Defenders of the Black Hills
Battle over logging in the Black Hills
The following article, in the Sioux Fall Argus Leader, is about our battle with the US Forest Service over logging in the Black Hills. The US Forest Service knew about the beginning of the Pine Beetle problem since the mid-1960s. In 2002, the information from the US Forest Service was mapped by Biodiversity Conservation Alliance and showed all the areas where the beetles were locating. It was predicted then that the Beaver Park Roadless Area would be devastated by wildfire without logging. Clear cutting a fireguard was allowed around the Beaver Park Roadless Area. However, no fire ever occurred, and the area has a more healthy ecosystem than before. Nature always does better than human beings.
Sioux Falls Argus Leader Black Hills MPB Article--November 19, 2011
http://www.argusleader.com/article/20111120/NEWS/311200026/Pine-beetle-battle-brews-Black-Hills
Charmaine White Face Key note SpeechThe following is a link to South Dakota Peace & Justice Center - Annual Conference 7th October 2011. Charmaine gives a key note speech, not only about the history of the Defenders, but also about the Uranium mining and the justice system in South Dakota. Number of things you can do to help Hello Defenders, A number of things are going on regarding the Black Hills, and the dirty air that is coming down on top of us from North Dakota. We can do something about this, if only by our presence or our letters letting the media and the powers-that-be know our positions. Please consider participating in whatever way you can by attending the hearing, writing a letter to the editor of your local paper, and writing comments to the government agencies. Please will you pass this information on to others. We don't have to spend so much doing snail mail if you all can help let others know. Thank you. Sent by Charmaine White Face, Coordinator Â
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"Defenders of the Black Hills is a group of volunteers without racial or tribal boundaries whose mission is to preserve, protect, and restore the environment of the 1851 and 1868 Treaty Territories, Treaties made between the United States and the Great Sioux Nation."
Speaking about radioactive fallout, the late President John F. Kennedy said,
"Even then, the number of children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in comparison with natural health hazards. But this is not a natural health hazard and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby who may be born long after we are gone, should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent."
July 26, 1963 upon signing the ban on above ground nuclear tests
"The radiation levels in parts I visited with my students were higher than those in the evacuated zones around the Fukushima Nuclear disaster...." Nuclear Physics Professor Kimberly Kearfott, University of Michigan, in comparing the readings obtained in northwestern South Dakota at the Cave Hills open-pit, abandoned uranium mines.
"It must always be remembered that the various Indian tribes were once independent and sovereign nations, and that their claim to sovereignty long predates that of our own government."
Thurgood Marshall, US Supreme Court Justice
(McClanahan v. Sate Tax Commission, 1973)