INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL PERSPECTIVES:
A North American Primer
A Discussion and Series of Case Studies of North American
Indigenous Environment Issues and a Framework for Discussion
of Sustainable Development. Prepared for the United Nations
Conference on the Environment and Development, and Protecting
Mother Earth Conference, 1992.
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INTRODUCTION
This report profiles the present environmental state of Native North
America. The mandate is clear, on a worldwide and a North American
scale, native people are at the center of the present environmental
and economic crisis.
Consider these facts:
- Over 50 million indigenous peoples inhabit the world's remaining
rainforests.
- Over 1 million indigenous people are slated to be relocated for
hydro electric dam projects in the next decade.
- Over 72% of the wars fought in the world today involve Indigenous
nations of people.
- All nuclear bombs have been "tested" or detonated in the lands
of Indigenous peoples -- whether the 200+ detonated in the Pacific,
or the 650+ detonated in the Newe Segobia, on the Western Shoshone
Nation, by the United States.
On the North American continent, these circumstances appear as a
microcosm.
- While Amazonian rainforests fall at the rate of 1 acre every 9
seconds, Canadian forests are cut at the rate of 1 acre every 12
seconds -- those forests are the Aboriginal territory of First
Nations in Canada.
- Two third of all uranium resources with the "borders of the US"
underlie Native reservations, with Indians producing 100% of all
federally controlled uranium production in 1975.
- One third of all western low-sulphur coal is on Indian lands in
the US, with four of the ten largest coal strip mines in the country
in these same areas.
- The single largest hydro electric project on the continent -- the
James Bay Hydro electric project in on Cree and Inuit lands in northern
Canada.
- Over 60 separate proposals have been forwarded, or are pending
to dump toxic wastes on Indian reservations in the US.
- Fifteen of the present 18 recipients of nuclear waste research
grants (so-called monitored retrievable nuclear storage sites) are
Indian communities.
URANIUM MINING
"... Uranium mining and milling are the most significant sources
of radiation exposure to the public of the entire nuclear fuel
cycle, far surpassing nuclear reactors and nuclear waste disposal ..."
-- Victor Gillinsky, US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 1978
"... Perhaps the solution to the radon emission problem is to zone
the land into uranium mining and milling districts so to forbid
human habitation ..."
-- Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, February 1978
In 1975, 100% of all federally produced uranium came from Indian
reservations. That same year there were 380 uranium leases on
Indian Lands, as compared to four on public and acquired lands.
Worldwide, it is estimated that 70% of uranium resources are
contained on Indigenous lands.
Navajo miners worked in uranium mines on their lands in the
1950s at two-thirds off-reservation wages and were exposed to
radiation 90 times above tolerable levels. In 1975, 18 miners
had died of lung cancer and 21 more were very sick. In 1980,
38 had died, with 95 more very sick with respiratory ailments
and cancers. Finally in 1992, Congress authorized compensation
of over $30 Million for 200 Navajo families.
However, these uranium operations have continued to wreak havoc.
There are an abandoned 71 acres of radioactive mill tailings
on the banks of the San Juan River, the only major waterway in
the arid region, causing radioactive contamination downstream.
The Churchrock uranium mine discharges 80,000 gallons of radioactive
water from the mine shaft annually into the local water supply.
In July of 1979, the largest radioactive spill in American history
occured at the United Nuclear uranium mill near Churchrock on the
Navajo reservation, contaminating the water supply of 1700 Navajo
people which was subsequently ingested by over 1000 sheep and
cattle.
The birth defect rate in the Shiprock Indian Health Service
is two to eight times higher than the national average.
In 1992, over 1000 abandoned uranium mines remained on
the Navajo reservation, most with any semblance of reclamation
or reservation.
By 1980, 42 operating uranium mines, ten uranium mills, five
coal fired power plants and four coal strip mines (spanning
20 to 40,000 acres each) were in the vicinity of the Navajo
reservation. Approximately, 15 new uranium mining operations
were under construction on the reservation itself. In terms
of economic relations with the US and the region as a whole,
these statistics are particularly significant when one considers
that 85% of Navajo households had no electricity. And, each
year, the Navajo nation exported enough energy resources to
fuel the needs of the state of New Mexico for 32 years.
Uranium mining has also had tragic consequences at the
Laguna Pueblo east of the Navajo reservation, the Pine
Ridge reservation in South Dakota and the Cherokee Nation
in Oklahoma and Port Hope, Elliot Lake, Serpent River, Rabbit
Lake, Wollaston Lake and many other places in Canada.
A 1979 Study at Pine Ridge in South Dakota indicated that
38% of the women miscarried, and of the children that were
born, 70% suffered breathing complications from underdeveloped
lungs, jaundice or other birth defects.
COAL STRIPMINING
In 1976, four out of ten of the largest strip mines in the country
were on Indian lands. The center of the county's largest deposit
of coal is at the North Cheyenne Reservation. The reservation is
surrounded by multi-national coal companies, with the approval of
state and federal authorities, strip mining for coal. The largest
strip mine in the US is 15 miles from the reservation. In 1982,
the Secretary of the Interior sold federal public coal for pennies
per ton along the eastern border of the reservation, the largest
coal sale in history. Five to seven new strip mines are planned.
Environmental and social impacts of strip mining are devastating,
especially in this area with limited rain fall which precludes
restoration. A 1973 study by the National Academy of Sciences
stated, "in those areas receiving less tahn seven inches of
rainfall, reclamation should not be attempted at all, and instead
those lands should be designated a National Sacrifice Area."
Strip mining not only disrupts groundwater systems, it contaminates
a good portion of the remaining ground water. Airborne contaminants
from the strip mine have caused a higher incidence of respiratory
disease, lower birth weights, and other indicators of inferior
air quality.
At the Navajo reservation, Peabody Coal pumps four billion gallons
of water annually from the Black Mesa coal field, using this water
for a coal slurry pipeline to the power plant. This has caused
the forced relocation of over 10,000 Navajo people. The forced
removal has caused imminent cultural and psychological destruction
of the peoples. There is no word for relocation in Navajo, to
move away simply means "to disappear". The Black Mesa field
contains over 22 billion tons of coal.
AND SO ON....
The report continues with a discussion about the impact of oil
extraction of the Gwichin Nation in Yukon region of Alaska and
Canada, and certain harm with would be caused if oil extraction
occured in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
The report discusses how the Hobbema people of Alberta, Canada had
their indigenous economy destroyed when they were paid royalties
for oil extraction in their region. Despite a very large increase
in incomes, suicides increased even more. From 1985 to 1987, there
was a violent death almost every week, and the suicide rate for
young men was 83 times the national average.
The report discusses mercury poisoning associated with logging
and timber extraction in Ontario and the disruption of fish
resources. Other hazards of logging and timber extraction include
formaldehyde and dioxin poisoning.
The report provides the details of the James Bay Hydro-Electric
project which is in the process of detroying the Cree and Inuit
peoples through mercury poisoning, displacing the peoples, and
the flooding of an area the size of France!
It discusses the practice of siting toxic and nuclear waste dumps
on Indian reservations and the way that the US government chooses
native lands of the Cheyennes and the Native Hawaiians to test
nuclear weapons. (Native Hawaiians successfully stopped the
bombing after four decades of struggle.)
CONCLUSION
Despite Indigenous peoples suffering an extraordinary amount from
the environmental crisis, especially in supporting modern society's
insatiable needs for energy, they believe their cultural heritage
can provide the wisdom for finding solutions to the crisis. They
have also struggled valiantly on many fronts to avert further
disaster.
1992 marks the 500th anniversary of the invasion. Many native
peoples would say the invasion, is in fact the problem. The
denial of the process of invasion, and the consequences, for
example, of the destruction of more species in the past 100
years, than since the ice age, is indicative of the overall
lack of awareness of industrial society for the land, and the
people of the land.
Indigenous peoples continue their resistance to industrialization,
and to a way of life that is not based on "mino bimaatissiiwin".
(the belief in continuous rebirth of life through ecological and
social processes and the belief that human beings a part of nature
and not on top of it and therefore need to return to nature whatever
it is that they take.) It is the belief of many Native peoples
that it is in the interest of all North Americans to join in this
same struggle. At the same time, Indigenous Nations, see themselves
in a critical position in the whole industrial framework -- both
at the focal point for resource extraction, and still maintaining,
after over 500 years, living models of sustainable development.
We hope that North American peoples will come to see these Indigenous
models and values as a viable framework for the discussion of
sustainable living on this land.
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