Please invest in Our Daily Planet today, by making a one time or monthly contribution.
We do not charge our readers a subscription fee for our content. We want to continue to grow our readership, particularly among millennials and public servants. Voluntary contributions from readers will help us employ interns and freelance journalists, expand our content, and reach a larger audience.
If you make a contribution of $150 or more, you will become an official “Friend of the Planet” and receive a Friend of the Planet T-shirt or water bottle.
Our Daily Planet is a daily morning email (M-F) to keep you informed of the stories shaping our environment. If these issues matter to you, we’d like to be the best ten minutes of your morning.
The Trump Administration has begun blasting through a Native American cultural site called Monument Hill in the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona “in preparation for new border wall system construction within the Roosevelt Reservation,” USA Today reported on Friday. And Congressman Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, who is the chair of the House Committee on Natural Resources and whose district contains the reservation and shares 400 miles of border with Mexico, told CBS News that the Administration had begun the construction without any consultation with the Tribe about the impact it would have on this sacred burial site.
Why This Matters:Congressman Grijalva said it best. “This administration is basically trampling on the tribe’s history — and to put it poignantly, it’s ancestry.” It is, sadly, an all too familiar pattern of disrespecting Native American culture — last week it was oil and gas drilling and other destructive development in former national monument areas they shrunk, and now it’s the border wall. Not to mention that the area has been designated a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in order to conserve its unique and precious ecosystem. And it goes without saying that once these areas are permanently desecrated — you can’t “repair” them and you can’t undo the damage to the ancestors of those Americans whose families had been laid to rest there. This is truly shameful. To use our national security laws to destroy native burial grounds without warning or due process is a new low.
Why Can They Do It?
A little known law passed after the 9/11 terrorist attacks called the REAL ID Act of 2005 gives the federal government the nearly unchallengeable right to waive other laws IF they are harming our national security. Using the REAL ID law authority, the Trump administration has gone beyond its intended scope and has waived dozens of laws including the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the Environmental Protection Act in order to construct the border wall. CBS reported that construction of this segment of the border wall has been expedited in Arizona due to an abundance of public land on which to build it, as contrasted to Texas where the border wall must be built on private land, which is harder to acquire. U.S. Customs and Border Protection said in a statement, “The controlled blasting is targeted and will continue intermittently for the rest of the month.”
What They’re Destroying
The Roosevelt Reservation is a 60-foot-wide swath of federally owned land along the border in Arizona — and the Monument Hill site straddles the reservation and Mexico. Construction began on clearing the 60-foot swath for the border wall last August. To clear the site the contractor is moving certain plants such as the saguaro cactus that are endemic to the Sonoran desert to other parts of the monument. The tribe has documented its use of the area going back hundreds of years. According to one expert, “This hill, from the information we’ve been able to gather, was used by Hia-C’ed O’odham for religious ceremonies…This is also a place when the Apache were raiding out here — if the Apache warrior was killed, his body was placed on this hill.” Monument Hill is one of several sites of archaeological and cultural significance to the O’odham people that will be destroyed by the border wall construction, according to azcentral.com.
By Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer The earth is collapsing under Russia’s northeastern towns as global warming melts the permafrost beneath them. Permafrost occupies 65% of Russia’s landmass, making this massive thawing particularly destructive. “There isn’t a single settlement in Russia’s Arctic where you wouldn’t find a destroyed or deformed building,” said Alexey Maslakov, […]
By Ashira Morris, ODP Staff Writer Heirs’ property is a type of land ownership whereby property is passed down without a will, and it’s one of the main reasons Black families in the US are losing their land. But the Mobile Basin Heirs’ Property Support Initiative announced yesterday could help families in Mississippi’s Mobile Bay […]
By Natasha Lasky, ODP Staff Writer The White House announced Friday that President Biden will use his executive authority to restore protections for three national monuments drastically reduced during the Trump Administration. He will reestablish and increase the boundaries of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, both of which are in Utah. The orders […]
Subscribe to the email that top lawmakers, renowned scientists, and thousands of concerned citizens turn to each morning for the latest environmental news and analysis.
Want the lastest climate news summarized for you each morning?
Our Daily Planet is your daily dose of the stories shaping our world and the ways that you can take action. From the climate crisis to the protection of biodiversity, if these issues matter to you then please subscribe & stay informed!
Your privacy is Important! We promise never to use your email address to send you spam or advertisements.