Red Lodge Clearinghouse

"It's our responsibility to care for Mother Earth," said a speaker identified simply as Nicole, one of the participants in the Longest Walk 2, a five-month journey from coast to coast. "We all need clean air, clean water and this beautiful Earth to live on."

Beneath a banner reading "All life is sacred" and "Save Mother Earth," leaders and supporters of the walk took turns at the microphone, encouraging the crowd to take care of the land for future generations. Here in the sprawling Navajo Nation, which stretches across parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah, tribal groups and residents are in the midst of several environmental battles, including conflicts over a resurgence in uranium mining and the proposed Desert Rock Power Plant.

The walk, which consists of a northern group and a southern group, began Feb. 11 in San Francisco and will end July 11 in Washington, D.C. The journey is a recreation of the 1978 walk organized to raise awareness of Native American rights, which successfully halted a handful of congressional bills tribes believed would have undermined their sovereignty. The first Longest Walk also helped galvanize the political will to pass two new laws that tribes had been advocating for: the Child Welfare Act and the American Indian Religious Freedom Act. Organizers of the Longest Walk 2 hope members of Congress will be similarly receptive to their concerns in 2008.

"We want to make sure members of Congress recognize our rights and also make sure our treaties are honored," said walker Larry Foster.

Simultaneous walks are taking place in several other countries, including Australia, Mexico and Switzerland. But some foreign nationals have joined the tribal members and their non-Indian supporters in the United States. Among them are several people from Japan, including two monks, and a woman from Switzerland.

'U Can Stop Desert Rock!'

At a welcome rally for the walkers Tuesday in Crownpoint, N.M., the focus was on keeping out mining companies that want to extract uranium nearby and halting the 1,500 megawatt Desert Rock plant slated for Navajo lands to the northwest.

Walk leaders' invocations to protect Navajo lands and water were met by vigorous cheers from about 100 onlookers. A man and a woman in the crowd wore T-shirts that read, "U Can Stop Desert Rock!"

The Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley and the tribe's Dine Power Authority supports the project, but some local residents oppose it. Last month, the power authority filed suit against EPA to force the agency to make a decision on the air quality permit for the plant (Greenwire, March 20).

Last fall, U.S. EPA revealed that it had found substantial holes in a draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Desert Rock power plant. Opponents of the 1,500-megawatt coal-fired project are citing EPA's concerns to bolster their argument that the project should be scrapped.

In comments issued Aug. 24, EPA said there were "unresolved concerns" about the project and concluded that the Bureau of Indian Affairs provided "insufficient information" in the draft statement. Specifically, EPA noted a failure to properly evaluate the potential effects of the project, which would use state-of-the-art technology, on groundwater and farmland. That includes a proposal to dispose of waste generated by the coal combustion process in the Navajo Mine that would provide the plant's coal. The agency also said BIA failed to require aquifer testing and monitor of groundwater resources.

Tribal land management

Dennis Banks, a co-founder of the American Indian Movement, which made headlines fighting for Native American rights in the 1970s, is leading the southern route of the Longest Walk 2. Banks said it is important for tribes to continue to protect their right to self-determination and sovereignty -- including how tribal lands are managed.

"I'm concerned about the environment," Banks said during a break in the festivities at Window Rock, which included a performance of the Gourd Dance and an "Honor the Walkers" gathering Saturday night. "All life is sacred, and sacred land is wherever our bones are buried."

Banks said he is particularly concerned about the lack of Native American oversight of federally managed lands in Arizona's San Francisco Peaks, the Black Hills in South Dakota and the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in Colorado, where the Colorado Territory militia killed about 150 members of the Cheyenne Tribe in 1864.

Banks, who raises wild rice on a farm in northern Minnesota, said he would like to see those lands returned to the tribes. "They should be protected by the tribes, not the National Park Service or some other federal U.S. agency," he said.

Banks said the idea for the Longest Walk 2 came to him about five years ago, after he noticed a shift in the growing season. Worried about the effects of climate change, he decided the time was right to organize another walk from sea to sea, this time to raise awareness of environmental problems as well as Native American rights.

Sacred site protection

During a stop in Colorado on the Longest Walk 2's northern route, Sam Tame Horse Gallegos, a member of the Mescalero Apache and Southern Cheyenne tribes, said he hopes the walk will help people understand the importance of sacred sites to Native American tribes.

"Part of this walk is to protect our sacred sites throughout this nation that are constantly being destroyed by corporations and by nonnatives," said Gallegos, who joined the walk for a week. "Everything is part of that sacred hoop. So, the rocks, the animals, the earth, the trees, the water, everything is connected together. We're all connected."

Memo Roybal, a member of the Southern Cheyenne Tribe who attended the walkers' March 29 rally in Pueblo, said the tribes' traditional way of life has been lost because of the exploitation of the area's natural resources. "If we had the resources to survive as people did traditionally, we would do it, but we don't have those resources," he said.

"Everything has its place in this earth and when you start disrespecting those things, you're only disrespecting yourself," Roybal added.

Rhianna Eahee, at 17 the youngest walker on the southern route, said she sees the walk as a powerful force for change. "There's such great spiritual energy here," said Eahee, who joined the walk in Flagstaff, Ariz. "I didn't think it would be this powerful -- powerful enough to have hundreds of people walking for Mother Earth."

Still, some Longest Walk 2 supporters acknowledge that their message may be a hard sell to some. "When you talk about the environment, people don't want to listen," said Chief Norman Stormin' Tulley of Blue Gap, Ariz., after the welcoming rally at Window Rock. "We talk about the environment, and then we throw trash out the window."

Tulley, who helped kick off the first Longest Walk in San Francisco 30 years ago, remains hopeful that the group's peripatetic, 4,400-mile-long journey will succeed in increasing awareness about the importance of protecting sacred lands. "We've been living with the earth for a long time," he added. "We've been praying all the time for a better environment."

To learn more about the Longest Walk 2 and to learn about future stops, click here.

Colorado-based reporter Eryn Gable contributed to this story.

Reporter April Reese is based in Santa Fe, N.M.

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