[ Protesters ] Protect Oak Flats!
[ GEO ] GLOBE, ARIZONA
[ Protesters ] Protect Oak Flats!
Protect Oak Flats!
[ JOHN WESSEL-MCCOY ] If this land transfer goes through, if the federal government permits this
and doesn't stop it, what you're going to have is,
the complete erasure, the destruction, the annihilation, the murder...
It's a murder, it's the murder of that land right there
[ Map ] UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CANADA WASHINGTON DC ARIZONA PACIFIC OCEAN MEXICO GULF OF MEXICO ATLANTIC OCEAN OAK FLAT PHOENIX
[ Title ] PROTECT OAK FLAT!
[ John ] And that land, it is at the core of the Apache’s spiritual traditions,
their cultural traditions, that's where girls become women,
the deities, they reside there
Which is kind of like, you know, I'm Catholic, I grew up Catholic,
[ Subtitles ] JOHN WESSEL-MCCOY ARIZONA POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN
and you know, that's the Holy Spirit right there
[ Protesters ] Protect Oak Flats,
Protect Oak Flats,
Protect Oak Flats!
[ MICHELE ] Thank you for doing this
I have a huge compassion for oak flats, it's a beautiful place
[ Subtitles ] MICHELE LOCAL RESIDENT
[ MICHELE ] I understand that we have to have a balance with mining
[ Graphics ] IN DECEMBER OF 2014, CONGRESS AUTHORISED THE EXCHANGE OF THE OAK FLAT CAMP LAND FOR PARCELS OF LAND BELONGING TO RESOLUTION COPPER. AN INDEPENDENT ASSESSMENT VALUED THE RESOLUTION COPPER LAND AT ABOUT $7 MILLION, AND THE OAK FLAT LAND AT MORE THAN $112 BILLION
for what we need, but
we are running out of the wild, and we need more of the wild for humanity's sake
[ Peter ] Well, more to the point, you can't just disregard other peoples,
religions, convictions
They were here a long time before we were,
[ Geo ] OAK FLAT CAMPGROUND, ARIZONA
and you know, you've got to respect other religions or,
why can you ask for any respect for your own?
[ John ] I’m told that when that carbon gets extracted,
[ Graphics ] BY JANUARY OF 2015, A PETITION TO PRESIDENT OBAMA TITLED 'STOP THE APACHE LAND GRAB!' HAD ATTRACTED MORE THAN 104,000 SIGNATURES
[ John ] you know, that's going to be a sink hole, it's going to drop down about 1000 feet
I'm not totally sure what the square mileage is,
but I've heard that just two square miles alone
would just drop completely 1000 feet down,
that is right in the heart of where meaning
culture, where you know, it would be the same
[ Graphics ] SCIENTISTS WARN THAT THE PROPOSED MINING PROJECT WOULD CREATE A LARGE SINKHOLE, WHILE DEPLETING AND CONTAMINATING ARIZONA'S ALREADY LIMITED GROUNDWATER
[ John ] if you just firebombed the Vatican
It would be the same if someone destroyed Mecca
That's what's at stake, and that's what matters,
that alone should make this project something that shouldn't happen
[ Theresa Noise ] This land here, all the way from Northern Arizona,
all the way down into Mexico was Apache territory
The US were not the first people to
try to claim this land, this land was put into...
The territory of Mexico, and so when...
When Mexico... Thought the United States...
[ Subtitles ] THERESA NOSIE GOVERNMENT TRIBAL SPECIALIST
[ Theresa ] This area, Southwestern part of the United States,
The US got it from Mexico, in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
And when they got the land,
they were supposed to, in the treaty with Mexico,
they were supposed to keep the same characteristic,
or the property rights, of the people that already owned it
So, if you look at native property, like Santa Fe,
and those pueblos,
the way they owned their property prior to the United States owning it,
they still own it today
But what happened with the Apache is that they, um...
They were starting to force them out,
because they knew they could use the water and the mines,
you know...
[ Geo ] MIAMI, ARIZONA
[ Theresa ] For all the settlers that were coming in,
miners and stuff, they wanted to exploit the land,
and the US called it um... ‘manifest destiny’,
which means you can get something for free and exploit it and um...
Do whatever you want, it's yours
This is....
[ Wendsler Nosie Sr. ] When the earth came and the people came on the surface,
there was no big churches,
they went to the mountains, that's where all your biblical stories come from
[ Graphics ] SINCE 2015, SUPPORTERS FROM VARIOUS PARTS OF ARIZONA HAVE GATHERED FOR THE 'MARCH TO OAK FLAT' TO PRAY FOR THE SACRED LAND
[ Wendsler ] These deities are no different than any other deities around the world
So, they're happy you're here
Because we have to start defending the earth,
the mother who gave us everything
Technology, these cameras right here — they come from the earth!
If there’s no earth, how do you have cameras?!
Cellphones, all these things… come from the earth!
Enough is enough!
They talk about jobs
at the railroad tracks
30 years ago, there were about 45 men working
Now you go by, you see these two looking-spiders
pulling the ties and sliding the other one, other one hitting the nail
[ Subtitles ] WENDSLER NOSIE SR. LEADER, APACHE STRONGHOLD
And about three guys operating the machine
[ Wendsler ] And then, they’re yelling about the immigrants taking your jobs
Now it’s those technologies are taking your jobs!
I know you guys ain’t stupid!
‘Cause if I can see it, I know you guys can see it
And that’s why I say it’s a war
But we’re ought to understand what we’re in
And that’s why it brings you here
That’s why it brings you her-… Not me
This place
These deities bring you here
And I guarantee you, if you came with the right heart,
the right mind,
you’re gonna take some much back and you’re gonna see the world different
Because you’re our brother, you’re our sister
We’re giving you something
that was taken away from you
and that’s the spirit
The spirit has to be a part of the religion
You cannot only practice the religion…
Spirit
The ceremonies that survived from
1848 to 1978,
those that survived underground,
there were families, there were villages
who maintained their ceremonies
And they did them back there without public notice
And yes, they have been people that were caught doing it,
and they were taken to jail
[ PETE JACKSON ] So, I see what’s happening here,
it reminds me
of our ceremonies made illegal for over a hundred years
Is this where we were leading… leading to again, where
ceremonial grounds,
our ceremonies,
native ceremonies are just thing that not even
considered as being important to our people?
Is this where we’re heading again?
I hope not. I pray that we don’t head that way again
I hope that this country recognizes
[ Subtitles ] PETE JACKSON GILA RIVER INDIAN COMMUNITY
[ Pete ] native American ceremonies, ceremonial grounds,
sacred sites,
because that’s where our heart is at
We belong to Mother Earth
We do not own Mother Earth
We belong to Mother Earth
[ Judy Thomas ] Of course, it was their land to begin with,
and then, it was part of their original reservation
And it was somewhere in the 1920s that they’d lost Oak Flat
[ Subtitles ] JUDY THOMAS OAK FLAT SUPPORTER
[ Judy ] But it’s always been considered sacred to them
[ Theresa ] The US Government has laws that protect the land,
[ Subtitles ] THERESA NOSIE GOVERNMENT TRIBAL SPECIALIST
[ Theresa ] and the water, and religion,
and, you know, 1st Amendment rights, and you know,
it’s all on paper. But Congress, the way it works is,
they can make a law or they can bypass laws by creating exemptions
But, not with the environmental laws
With the environmental laws, there’re no exemptions
except the 1872 Mining Law
And the 1872 Mining Law was made in 1872,
which allowed miners to mine
anywhere they wanted
[ Judy ] I was trying to research and find out how…
why Eisenhower did protect this and how he got wind of what was going on
But he did protect it from mining
And that was since the 50s
John McCain, back in 2014, Senator John McCain snuck it into…
in the eleventh hour in a must-pass defense bill
And, of course, it passed
And they tried to get their hands on it
Resolution Copper, parent company of Rio Tinto
tried to get their hands on it
They voted on it, like, 12 different times
in Congress and it never passed through
So that they finally got their hands on it when McCain
slipped it though into that defense bill
And this is national forest, which has been protected since
the Eisenhower administration from mining
So, national forest means it belongs to you and I,
and it was… I feel it was stolen from us
[ THOMAS WRIGHT ] Well, this Resolution Copper Project area covers
a lot more than just Oak Flat
It’s much bigger than that, it’s nearly 40 miles long
from one end to the other. When you include all the pipelines
and the tailings storage area, in addition to the mining site itself,
and so Oak Flat itself is considered one
very large archaeological site, because there is so much here
This flat smooth surface here would’ve been used to grind food
It could’ve been corn, could’ve been acorns, mesquite beans
So the forest service actually declared it one
very large archaeological site,
and it’s also been declared a traditional cultural property,
which is a federal designation that means the government is recognising
it as a place of great significance and importance to the
Native Americans who still live in its vicinity
[ Subtitles ] THOMAS WRIGHT ARCHAEOLOGIST
[ Thomas ] Most notably the Apaches
But altogether, within this Resolution Copper Project area,
there are approximately 800 archaeological sites that will be destroyed…
[ Peter ] In addition, the problem with the mining is: you could still extract
the copper
with a different method of mining
that wouldn’t cause the collapse of the surface
And, you know, the issue is – once copper is expensive enough,
[ Subtitles ] Peter Local Resident
[ Peter ] and it will become expensive enough given the need of copper
in… Well, cellphones, and solar panels, and everything else
So the copper will be there, and will be valuable enough to remove
by a less destructive mining method
So, it’s not an “either/or,” it’s a sustainability issue,
and it’s a, you know, a question of
“do you destroy the landscape,
in this case a sacred [ one ], to make more profit?”
[ John ] Any kind of extraction like that takes hundreds of millions,
if not billions, of gallons of water
Infused with all kinds of toxic chemicals
We’re downstream. Right here, in Phoenix,
we’re the fifth largest city in the country
Now you’re serving a population of a city that’s
[ Geo ] PHOENIX, ARIZONA
[ John ] about approaching 2 million people
I don’t even know what the metro is here,
but these networks of canals lace the city
This is the Grand Canal
[ Wendsler ] Your children will be stockholders of water
Yet our Congress people, Congressional people of Arizona
are letting this happen
Because of their own self-interests
They won’t even walk to come here, to feel the spirit
[ Pete ] I hate to say, it seems like
[ Subtitles ] PETE JACKSON GILA RIVER INDIAN COMMUNITY
[ Pete ] the United States is simply a big corporation with a big army
And that’s what’s it like
Were people
policing us,
people
trying to put us in jail for something that we haven’t done,
something that
legally we should be able to do
Things that we do ceremonially, our ceremonies
[ John ] The same kind of distorted moral narrative that says it’s okay
[ Subtitles ] JOHN WESSEL-MCCOY ARIZONA POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN
[ John ] to take that copper out of the ground, destroy the holy,
sacred site of Oak Flat,
is the same distorted moral narrative that riddled in
systemic poverty, systemic racism, systemic ecological devastation
The militarism, which is also about how people are policed in this place, right?
And the way the government’s gonna be used as
a force against anybody who’s gonna try to defend Oak Flat
All of that stuff is connected
[ Graphics ] IN JUNE OF 2022, THE 9TH CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS RULED AGAINST A BID BY THE APACHE COMMUNITY TO HALT THE TRANSFER OF FEDERAL LAND, WHICH IS HELD SACRED BY THE APACHE THE FIGHT FOR OAK FLAT CONTINUES