The Challenge

Indigenous communities, for whom the United States is their traditional homeland, face both acute and chronic challenges resulting from environmental degradation.  In response to the systemic and intentional targeting of Indigenous lands and communities for environmentally, culturally and economically-destructive industrial projects such as mines, hazardous waste facilities, oil refineries and coal-fired power plants, the Indigenous environmental justice movement – a grassroots-led movement with national impact – has arisen to demand sustainability and equity.

 “According to the Worldwatch Institute, 317 reservations in the United States are threatened by environmental hazards, ranging from toxic wastes to clearcuts. . . . Reservations have been targeted as sites for 16 proposed nuclear waste dumps. Over 100 proposals have been floated in recent years to dump toxic waste in Indian communities. Seventy-seven sacred sites have been disturbed or desecrated through resource extraction and development activities.”

-Winona LaDuke, All Our Relations: Native Struggles for Land Rights and Life,
Boston: South End Press at 2-3 (1999).

• Approximately 70% of the world's uranium deposits are located on the lands of indigenous peoples. Navajo in Church Rock and Crownpoint, New Mexico, are victims of the nation’s worst radioactive uranium spill – in 1979, a liquid uranium tailings dam was breached and 100 million gallons of radioactive liquid spilled into Navajo waterways.
• Over 60% of African Americans and Hispanic Americans and half of all Native Americans live in communities with unregulated toxic waste sites.
• Studies conducted by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the University of Michigan have shown that minority and low-income communities in the U.S. have consistently been selected in greatly disproportionate numbers as sites for chemical factories, landfills, and incinerators.
• The Navajo Nation exports 1200% more energy than it uses, especially from coal – the Nation is home to the largest coal strip mine in the United States.  It is estimated that some 18,000 Navajo homes do not have electricity.
• Over the past twenty-five years, over twelve thousand Americans – most of them Native American – have been removed from their lands to make way for coal, uranium, and other mining enterprises.