Welcome to News from Native American Netroots, a series focused on indigenous tribes primarily in the United States and Canada but inclusive of international peoples also.
A special thanks to our team for contributing the links that have been compiled here. Please provide your news links in the comments below.
Cross Posted at Native American Netroots
Alaska Native and Native American Programs Receive Increased Funding
Libby Casey
As states and agencies wade through the budget President Obama proposed Monday, the White House is promoting its funding plans for Alaska Native and American Indian tribes.
The President’s adviser on Native American issues, Kim Teehee, said considering the cuts to the budget, Indian Country programs did OK.
Teehee said next fiscal year’s total proposed funding for Alaska Native and Native American programs is more than $19 billion, an increase of 4 percent over the last cycle’s funding. That’s nearly a billion dollars more than two years ago. The President’s plan calls for increases to the Indian Health Service, the Department of Justice and Department of Transportation tribal programs. There’s also a boost to Department of Agriculture’s rural development programs.
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Rally demands murder charge against cop who shot woodcarver
By RAY LANE
Hundreds of people rallied Saturday at Westlake Park, renewing a push for a Seattle police officer to face criminal charges for killing a woodcarver near downtown Seattle in August.
The rally came as the King County Prosecutor's Officer nears a decision on whether to file charges against Officer Ian Birk.
On Saturday, a vocal crowd had their answer: absolutely.
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Rocky Boy’s still recovering from summer flood
Travis Coleman
ROCKY BOY’S RESERVATION, Montana - A half-year ago, much of the Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation in north central Montana was under water.
Still in recovery mode, the Chippewa Cree tribe is facing years of work just to get back to where they were before the unprecedented flood hit this small reservation in mid-June last year.
Ted Whitford, a Rocky Boy tribal councilman, estimated that the reservation sustained more than $31 million in flood damages.
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Editorial: Keep focus on combating domestic violence in Alaska
Opinion Piece
"Alaska's political and economic conversation has focused on oil taxes, gas line prospects and disputes with the federal government over the health insurance mandate and endangered species. Major issues all, and Gov. Sean Parnell is naturally a primary player in all of them. But the governor has been steadfast in his determination to also bring the conversation back to an issue he staked out as soon as he took office in the summer of 2009 -- Alaska's scourge of domestic violence and sexual assault and abuse.
On Monday the governor spoke before the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce, which also heard from Monica Lettner, a woman who stepped forward to speak publicly for the first time about her rape. That kind of courage and powerful testimony should move Alaskans toward achieving the governor's worthy goal -- to stop such violence here within a generation.
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We need better answers to native question
Recently, Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard encouraged the country's indigenous populations to "take more control of their lives" – a sentiment easily expressed by the governing body that has inherited responsibility for a displaced people without having to deal with the social implications of having a culture slowly stripped away by government programs and a loss of traditions. According to the Agence France-Press (AFP), an Australian Reconciliation Barometer survey shows that more than 80 percent of 1,220 non-Aborigines surveyed believe that a lack of personal responsibility was the cause of the disproportionately high rates of disease, alcohol and drug abuse, unemployment and imprisonment among Aborigines. In contrast, the majority of 704 Aborigines blamed "lack of respect and inadequate living conditions, poor access to health and education, government failures and discrimination" for the same problems.
This survey, while particular to Australia, outlines a growing problem faced internationally, and within the United States. Today's map was largely drawn by colonizing powers of Europe and Asia; by war-victors with little real thought for already-established inhabitants of the redesigned territories. While much of the actual colonizing has happened over the course of at least several generations, and is not a modern phenomenon (there are, of course, exceptions to this), the negative effects of colonialism and settlement still affect indigenous people to this day. But now, as belts grow tighter and a need for international diplomacy grows, the question remains: is there a responsibility owed to socially disenfranchised cultures by the governing powers that inherit the colonized area?
The answer is unequivocally yes.
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National American Indian Housing Council holds meeting in DC
indinaz.com
The National American Indian Housing Council kicked off its 2011 legislative conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
Over 150 tribal leaders and tribal housing professionals are in town to discuss their priorities. Among other issues, they will discuss the $700 million request for the Indian Housing Block Grant that was included in the fiscal year 2012 budget released by President Barack Obama.
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Yakama Nation Wildfire Ravages Homes, Destroys Irreplaceable Objects
By Carol Craig
Up to 50 people had to flee their homes on February 12 when a massive wind-fueled wildfire erupted on the Yakama Reservation in southwest Washington. Two firefighters sustained minor injuries.
The fire consumed 20 homes in White Swan, a community of 3,200 that is 21 miles west of Toppenish, the tribal seat. The winds took down trees and power lines, cutting off power to much of the area.
Although no lives were lost, most of the affected residents are traditional Yakama tribal members, and many lost irreplaceable possessions, including traditional, ceremonial regalia and family heirlooms such as centuries-old baskets.
“We didn’t even have time to save our family pictures,” one displaced person told tribal member Caryl Spencer.
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Blackfeet Members Speed Up Livestock Feed Growth
native strength.com
In a time of widespread financial hardship and soaring unemployment, two men on the Blackfeet Nation reservation have developed a growing business that goes against the grain. Ron Doore and Jerry Boggs, partners in Sun Roads Farmory, have developed a hydroponic technology that grows livestock feed in six days, year-round, regardless of weather. In addition to being fast, they claim that their method conserves water, is organic, and costs less than traditional growing methods. It also takes a minuscule amount of space compared to the acres needed to grow grain feed. “Jerry and I believe that what we’re doing has the potential to create a paradigm shift in the agricultural industry,” Doore said.
And they may be shifting a few more paradigms before they’re done: The company is about to launch a system for growing bio-fuels and food humans can eat.
Boggs and Doore, both enrolled members of the Blackfeet Nation, operate Sun Roads Farmory on 1,000 acres of land on the tribe’s reservation in north-central Montana, around 40 miles from Glacier National Park. They employ seven people, but expect to more than double that number by summer. Their “alternative feed systems” (AFS) provide a technologically controlled environment for growing consistently high-nutrient, 100 percent–organic green feed anywhere in the country, come rain or shine, drought or flood.
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Suckerfish and the Klamath Tribe
By Meta L. Maxwell
We start a fire in the morning. We take two fish and kill one, and burn him in the ceremonial fire. The other one we lower into the water and take its gall—the beis—and put it back in the water. All of this is a ceremony to call the fish back to where they originated. To where they were harvested, to our village sites…
That is how Perry Chocktoot Jr. described the Return of C’waam Ceremony held each year in southern Oregon after the first snowflakes fall and the evening sky reveals the fish constellation (three stars in line making Orion’s Belt) on the southwestern horizon. With traditional dancing, drumming and a feast, the ceremony honors both the endangered Lost River and shortnose suckerfish—fish that are central to the lives and heritage of the Klamath Tribes, but dismissed by many as “trash fish.”
While American Indians revel in being stewards of these fish (and all creation), others living in the Klamath Basin have spent years trying to diminish the suckerfish so they can exploit the waterways that support them.
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Sacred mountains off limits for 'The Hobbit'
By Jonathan Milne
The stark cone of Mt Ngauruhoe played a leading role in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy, featuring as a smouldering Mt Doom.
Now, only five weeks out from the scheduled start of filming for The Hobbit prequel, local Maori are set to put their foot down and refuse permission for the Oscar-winning director to use the central North Island mountains again. The iwi considered them sacred.
In The Hobbit, Bilbo Baggins and his entourage journey through the Misty Mountains on their way to confront the dragon Smaug at the Lonely Mountain.
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Coal Mine Records Made Accessible
By Carol Berry
A controversial coal permit is open to public scrutiny after months of effort by American Indian and environmental groups concerned about a giant strip mine atop Black Mesa in northern Arizona.
A settlement in Colorado District Court between the groups and the Western Region Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM) allows the public release of documents held by Peabody Western Coal Co., including the current permit for Peabody mining, according to a statement from a coalition of Indian and environmental groups.
“For over 40 years, Peabody’s coal mining operations have continued to change the cultural and physical landscape of Black Mesa,” said Wahleah Johns, Black Mesa Water Coalition, in the statement. “As Navajo citizens, we have every right to ask them to disclose their operating permits.”
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Still a Ways to Go, After Historic Ruling Against Chevron
By Gonzalo Ortiz
The plaintiffs in the case against Chevron tried in Ecuador, who won a historic 9.5 billion dollar verdict after a nearly 18-year struggle over environmental and health damages caused in a quarter-century of oil operations in the Amazon jungle, are not disheartened by the road still ahead.
Chevron announced that it would appeal the sentence handed down Monday by Judge Nicolás Zambrano in Nueva Loja, the capital of the northeastern Ecuadorian province of Sucumbíos, which found the U.S. oil company guilty of an environmental disaster in the Amazon jungle, as locals have been arguing in legal action that began in 1993.
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Ohlone Artifacts Unearthed on Safeway Site
By MATHEW LUSCHEK
Safeway's groundbreaking in Pleasanton has been put on hold as new Indian artifacts have been discovered.
The Oakland Tribune reports this is the fourth time in the past decade Dr. James Allan and his colleagues have been called to the area to unearth remains and artifacts of the Ohlone Indians.
The site Safeway plans to build its 58,000 square foot store has given Dr Allan and his company more than 500 remains. The most recent discovery included 19 sets of Ohlone remains.
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