begin our journey this Sunday in northern Nevada, where the Western Shoshone people confront threats to their lifeways and holy places due to forced relocation, mineral extraction, particularly gold mining, and nuclear waste disposal. The Delegation will meet with Julie Cavanaugh-Bill, former Counsel for the Western Shoshone Defense Project and chief architect of the legal strategy that led to unprecedented international legal victories on behalf of the Western Shoshone. We will also meet Carrie Dann, Shoshone elder and outspoken environmental and human rights leader. We will visit sacred Mt. Tenabo, site of one of the largest open pit cyanide heap leach gold mines in America.
From there, the Delegation will travel to the Alpine terrain of Northern Arizona, where we’ll meet the dedicated leaders of the Save the Peaks Coalition, a movement to defend the sacred San Francisco Peaks mountain – holy to 13 tribes, including the Navajo – from desecration through the use of reclaimed wastewater as artificial snow on the mountain’s ski resort. From the Coalition’s attorney, we will learn about the cutting edge of federal and state litigation to protect sacred sites.
Happy (almost) Birthday!
The Sacred Earth Advocacy Network, a project of WEA’s Women and Land Initiative, will celebrate its first birthday this June! Over the past year, we’ve established a thriving and growing network of advocates applying their legal, policy and business expertise in pro bono partnership with indigenous women environmental justice leaders in North America. Our Network ensures access to critical advocacy resources — like litigation, regulatory advocacy, organizational development, and policy analysis, among others — for our indigenous women project partners, forging strategic collaborations to promote environmental health, protect sacred sites and support green energy development on tribal lands.
Do you want to help us celebrate?
Join us on an Advocacy Delegation! Our Advocacy Delegations educate and empower dynamic teams of women advocates to support communities where fossil fuel development and mineral extraction impact tribal lands and cultures. These Delegations are unique opportunities for women advocates and activists to come together, bridging cultures and life experiences to strengthen a shared vision of sustainability and justice on earth. Through dialogue and immersive learning, delegates build a foundation for sustained collaborative engagement with indigenous environmental justice leaders.
There are still spaces left in our July 2010 Delegation, Protecting Water and Tribal Culture in California, and our September 2010 Delegation, Promoting Green Energy on the Navajo Nation.
Please contact Advocacy Director Caitlin Sislin for more information, at caitlin at womensearthalliance dot org
Women Earth Alliance’s Caitlin Sislin has written on High Country News about the current opportunity for comment regarding the Peabody Western Coal Company’s water permit review process. She writes:
In it she says, “Collaboration with and support of … women leaders is really an investment in health, sustainability and justice for communities.”Read the full interview here!
