As one of its last acts, the Trump administration has initiated the transfer of the sacred lands of Native Americans to two Anglo-Australian mining conglomerates.
The 2,422-acre site in Arizona, called Oak Flat, is of enormous importance to Western Apache and is now in the process of being destroyed by what must be one of the largest copper mining operations in the United States.
The steps for the controversial land transfer from the United States government, owner of the land, to the miners were completed on Friday morning, when a final environmental assessment was published. The government should soon transfer the land title.
Native Americans in the area compared it to historic attacks on their tribes. “What used to be 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 pressured anymore. “
The change comes after the government accelerated the environmental approval process for the transfer by one year. During a meeting with environmental groups, officials from the regional Forest Service assigned the accelerated schedule to the “pressure from the highest levels” of the United States Department of Agriculture, although the government says it’s only because the job was completed more quickly than expected .
The land recipient is a company called Resolution Copper, created by mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton.
“The Forest Service is clearly working hard to do this for Rio Tinto before Trump leaves office,” said Randy Serraglio, conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. He called it “a cruel betrayal of native peoples who value the land as sacred”.
Last May, Rio Tinto destroyed a sacred Aboriginal site in the Juukan pass in western Australia. Widespread public outcry and investor revolt over the destruction prompted Rio Tinto president Simon Thompson to promise that the company would “never again” destroy sites of “exceptional archaeological and cultural importance” during mining operations.
Called Chi’chil Bildagoteel in Apache, Oak Flat is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its spiritual and cultural importance to at least a dozen Native American tribes in the southwest. It contains hundreds of indigenous archaeological sites that date back to 1,500 years and is a place where the Apache tribes have performed ceremonies for centuries.
However, thousands of feet below Oak Flat is a copper deposit estimated to be one of the largest in the world and worth more than $ 1 billion. If the mine proceeds as planned, it will consume 11 square miles, including Apache cemeteries, sacred sites, cave paintings and medicinal plants.
Unbeknownst to tribes and environmental groups that had long opposed Oak Flat mining, the land transfer was approved by Congress and signed by President Obama in December 2014 as a last-minute addition to a government spending bill. Department of Defense.
Legislation requires Oak Flat to be delivered to Resolution Copper in exchange for 5,736 acres of its private land across Arizona, which are desirable for recreation or conservation. While conducting its environmental review, the Forest Service acknowledged that the mine will destroy sacred sites for Native Americans, but said the loss was an inevitable consequence of the land swap mandate.
The San Carlos Apache tribe filed a lawsuit in the United States district court in Phoenix on Thursday, alleging, among other things, that, in advancing land exchange, the Forest Service is violating the National Historic Preservation Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and an 1852 treaty between the United States and the Western Apache tribes.
On Friday, the judge denied the request to postpone the publication of the environmental report and determined that the transfer could take place in 55 days.
In a separate lawsuit this week, Apache Fortress filed a pledge in Oak Flat alleging that the land was owned by the Apache under the 1852 treaty – under which Oak Flat was considered part of the Apache homeland – and the Forest Service did not. had legal title to the property.
Arizona Representative Raúl Grijalva and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders also plan to present the Save Oak Flat Act in Congress to revoke the land exchange.
Tribes and environmental groups hope that Oak Flat can still be preserved. “There are many things that a new Biden government can do to prevent 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 will get any of the other federal permits to actually make the mine.”