Is Nothing Sacred? Corporate Responsibility for the Protection of Native American Sacred Sites

For 25 years, the Sacred Land Film Project (SLFP) has created powerful films that have successfully increased understanding of and respect for places of spiritual significance to indigenous people — places where cultural and biological diversity meet.

By drawing critically needed attention to threatened traditional lands and cultures, our award-winning film on Native American sacred places, In the Light of Reverence, aided in shutting down Peabody Energy’s destructive 273-mile coal slurry pipeline from Black Mesa in Hopi/Navajo country to the Mohave Power Plant. SLFP also helped protect the sacred Zuni Salt Lake from the Salt River Project’s proposed coal stripmine.

Click on the image to read the complete report. See the Table of Contents.
Recognizing the impact of corporations on these lands, SLFP has produced a comprehensive report exposing the enormity of the threat. The 80-page report contains six case studies on Indian Pass, Weatherman Draw, Medicine Lake, Black Mesa, Zuni Salt Lake and Cave Rock. Conclusions gleaned from these conflicts yield a number of reasonable steps that corporations and stakeholders can take to avoid conflict around sacred sites, including engagement in meaningful consultation with all interested parties and being willing to take “no” for an answer where alternatives simply do not exist.The report was written by Lyuba Zarsky, with a foreword by Winona LaDuke. It is aimed at corporations, investors, foundations, and activists in the field of socially responsible investment and corporate social responsibility.

SLFP urges you to let your money work for good. Don’t invest in corporations that destroy sacred sites.

You can get an electronic copy of the 80-page four-color report by clicking on the image of the report above (2 MB PDF). Hard copies of the report are available by sending $30 (includes shipping to locations inside the U.S.), or by making a donation of $100 or more to the Sacred Land Film Project. Please make checks out to Earth Island Institute/SLFP, and send to:

Sacred Land Film Project

2150 Allston Way #440

Berkeley, CA 94704

To be kept apprised of how you can help, please join our Sacred Land Defense Team. You will receive periodic e-mails with the information you need to help protect threatened sacred places in the U.S and around the world.

Thank you!