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https://medium.com/@nsegoviaesq/sacred-lands-broken-trust-mining-deregulation-and-the-struggle-to-preserve-our-shared-humanity-6273c0aa08da>
"Nestled in the heart of Copper Canyon, Arizona — where the copper in the
mountains is older than the earth itself — lies Oak Flat, land sacred to the
Apache. Walking here, the air is crisp, the earth carries the scent of rain and
smoke from a recent fire. Light filters through the oak trees, and there is a
quiet silence that demands reverence — the kind of stillness that stops you in
your tracks, like sunlight breaking through concrete shadows on a winter day,
warming you, compelling you to inhale deeply. This place holds stories and
histories unseen to the naked eye. Yet, today, this land faces the threat of
extraction from Resolution Copper, an Ango-Australian and Chinese multinational
conglomerate of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto. Backed by legislation under review
in the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources that would fast-track mining
permits and weaken environmental review under NEPA, Oak Flat stands at the
center of a deeper struggle: what we value as a society and what we are willing
to sacrifice of our shared humanity.
Around the world, similar stories unfold. I have seen open-air, crater-style
mines like the one proposed at Oak Flat before. In the mountains of Colombia,
in Riohacha, where the jungles give way to the desert of La Guajira, the
Cerrejón mine extends for miles, almost all the eye can see. In Australia, Rio
Tinto destroyed the 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge, a cultural obliteration so
profound it prompted the resignation of its CEO and a public promise of “never
again.” This same company diverted a river for the Cerrejón in Colombia. The
Wayuu people remember the Ranchería River as
el río que se robaron — the
river that was stolen. They now struggle with water insecurity in an arid
region suffering more than a decade of drought. The river was stolen, and with
it, a spiritual lifeline and source of life. Today, more Wayuu children die
than anywhere else in Colombia because of water scarcity.
These global patterns of extraction are not distant tragedies, nor are they
outliers. They are warnings, and they lead directly to places like Oak Flat.
Many of the remaining untapped deposits of metals critical to the U.S. energy
transition — nickel, copper, lithium, and cobalt — lie on or within areas of
cultural and environmental significance to Native Americans. Nearly 97% of U.S.
nickel, 89% of copper, 79% of lithium, and 68% of cobalt reserves lie within 35
miles of Tribal reservations. This reality underscores a persistent and
systemic tension: the nation’s energy ambitions often collide with the
sovereignty, culture, and sacred places of Indigenous Peoples."
Via Muse.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
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mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
