Look West: Public lands and energy news from the Center for Western Priorities


** Can tribal members protect off-reservation land? Apache group aims to find out
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Wednesday, July 27, 2022
An old-growth Emory oak grove at Oak Flat, Arizona; SinaguaWiki, Flickr ([link removed])

Located in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest, Oak Flat—or Chi’chil Biłdagoteel—is an area where members of Western Apache and Yavapai tribes collect acorns ([link removed]) and members of the San Carlos Apache hold their coming-of-age ceremonies ([link removed]) . It's also the site of a proposed copper mine ([link removed]) that could cause a 1,000-foot-deep, two-mile-wide depression in the ground, permanently altering this sacred site.

A grassroots group of Apache tribal members called Apache Stronghold went to court ([link removed]) earlier this year to try to stop the mine. The lawsuit argued the mine would violate tribal members' rights ([link removed]) , since they would lose access to physical and cultural landscapes central to practicing their religion. In June, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against ([link removed]) Apache Stronghold, stating that Indigenous religious practices and cultures are not fully protected under current U.S. federal law.

Apache Stronghold will appeal the ruling ([link removed]) to the Supreme Court, but the 9th Circuit decision is a bad sign for Indigenous people and their allies hoping to protect sacred sites.

“If this decision holds up, then the law offers virtually no protection to Native American place-based religious exercise,” Luke Goodrich, an attorney representing Apache Stronghold, told High Country News ([link removed]) . “As a practical matter, this sounds the death knell for all Native American religious practices that are tied to federal lands.”
Quick hits


** Record oil industry profits haven't created more jobs
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E&E News ([link removed])


** U.S. to sell additional 20 million barrels of oil from strategic reserve, sending oil prices down
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Reuters ([link removed]) [SPR] | Reuters ([link removed]) [prices]


** Permian Basin oil and gas could be on the decline as prices fall, market struggles
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Las Cruces Sun News ([link removed])


** California used to pay people to hunt mountain lions. Now it spends millions to protect them
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Los Angeles Times ([link removed])


** Third set of human remains recovered at shrinking Lake Mead
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Washington Post ([link removed])


** Rocky Mountain National Park is making a comeback after COVID, East Troublesome fire
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Colorado Sun ([link removed])


** BLM to study solar projects on 118,000 acres in Nevada
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E&E News ([link removed])


** Yosemite visitors undeterred by raging forest fires
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The Guardian ([link removed])
Quote of the day
” The Forest Service has been continually drained of funding and especially in their recreation programs. And so to me, this wave of visitation in the last couple of years… it has the entire system on its heels.”
—Scott Kosiba ([link removed]) , executive director of Friends of the Bridger-Teton
Picture this


** @USFWSRefuges ([link removed])
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Day’s end. Sunset on the prairie, with mule deer in the foreground and the Front Range in the distance, at Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge 10 miles northeast of downtown Denver, Colorado [link removed] ([link removed])
📷 Alice Garrett/ @USFWS ([link removed])

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