Arizona that is desirable for recreation or conservation. During its environmental review, the Forest Service acknowledged that the mine would destroy sites sacred to Native Americans, but said the loss was an inevitable consequence of the land swap mandate. The San Carlos Apache tribe filed a lawsuit on Thursday in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, alleging, among other things, that by moving forward with the land swap, the forest service is violating preservation law National Historic, the Restoration of Religious Freedom Act and an 1852. treaty between the United States and the Western Apache tribes. The judge on Friday rejected a request to postpone the publication of the environmental assessment and ruled the transfer could take place in 55 days. In a separate action this week, Apache Stronghold filed a lien on Oak Flat, claiming the land was owned by the Apaches under the 1852 treaty – under which Oak Flat was deemed to be part of the Apache homeland – and the Forest Service no. had no legal title to the property. Arizona Representative Raúl Grijalva and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders also plan to introduce the Save Oak Flat Act in Congress to repeal the land swap. Tribes and environmental groups hope Oak Flat can still be preserved. “There are a lot of things a new Biden administration can do to stop this,” said Serraglio of the Center for Biological Diversity. Even if Oak Flat ends up in Resolution Copper’s hands by transfer of title, “there is no guarantee that they will be able to obtain any of the other federal permits to actually mine.”
[ad_2]
Source link