BENCHMARKS OF SUCCESS 1990-2001

From the early years, gatherings and organizing work on toxic waste dump proposals were halted from a toxic incinerator at the Kaw Tribe in Oklahoma to a 5,000 acre toxic landfill being proposed on the Rosebud Lakota reservation in Oklahoma. Organizing a national voice for Native peoples within the US was proving a success. The key on winning these issues was the strengths of tribal grassroots members organizing on these issues and from that foundation, building a national movement of resistance. Organizing around environmental issues was relatively new to the Native community and their tribal governments in the early 90's. IEN's formation coincided with the emergence of the people of color environmental justice movement.

Benchmarks and Milestones of Successes and Achievements

• Developed a unified Native grassroots movement starting in 1991 to halt toxic and nuclear dump proposals in Native lands by bringing national and international media and public awareness to the issues. In the early 90's, started to work with tribal grassroots and tribal governmental leaders on an education campaign on the dangers of toxic and nuclear waste facilities on tribal lands and the need to develop tribal-based environmental protection infrastructure. Using both popular education and grassroots organizing approach, 19 proposed radioactive monitored retrievable storage facilities and numerous toxic landfills and incinerator proposals were halted.

• In 1992, IEN leadership facilitated a meeting with the Deputy Administrator, USEPA, at the American Indian Tribal Caucus Group, at the National Tribal Conference on Environmental Management, Cherokee, North Carolina to address these issues.

• IEN successfully sponsors annual conference gatherings throughout Indigenous territories that bring together over 1,000 Indigenous peoples and support groups from each region/area. These gatherings have been used as effective movement building and coalition building on the issues impacting Indigenous peoples. Since 1990 to 2001, these Protect Mother Earth gatherings have been held in:

• 1990 - Dilkon Chapter on the Dine' territory, Arizona. Hosted by Dine' CARE. Key achievement: Formation of IEN

• 1991 - Near the sacred Bear Butte, South Dakota. Hosted by Native Resource Coalition, Pine Ridge Oglala Lakota and Good Road Coalition, Rosebud Lakota territories. Key achievements: Principles of IEN and commitment to form a board of directors; National media attention with the "Dances With Garbage" article in "E", the Environmental Magazine

• 1992 - Celilo Village (Falls), Klickitat and Cascade nation of the Yakama, Oregon/Washington. Hosted by Columbia River Defense Project and Celilo Village. Key achievements: IEN national council formed to begin the process to develop the network organization; National Energy Coalition of Native Americans (NECONA) is formed at the gathering with Grace Thorpe and IEN national council members as founding members; emerging initiatives to address nuclear waste dumping in Indian country.

• 1993 - Sac and Fox Nation, Oklahoma. Hosted by Oklahoma Regional IEN and Sac & Fox nation. Key achievements: IEN resolutions on Mercury Contamination by Incinerators; opposition to the Human Genome Project, patenting of Life Forms and GATT and other trade agreements; Support of the Florida Traditional Seminoles; Support of Nuclear Free Zones on Tribal Lands; Protection of Black Hills and Lakota Territories from Gold and Uranium Mining and as a Sacred Site.

• 1994 - Mole Lake Chippewa territory, Wisconsin. Hosted by Sokaogan Defense Committee, Mole Lake Chippewa Tribe with support of the Menominee, Potawatomi and Stockbridge-Munsee tribal nations. Key Achievements: Native children and youth lead the gathering in a march to ground zero of the mine site. Ceremony to designate the proposed Crandon Exxon/Rio Algon Mine as a sacred site is conducted; Anishinabe Pipe Carrier from Canada brings sacred bundle to the gathering to begin an Anishinabe Nation unification movement; Great Lakes Regional IEN strengthen; Coalition building between the tribes and the non-Native citizens.

• 1995 - Eastern Band of Cherokee territory, North Carolina. Hosted by the Eastern Cherokee Defense League. Key achievements: Stopped a regional toxics waste dump. Beginning of initiatives to protect the biodiversity and forests.

• 1996 - Chickaloon Athabascan territory, Alaska. Hosted by the Chickaloon Nation and the Alaska Council of IEN. Key achievements: Bridging the issues between the lower 48 and Alaska Natives; focus on unique political and environmental issues of Alaska Natives; Mayan Priest conducting an historical ceremony to balance the North and South Hemisphere as part of Mayan prophesy; focus on military toxic issues.

• 1997 - Gros Ventre and Assiniboine territories of Fort Belknap, Montana. Hosted by the White Clay Society and the Buffalo Runners Society (traditional societies). Key achievements: Special focus on mining issues; historical ceremony of the sacred Pipe Carriers in attendance to bless the sacred Little Rocky Mountain impacted by gold mining contamination (Pegasus Gold Mine company went bankrupt within 2 months of the conference) and the co-sponsorship of the North American Indigenous Peoples Summit on Biological Diversity and Bilogical Ethics, between the International Indian Treaty Council and IEN. The "Heart of the Peoples Declaration was developed that established a mandate and IEN policy on bio-piracy, biological diversity and ethics.

• 1998 - Near the sacred Mt. Shasta within the traditional lands of the Ahjumawi Band of Pitt River nations, California. Hosted by the Seventh Generation Fund and Native Coalition for Cultural Restoration of Mount Shasta. Key achievements: National focus on sacred site issues and the issues of Mt. Shasta and Medicine Lake in northern California. Focus on the unique political and environmental issues of California Natives.

• 1999 - Near the sacred Mt. Taylor, in the nearby territories of the Laguna and Acoma Pueblo and the Dine' nations, New Mexico. Hosted by Dine' CARE. Key achievements: Special focus on uranium mining issues; filming of the IEN/Greenpeace film, Drumbeat of Mother Earth, an award winning film on POPs and Indigenous peoples; most attendance of Indigenous peoples of Mexico; meeting of Native Youth to begin the development of an IEN Youth Program; Indigenous peoples impacted by gold mining from throughout the world attend the gathering, coming from a previous Gold Summit meeting in California hosted by Project Underground and Western Shoshone Defense Project.

• 2000 - Near the U.S./Mexico border of Brownsville, Texas and Matamoras, Mexico. Hosted by Casa de Colores. Key achievements: Focus on border justice, water, agricultural toxics and effects of NAFTA and privatization of Indigenous lands in Mexico.

• 2001 - Okanangan territories in British Columbia, Canada. Hosted by En'owkin Centre and the Penticton band of Okanagan Confederacy Key achievements: Focus on unique political and environmental issues impacting First Nations - Indigenous peoples of Canada; focus on toxics; mining; oil and gas and energy; water diversions, dams and privatization of water; food security and climate change. IEN statements developed on: Energy and Climate Change; Water; and Right to Food and Food Security.

• In 1995, IEN hired its first staff and started to build a network organization to respond to the many environmental justice issues affecting Native peoples.

• Indigenous Anti-Nuclear Summit 1996, Albuquerque, New Mexico. Under sponsorship of the Seventh Generation Fund, with IEN and affiliate support, brought together a network of Indigenous peoples from North America and the Pacific negatively affected by the nuclear chain. A Declaration was developed that established the mandate of work on nuclear issues.

• Developed a model for partnership with the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy by jointly developing and implementing in 1997-2000 the North America Indigenous Peoples Biodiversity Project. This partnership initiative educated Native tribal leaders and grassroots members on important policy issues taking place within the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

• Continued this model of partnership starting in 1998, by working with USA Greenpeace in the production of an award winning film, Drumbeat for Mother Earth, that focused on the affects of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) on Indigenous peoples and ecosystems. Through the USA Greenpeace Native Toxics Lands Campaign and IEN POPs campaign, IEN successfully implementing an Indigenous peoples and human rights-based campaign strategy by bringing grassroots people directly impacted by POPs to the UN meetings where world leaders were negotiating a legally binding global treaty on the elimination of POPs, including dioxin. In 1999, IEN established a Native POPs campaign office in Alaska in partnership with Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT).

• In 1998, IEN facilitated for the participation of Native grassroots, tribal traditional leadership and elders in the Native Peoples/Native Homelands Climate Change Workshop held in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This lead to the development of the "Albuquerque Declaration" that was sent to the UN Fourth Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. From this point on, IEN has participated in climate change meetings from the local, regional, national and international level.

• An example of a major milestone of achievement by an affiliate and founding member organization of IEN, is Dine' CARE, of the Navajo reservation. Dine' CARE, as part of the Navajo Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) Reform Working Group and the Western States RECA Reform Coalition, were successful in getting the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendment of 2000 (Senate Bill S.1515) signed into law in 2000. As a result of this grassroots legislative campaign, more Navajo and other tribal uranium workers and some of the Navajo and other tribal people, living downwind from the Nevada atmospheric nuclear test site (NTS), were also included in the amendment as radiation fall-out victims.

• In 2000, IEN developed a training partnership with Project Underground, to hire and train a Native mining campaigner to address mining issues. This launched the Indigenous Mining Campaign Project, as a response to address unsustainable mining and oil development in Native lands. In the 2002, the first North American Indigenous Mining Summit was held that formed working groups to develop action plans to address coal, uranium and metallic mining activities in Native lands. In 2002, a Native oil campaigner was hired.

• In 2000, IEN director provided leadership in coordinating the development and publication of the first U.S. comprehensive guidance document entitled, "Guide on Consultation and Collaboration with Indian Tribal Governments and the Public Participation of Indigenous Groups and Tribal Members in Environmental Decision Making", 1999-2000. Prepared by the Indigenous Peoples Subcommittee of NEJAC (representatives from IEN, First Nations Environmental Law Program and the Indian Country Environmental Justice Clinic - Vermont Law School, Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, Yakama Nation, J Walker Law Office and other subcommittee members).

• From 1998 - 2001, IEN supports and is in involved with the multiracial/cultural networking and joint organizing on nuclear issues at Ward Valley, between the Colorado River Native Nations Alliance and Ward Valley Coalition, California Communities Against Toxics, Bay Area Nuclear (BAN) Waste Coalition and many others. This was a campaign to stop the siting of a low-level radioactive waste dump in the cultural and spiritual lands of Native tribes. In 2001, the tribes, the anti-nuclear activists, environmentalists and peace activists celebrated a victory in early 2001.

• Environmental and economic justice issues on the topics of toxics, environmental health, biodiversity, mining, climate change, water, food security, sustainable development and energy issues are mandates from Native grassroots and tribal leadership for IEN to work on for the next 10 years, in addition to maintaining the commitment to the other campaign issues. These will hopefully develop into milestone and achievements in 10 years.