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Protecting Our Natural Heritage
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For tribal communities across these lands, protection of our Natural Heritage is rooted deep in cultural traditions and personal values. Here are some of the events and gatherings the Sierra Club has helped tribal communities create to ensure the protection of our natural heritage.
Havasupai Mother Earth Gatherings
For the past 2 years, the Sierra Club has assisted the Havasupai Tribe in hosting the Mother Earth Gathering, bringing together tribal and non-tribal folks to celebrate and learn about Mother Earth. The Havasupai Tribe lives within the Grand Canyon and hold a unique relationship with Mother Earth that has sustained them for generations. Impacts from world-wide tourism have brought solid waste issues and disrupted their lives. Local Sierra Club volunteers conducted workshops on composting, Grand Canyon issues and sacred sites protection issues.
Musicians and dancers from Hopi, Yavapai-Apache, Havasupai, Ute Mountain Ute and even Los Angeles performed for the community residents in Supai in respect for Mother Earth.
To learn more about the Havasupai Tribe, log onto www.havasupaitribe.com
The Village of Supai is known throughout the world for its pristine blue waters and agricultural roots deep in the Grand Canyon.
Attendees of the Havasupai Mother Earth Gathering in 2005.
Musician Aaron White presents a flute he made to Roland Manakaja, Natural Resource Director for the Havasupai Tribe. Roland and Aaron worked with the Partnership Program to organize the event.
SAVE THE PEAKS!
As the highest point in the state of Arizona, the San Francisco Peaks is a stunning natural landmark and a sacred site to 13 Native American tribes in Arizona and New Mexico.
The Peaks rise from the flat Colorado Plateau up timbered slopes to alpine heights hosting year-round snow. The Peaks can be seen from points all across northern Arizona, and is the prominent scenic backdrop for the city of Flagstaff.
The Sierra Club's Partnership Program works with the Sierra Club's Environmental Justice Program in the efforts to protect one of the most important sacred mountains in America: The San Francisco Peaks. Currently in litigation in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals with the US Forest Service, the Sierra Club is co-plaintiffs with the Navajo Nation, White Mountain Apache Tribe, Yavapai-Apache Nation, the Havasupai Tribe and joined under separate suits by the Hopi and Hualapai Tribes. The suit aims to stop a snowmaking plan by Arizona Snowbowl, a ski area operation on the slopes of the Peaks under a Coconino National Forest Special Use Permit.
The Sierra Club has supported tribal efforts to Save the Peaks for several years and will continue to do so.
Members of the Save the Peaks Coalition speak at a press conference in Flagstaff opposing a snowmaking operation planned for the Peaks.
Robert Tohe
Sierra Club Environmental Justice Organizer
http://www.sierraclub.org/environmental_justice/projects_az.asp
robert.tohe@sierraclub.org
P.O. Box 38
Flagstaff, AZ 86002
928-774-6103
fax 774-6138
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