Native Organizers Alliance - Our lands are again at risk of being sold off to private corporations.

 

Patricia, Our sacred places and unceded treaty lands, which the federal government calls “public” lands, are at risk of being sold off to private corporations for exploitation and profit. The U.S. Senate recently confirmed multi-millionaire Steve Pearce to lead the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Known as Selloff Steve for his focus on trying to sell off public lands, he’s now overseeing 245 million acres of public lands -- which are traditional Native homelands. BLM land includes sacred national monuments that Tribes co-manage such as Bears Ears, Chaco Canyon (also a UNESCO World Heritage Site), and Grand Staircase-Escalante. These sacred places are under threat by those who believe Mother Earth is a commodity to be bought, sold, and exploited. As Director of the BLM, Selloff Steve could try to cut protections for sacred national monuments, undo environmental regulations, turn over sacred places to corporate polluters, continue to undermine sovereignty and treaty rights, and destroy ecosystems which all living beings depend on. Can you contribute today to organizing the resistance against selling off lands for profit and destroying sacred places? PROTECT SACRED PLACES With your support, Native Organizers Alliance Action Fund drove more than 24,000 messages to senators to vote NO on Steve Pearce becoming the BLM Director. We’ll keep challenging his anti-Mother Earth agenda. We’ve also worked hard with Tribal Nations to win historic co-management agreements and protect their sovereign right to manage their homelands as our people always have. This is how we help solve the world’s climate and water crises. But our progress is under threat with Steve Pearce at the helm of the largest U.S. land management agency. After his time in the oil and gas industry, Pearce acted in Congress to reject environmental protections, sell and lease federal public lands for profit, and increase fossil fuel extraction. The former U.S. Representative voted to weaken the Antiquities Act, which lets presidents establish national monuments that are protected from destructive mining and drilling projects. Pearce opposed the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks’ designation as a National Monument, then asked the Department of the Interior to reduce its size. Multiple Tribes co-manage this monument with the federal government. The federal government has legal obligations to engage in Nation-to-Nation relationships with Tribes and respect Tribal sovereignty. But that obligation means little to Pearce, so we need to build a lot more power and political pressure to protect ancestral lands, waters, ceremonial and burial sites, wildlife, and Mother Earth. Will you chip in today so we can prepare for increasing attacks and mobilize to protect public lands, sacred places, and our sovereign rights? If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your secure donation will go through immediately: Chip in $25 now Chip in $75 now Chip in $150 now Chip in $300 now Chip in $500 now other amount Steve Pearce could also threaten Tribes’ buffalo that graze on BLM land. Buffalo are an important food source for some Tribes. And more Tribes are working hard to build back up the population of buffalo after the federal government’s intentional destruction in the 1800s as a genocidal attack on our people. Their motivation was to destroy our cultures and belief systems as well as a core food source. Earlier this year, the BLM (without a confirmed director) revoked federal land grazing permits for more than 900 buffalo on BLM land in Montana. Tribes such as the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe wrote to the BLM opposing this move. So did the Coalition of Large Tribes (COLT), which wrote: “Bison are central to our survival. …tribes have a spiritual relationship with bison… Buffalo are a treaty resource. In a number of treaties tribes specifically reserved the right to hunt bison…” Pearce could double down on these attacks against Tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, cultural continuity, and sacred buffalo herds across Turtle Island. With your support, we’ll strengthen the movement to protect ancestral lands and secure our right to self-determination. Please support our urgent work to protect sacred places, public lands, Mother Earth, and Tribal sovereignty. Hawwih (“thank you” in Caddo) for defending Tribes’ sovereign right to make decisions about their ancestral lands and begin to heal the climate crisis. Together, we’ll keep pushing the federal government to protect Mother Earth. And we’ll keep supporting Tribal Nations in the fight to defend their rights, homelands, and communities. Judith LeBlanc (Caddo) Executive Director SUPPORT OUR MOVEMENT

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