“If they take #OakFlat, they destroy our #religion & who we are,” said Vanessa Nosie, an archaeology aide for the #SanCarlosApacheTribe who also helps her father lead a nonprofit fighting the mine. Lozen, she added, is “dancing to carry the fight for all we’re trying to save.”
#conservation #law #ChíchilBiłDagoteel #Apache #SacredLands #TontoNationalForest #mining #ApacheStronghold #NativeAmericanLands #HistoricPlace #Arizona #ApacheLeap
#Mining #OakFlat, however, would eventually transform the landscape, creating what geologists say would be a vast crater. To prevent this, the tribe & other opponents of the mine have filed multiple lawsuits & tried unsuccessfully to get one of the cases heard before #SCOTUS. A federal appeals court will hold a hearing for several of the suits in early January.
#conservation #law #ChíchilBiłDagoteel #Apache #SacredLands #TontoNationalForest #ApacheStronghold #NativeAmericanLands #Arizona
The company #ResolutionCopper believes there are 20 million tons of #copper under #OakFlat that could supply up to ¼ of the US copper demand over 40 years. At today’s prices, experts say that much copper would be worth about $200 billion. The company asserts it will create more than a thousand jobs in an area with high unemployment.
#conservation #law #ChíchilBiłDagoteel #Apache #SacredLands #TontoNationalForest #mining #ApacheStronghold #NativeAmericanLands #Arizona #SanCarlosApacheTribe
What worried many of those who came to this mesa in mountainous southern #Arizona in early October was the very real possibility that this Sunrise Dance might be the last one at #OakFlat.
Oak Flat sits on one of North America’s largest undeveloped deposits of #copper. The mineral is used in dozens of items, including smartphones, electric vehicles & solar panels.
#conservation #law #ChíchilBiłDagoteel #Apache #SacredLands #TontoNationalForest #mining #ApacheStronghold #NativeAmericanLands
Surrounded by a hundred family & fellow tribal members, dancers, singers & medicine men, she would perform the Sunrise Dance, reenacting part of the #Apache creation story. At the end, after she had been daubed in clay to represent the mythological mother of all Apaches & ritually cleansed, Lozen would emerge as a young woman.
#law #conservation #ChíchilBiłDagoteel #SacredLands #ApacheStronghold #TontoNationalForest #NativeAmericanLands #Arizona #SanCarlosApacheTribe #ApacheLeap #mining
Nonilex