Winona LaDuke, Honor the Earth

The first step toward dam removal is setting up bypasses for the salmon around the dams. Studies suggest that if salmon had an opportunity to circumvent the dams they would have an 80 to 99 percent chance of complete rejuvenation.

Another important way to effect change is to promote renewable alternatives to these dams. A good resource for this issue is the Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission.

Let me be clear about this: We are sovereign. I don't care if the federal government recognizes me, my nation, and my people. That's of little consequence to me in the long-term picture. The federal government, as far as I'm concerned, is by and large illegal. Most transactions are illegal. It's like being recognized by a bunch of hoodlums. But under the law, they recognize your sovereignty in those two things, a dump or a casino. So Indian people are in an ironic situation, in that our choices for economic development are so limited.

In Minnesota, I see two examples. I see a reservation like Mille Lacs. They have two casinos. They built schools, houses, roads, clinics, and community buildings. They bought land. Nobody was going to do that for them. No federal appropriation was going to be made for those Indian people to do that, although their land was mostly taken from them. The federal government is supposed to provide those things for them. That's not going to happen, so they did that with their casinos, and that's right. They're making some long-term investments that are smart. They don't think those casinos are going to last forever, but they're doing the right thing.

My reservation's a bad example. We're poor. A recent White Earth tribal government was so corrupt they spent all their time skimming the top off the casino money. It never got down to our community. So, it's a mixed bag. I support the right to have them, but I think it's an unfortunate situation. As long as we have structural poverty in our community, we're always going to have these problems. You cannot change that situation unless you address the issue of land economy.

Also, casinos are the first things that come to mind for non-Indians as a solution for Indian communities. People ask, "What about casinos; don't they give the communities money that they need?" But less than half of federally recognized tribes are even engaged in gaming. Of these, about a quarter of the tribes provide per-capita payments to tribal members. Finally, in terms of jobs, the gaming industry employs only about 100,000 Indians, with almost 300,000 jobs going to non-Indians. That ratio, unfortunately, is entirely lopsided and does little to alleviate unemployment in most tribal communities.

Finally, I strongly believe that renewable energy is the most promising, and profitable, path for tribes to take. I explain my position further in the following answers.

There are many groups Honor the Earth is working with; one is NativeEnergy. They are buying "Green Tags" to displace existing, polluting fossil fuel generation and instead directing money into wind and solar energy.

Honor the Earth is working to "solarize" a strategic portion of Western Shoshone territory while drawing attention to America's nuclear-waste policy and the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. Western Shoshone territory is where the majority of the country's nuclear waste is slated to go. Yucca Mountain is at the heart of Western Shoshone, or Newe Segobia, and the issue of who owns the land, and who has the rights out there, is key to what will happen. Carrie and Mary Dann are Western Shoshone matriarchs opposing Bureau of Land Management encroachment on their lands. Their struggles for sovereignty and environmental justice are intricately linked to issues of nuclear waste disposal, Western mining laws, and the taking of Native lands. For the past three decades, the Danns have been the backbone of Western Shoshone resistance in opposing the theft of their land and nuclear waste.

Our intent is to build models and to leverage support for broader alternative-energy policy in Native America. Tribal landholdings in the southwestern United States hold vast solar potential and could very well provide support for local economies and income generation. We seek to leverage support for alternative energy in Native America at both a tribal and national level as part of a broad campaign by Honor the Earth and our affiliates towards energy justice.