The Hopi and Navajos say
environmentalists hurt their struggling economies and are unwelcome.
The leader of the country's largest Indian
reservation threw his support behind the neighboring Hopi Tribe, whose
lawmakers declared environmental groups unwelcome on the reservation.
Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. and Hopi lawmakers say environmentalists'
efforts could hurt the tribes' struggling economies by slowing or stopping coal
mining. Shirley said Wednesday that
he will stand in solidarity with the Hopi Tribe, and joined Hopi lawmakers in
encouraging other tribes to re-evaluate their relationships with
environmentalists.
"Environmentalists are good at identifying problems but poor at
identifying feasible solutions," Shirley said in a news release.
"Most often they don't try to work with us but against us, giving aid and
comfort to those opposed to the sovereign decision-making of tribes."
Andy Bessler of the Sierra Club, one of a handful of environmental groups named
in Hopi lawmakers' resolution, said the group respects tribal sovereignty and
understands the need for tribes to develop their economies.
But unless tribes can prevent carbon dioxide or air pollution from leaving the
reservation, he said environmental groups will continue to address the issues
that extend beyond tribal boundaries.
"We work with anybody who wants to help protect the environment, stop
global warming and transition our economy to a clean economy," he said.
"We don't discriminate and we'll continue to honor the invitations we get
from Hopi and Navajo communities to work with them."
Environmentalists and tribes have forged partnerships on a number of issues,
including opposition to uranium mining and the protection of mountains that
American Indians consider sacred.
But coal is another story.
Environmentalists have waged a campaign against coal as an energy source, in
favor of renewable energy such as wind and solar. But the Navajo and Hopi long
have depended on coal revenues to fund their governments and pay the salaries
of tribal employees on reservations where half the work force is unemployed.
COAL KEY TO BUDGETS
On the Hopi reservation, revenues from coal mined by Peabody Energy in northern
That coal powers the Navajo Generating Station near Page,
"The tribe is still reeling from that," said Hopi legal counsel Scott
Canty. "To talk about taking the remaining revenues away is just
unfathomable. It would just set them back tremendously."
Environmentalists also are fighting against a planned $3 billion,
1,500-megawatt coal-fired power plant on the Navajo Nation in
SYMBOLIC GESTURE
The Hopi resolution doesn't mean environmentalists
will be arrested if found on tribal land. A spokeswoman said it was meant
largely as a symbolic gesture.
Coal puts environmentalists and the Navajo and Hopi governments on different
sides of the fence, and it also has divided tribal members. Hopi and Navajo
culture and tradition teaches members to be stewards of the land. Some view
coal as a vital organ of Mother Earth that should be extracted only after
thoughtfully weighing the benefits.
Vernon Masayesva, a Hopi and director of the Black Mesa Trust, said
environmentalists have helped present the other side to the Hopi Tribal
Council's story that water used for 30 years to slurry coal to the shuttered
Mohave plant hasn't significantly affected aquifers and that the tribe would be
penniless without coal revenues.
"These pro-Peabody legislators are making sure all the obstacles are
eliminated, which means barring the environmental organizations who have
responded," he said. "They're not coming in on their own. They're
here by invitation."
Shirley said the Navajo Nation supports the goals of many environmental
organizations, and pointed to a commission to create green jobs and a 2005 ban
on uranium mining as examples of good working relationships.
But he said some Navajo environmentalists and the non-Navajo environmental groups
that support them work to the detriment of tribal government and Navajo people.
"Unfortunately, many of these people don't know about Navajos, sovereignty
or self-determination," he said. "They just want any use of coal
stopped. However, coal is the Navajo Nation's most plentiful resource, and our
prosperity depends on it."