EARTHKEEPING NEWS A NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH AMERICAN COALITION FOR CHRISTIANITY AND ECOLOGY Volume Thirteen, Number Two Spring 2004 SACRED LAND FILM PROJECT: RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES By Christopher McLeod Annual Report 2003 Listening to stories from around the world, I realized that sacred places are the original “protected areas.” Many are sanctuaries like Zuni Salt Lake, Devils Tower and Pipestone, where fighting was prohibited and special rules applied. I understood that our next film must emphasize that: Biodiversity flourishes in areas considered to be sacred; Conservationists can preserve biodiversity by supporting indigenous peoples' management of their sacred places; and Cultural diversity protects biodiversity. A month later, at a screening in Denver, Vine Deloria explained how native people would traditionally approach the place known today as Pipestone, Minnesota. After offering a prayer, they would wait, and if everything was done in the right way, they would be met with a short, gentle rain. Then they would enter the sanctuary. . . . It brought to mind what Vine says at the conclusion of In Light Of Reverence: “The basic problem is that American society is a rights society, not a responsibilities society. What you've got is each individual saying ‘I have a right to do this.’ Having religious places, and revolving your religion around that, means you are always in contact with the earth, you're responsible for it and to it.” In late 2002, we launched The Sacred Land Defense Team, and through e-mails, letters and financial donations, Team members were able to contribute to a number of struggles this year. We helped the SAGE Council in Albuquerque defeat a bond measure that would have funded paving of miles of new roads around Petroglyph National Monument. In August the Salt River Project of Phoenix announced that it would relinquish all permits and coal leases which threatened to devastate Zuni Salt Lake and the surrounding Sanctuary Area in New Mexico. (The Zuni Tribe and the Zuni Salt Lake Coalition can rest assured that their intense, well-organized and spiritually based opposition to the 18,000 acre industrial disaster was the real reason the SRP pulled the plug on the coal mine.) But to save places isn't enough. From corporate responsibility to personal responsibility — we have to change the way we live. Home     Table of Contents