The question of being a people in common expectedly means a lot to the
American people. “This land is my land, this land is your land,” intoned
Woody Guthrie. The country had a great commons even in those days of the
American Depression; and for more than 60 years after the populist bard’s
song was first sung, the people protected their right to public lands held
in trust largely by the federal and state governments — not for the few
with the capital to buy it all, but by the many, even the all, whenever
possible.

Native peoples have experienced the good and the bad of that equation.

Holding lands in common, even while respecting the production of individual
homesteads, worked well for untold generations. The brunt of the bad came
in waves of dispossession that now go back centuries. The denial that lands
held in common had proper title, particularly when the commonality fell
within an American Indian nation, is the shared experience. Outright greed
and the willingness to enforce theft by gunfire left little justice for
Indians. Private allotments outside of tribal jurisdictions left much
undivided land for the taking, given to land rushes by lawless claim
makers, who shot and maimed each other for years after the opening of
Indian territories.

Well, some things never seem to change.

A potential land grab, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the
Oklahoma land rush of 1889, is upon us. A huge acreage of what remains
traditionally Indian land, and yet in many places has seemingly been passed
to the public domain as federal trust lands, is slated to be put up for
claim and/or sale, if a provision pushed by U.S. Rep. Richard Pombo,
R-Calif., chair of the House Resources Committee, passes Congress. Pombo’s
provision, slipped inside a House budget bill, would overturn a
congressional ban that has kept both mineral companies and individuals from
taking patents on public lands, prohibiting purchases in national forests
and parks, for supposed mining purposes.

The new bill would make it legal for anyone to stake out a mining claim on
public land and then be allowed to buy it. Pombo is ostensibly revising the
1872 General Mining Law that encouraged easy claims to stimulate westward
migration. The loophole would now be expanded by lowering the levels of
commercially viable ore that must be present. Ultimately, an estimated 350
million acres of “public lands,” much of which is still legitimately Indian
land, could pass into private hands, at giveaway prices, under the new
provisions. That estimate is more than three times the amount of land lost
by Native nations as a result of the allotment acts.

In at least one case, the so-called settling of title with the Western
Shoshone via legislative manipulation imposed by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.,
and signed by President Bush allows the possibility of large privatization
in that state, where nearly 60 million acres could ultimately be sold to
developers. Six of the top 10 present claim-holders are foreign entities,
mostly Canadian and Australian mining companies.

They stand to carve out good chunks of Arizona, California, Colorado,
Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington
state and Wyoming.

The Pombo bill represents a severe approach to the selling of America to
the highest bidder, particularly when much of this land rightfully belongs
to American Indians. It goes beyond the pale and should not be allowed to
pass. If it does, high-end developers will be allowed to purchase any
public land with minerals on it and turn it into their own private
property. More than two million acres inside or near national parks,
wildlife refuges and wilderness-designated areas will immediately be open
for sale. An additional four million acres encompass various sacred and
culturally important sites, and another 20 million acres are clearly
threatened.

The “wild” country of America will be severely reduced through large waves
of untrammeled development by this legislation; many bio-productive
watersheds, and many of the wonderful places Americans of all persuasions
can now access, will be closed off. The natural beauty and natural wealth
of places currently held in the public domain will be sold to the few.

Where the American patriot, now that he is needed? Where the feeling for
natural spaces that Americans learned to have, based on their learning from
Native peoples?

The centuries-old American campaign to privatize the natural world has been
unrelenting. Nevertheless, traditional checks and balances, largely based
in a widespread (if not always deep) appreciation for the grand beauty of
valleys and forests, promoted the establishment of protected areas where
more intricate understandings could emerge into ecological awareness.

In recent years, under the guise of an all-purpose “free-market” argument
espoused by rapacious and imbalanced ideologues, the drive to open up the
protected areas has greatly intensified. All manner of environmental
protection has been slapped down, and a dismissive — even hateful —
attitude toward natural world systems has been projected onto the public.
As evidenced by the Pombo bill, the drive now is to open up huge areas
where mining and other development will trump nature-oriented
sensitivities.

Greed, once considered a sin, becomes the driving force.

In one hopeful turn of events, some people among those that have supported
the often-misnamed conservative movement have begun to reawaken from their
unquestioning support of free-rein right-wing initiatives.

Most significantly, these include an emerging current among even
evangelical Christians to the cause of environmental conservation. This
welcome new trend is advocated vigorously by Richard Cizik, vice president
of governmental affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals. Cizik
speaks of an attitude of “creation care” and is calling for the development
of a public theology among the country’s 30 million evangelicals “to live
in conformity with sustainable principles, and [for] our government to
reduce pollution and resource consumption.”

According to Cizik, quoted in Grist Magazine, “creation care” has biblical
roots: “We are commissioned by God the Almighty to be stewards of the
earth.” The Bible articulates the ultimate result of failure to care for
the planet in Revelation 11:18: “The time has come […] for destroying
those who destroy the earth.”

While Cizik’s concern group has not (to our knowledge) weighed in on the
California congressman’s effort to privatize huge tracks of public lands
throughout the West, it is urging the government to “encourage sustainable
use of natural resources and provide for the proper care of wildlife and
their natural habitats,” said Cizik.

We welcome this new trend among evangelicals, while also wondering where
the consensus voice of tribal leadership is to be found on an issue of such
cultural and economic substance. It certainly won’t be found in any of the
now countless gaming meetings.

We abhor the consistent American impetus to steal Indian lands (such as
Western Shoshone lands within Nevada) and the current intent to reduce our
treasured commons, which is one of the few gifts we have left to bestow
upon our coming generations.