Native Organizers Alliance - Urgent: sacred site in danger

 

Patricia, Despite community outcry to stop the project, the Black Hills National Forest just issued a permit to drill for graphite at Pe’sla -- a Lakota sacred place within the Ȟe Sápa, known in English as the Black Hills, and a place of ceremony and prayer for thousands of years. This violates the treaty rights and religious freedom of the Oceti Shakowin, the Lakota, Dakota and Nakota peoples. We can’t let corporations or the U.S. government destroy Indigenous culture, ceremony, and ancestral connections! So we’re joining our relatives at NDN Collective and the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, who’ve been advocating and organizing to protect Pe’sla for years. Please send a quick message to the U.S. Forest Service, demanding they rescind the permit for drilling at ceremonial site Pe’sla. SIGN & SEND MESSAGE Back in 2014, four Tribes raised $9 million to purchase back the land for Pe’sla. To recognize the religious and cultural significance of the area and therefore protect it from harmful mining activity, they worked with the federal government to put the central prayer site, and a two-mile buffer zone around it, into federal trust. Even though Pe’sla is a sacred place with federal Indian trust status, mining companies and governmental leaders want to undo sacred place protections there and across Turtle Island. The Rochford Mineral Exploratory Drilling Project (RMEDP), a project of Rapid City mining company Pete Lien & Sons, could contaminate drinking water, damage the ecosystem, and degrade the land. Click here to send your message now. Hawwih (thank you) for defending our treaty rights, Tribal sovereignty, sacred places, and Mother Earth. Judith LeBlanc (Caddo) Executive Director BUILD NATIVE POWER

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