The guardian
Calls out as Trump officials to transfer sacred Native American land to miners
Critics condemn ‘senseless betrayal’ after Trump officials launched the June 2015 transfer of Oak Flat to Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton protesters in Oak Flat because of its spiritual and cultural significance. Photo: Ross D Franklin / AP As one of its latest actions, the Trump administration has implemented the transfer of sacred Native American lands to some Anglo-Australian mining conglomerates. The 2,422-acre Arizona package called Oak Flat is of great importance to the Western Apache and is now on track for destruction by one of the largest copper mining operations in the United States. The steps for the controversial transfer of land owned by the US government to the miners were completed on Friday morning when a final environmental assessment was published. The government must transfer the title to the country soon. Native Americans in the area compared it to historical attacks on their tribes. “What was once gunpowder and disease is now being replaced by bureaucratic negligence,” said Wendsler Nosie, founder of the activist organization Apache Stronghold and a member of the Apache band from Geronimo. ‘Indigenous people are treated as something invisible or gone. We are not. We do not want to be pushed around 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, local officials in the Forest Service attributed the accelerated timeline to “pressure from the highest levels” of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, though the government says it is only because the work was completed faster than expected. The recipient of the land is a firm called Resolution Copper, founded by the miners Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton. “The Forest Service is clearly jumping through flaming hoops to do this for Rio Tinto before Trump leaves office,” said Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. He calls it “a sensitive betrayal of indigenous peoples who consider the land sacred”. Last May, Rio Tinto blew up a sacred Aboriginal site in the Juukan Gorge in Western Australia. The widespread public outcry and investor uprising over the destruction led to Rio Tinto chairman Simon Thompson promising that the company would ‘never again’ destroy sites of ‘extraordinary archaeological and cultural interest’ during mining operations. The resolution copper-eastern plant near Superior in Arizona. Photo: Nancy Wiechec / Reuters Chaichil Bildagoteel named in Apache, Oak Flat is listed on the National Register of Historic Places because of its spiritual and cultural significance to at least a dozen Southwestern Native American tribes. It contains hundreds of indigenous archeological sites dating back to 1500 years and is a place where Apache tribes have performed ceremonies for centuries. Yet there are thousands of feet under Oak Flat, a copper deposit estimated to be one of the largest in the world and worth more than $ 1 billion. If the mine continues as planned, it will consume 11 square miles, including Apache cemeteries, sacred sites, petroglyphs and medicinal plants. Unaware of tribes and environmental groups that have long opposed the mining of Oak Flat, the land transfer was accepted by Congress and signed in December 2014 by Barack Obama as the last rider of a bill on the Department of Defense. By law, Oak Flat must be given to Resolution Copper in exchange for 5,736 acres of its private land in Arizona that is desirable for recreation or conservation. The Forest Service acknowledged during the environmental review that the mine would destroy sites sacred to Native Americans, but claimed that the loss was an inevitable consequence of the land exchange mandate. The San Carlos Apache Tribe filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Phoenix on Thursday, alleging, among other things, that the Forest Service, by proceeding with the land change, the National Historic Preservation Act, the Restoration of Religious Freedom Act and violated a treaty of 1852. between the American and Western Apache tribes. On Friday, a judge denied Apache Stronghold’s request to delay the publication of the environmental assessment in a separate case. But due to lawsuits and public pressure, the Forest Service agreed to postpone the land transfer by 55 days. is considered part of the Apache homeland – and the Forest Service did not have the 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 change. Tribes and environmental groups are hopeful that Oak Flat can still be preserved. “There are many things an incoming Biden government can do to stop this,” said Serraglio of the Center for Biological Diversity. Even if Oak Flat ends up in the hands of Resolution Copper through title transfer, there is no guarantee that they can get any of the other federal permits to actually do the mine. This story was amended on January 16, 2021 to clarify the status of lawsuits regarding Oak Flat.