 |
 |
Lakota Sioux walk from Rapid City, South Dakota to Yellowstone National Park |
|
In February 1999, a group of Native American tribal members began a 507-mile walk from Rapid City, South Dakota to Yellowstone National Park - a devotional act offered as a sacrifice to the spirit of the buffalo. They marched across the unforgiving plains in the driving snow of winter, with cold and blistered feet, briefly resting in rustic shelters along the way. In spite of the occasional racism they encountered, the walkers drew strength from this type of sacrifice described by Lakota elder Rosalie Little Thunder as "spiritual activism."
While environmental activists such as Mike Meese of the Buffalo Field
Campaign are in alignment with the pacifist ways of groups like Rosalie
Little Thunder's Buffalo Nations, their approaches to the problem are quite
different.
"From this walk I feel a whole lot stronger. I'm not opposed to
activism. I believe that is necessary too, but I think this walk
makes a statement. There's something greater than physical power.
Something greater than political power. And it's the power that's
going to unite people. Perhaps it's the power that's going to help
the people in this country understand what we're trying to say.
Let's call it spiritual activism."
Rosalie Little Thunder
Although tribes have not been invited to participate with policy makers,
working with wildlife organizations, conservationists and others, Native
American groups have come together in one voice to protect the
endangered animals.
July 10, 2001, BOZEMAN, MT - In an effort to prevent future conflict
between buffalo and livestock and to stop the slaughter of
Yellowstone National Park's buffalo, a coalition of conservationists,
Native American tribes, hunters and wildlife advocates filed suit
over a Forest Service decision to permit continued cattle grazing in
critical buffalo winter range just outside the Park's west boundary.
Greater Yellowstone Coalition press release
|
|
|
