Western Shoshone Push for Answers at Annual Meeting of Barrick Gold

Posted: 1 May 2007

Mt. Tenabo in Nevada is one of the Western Shoshone's sacred sites and home to some of their creation stories. A mining operation is now threatening to disrupt the spiritual life of the mountain.

The last peak in the Cortez Range, Nevada’s Mt. Tenabo is a place rich in significance to the Western Shoshone people who have deep spiritual and cultural attachments to it. But, to their grave concern, the mountain and area around it are rich in something else, too: gold.

It’s those deposits, reputed to be among the largest in North America, for which the Toronto-based Barrick Gold Corporation plans to dig, and in the process could threaten one of the Western Shoshone’s sacred sites.

With visions of roads snaking across the mountain, of acidic runoff leaching into the water, and of high-powered drills roaring around the clock—all familiar consequences of other mining operations—Western Shoshone and members of the Western Shoshone Defense Project are trying to put a stop to the Barrick operation before it gets fully started.

Exploratory drilling is already underway around the mountain, said Julie Ann Fishel, the land recognition program director for the defense project, a grassroots group formed to protect Native American land rights and preserve homelands.

“They leave this patchwork of roads and drill sites,” said Sandy Dann, niece of Western Shoshone activist Carrie Dann, noting that Mt.Tenabo is the home to Western Shoshone creation stories, including that of the four seasons. “The spiritual life may be completely disrupted.” And already, fences are blocking the free access people once had to the areas where they would gather pine nuts and medicinal plants.

To bring attention to the long-simmering dispute over land use, a Western Shoshone delegation and staff from the defense project planned to attend Barrick’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Toronto on May 2. Their plan was to come armed with a petition signed by 18,500 people calling on Barrick to stop mining on the lands of the Western Shoshone people without their consent. Oxfam America, which partners with the Western Shoshone Defense Project, circulated the electronic petition.

The petition follows numerous other calls for mining interests to leave Western Shoshone lands alone. Earlier this month, the defense project, together with the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone and the Great Basin Mine Watch, presented court arguments in their suit against the US Bureau of Land Management charging it with violation of its duty to consult the Western Shoshone on the mining exploration project. The groups also charged that the bureau violated federal land policy when it approved the exploration without knowing the exact location of roads and drill sites and without adequately addressing the cumulative impacts of the mining activities. The defense project is waiting for a decision from the US federal court in Reno, which heard the case.

Meanwhile, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)last year urged the US to halt the destructive land-use practices it has allowed on some of the 60 million acres the Western Shoshone recognize as theirs. The area stretches across most of Nevada and parts of Idaho, Utah, and California.

“The CERD decision specifically talked about mining on Mt. Tenabo as evidence that the Western Shoshone rights were being violated because their land was taken by means that do not conform to international human rights standards,” said Laura Inouye, a senior program officer with Oxfam’s US regional office.

The Western Shoshone maintain that the 1863 Treaty of Ruby Valley recognized the land as theirs and that federal agencies are ignoring the rights of indigenous peoples in the rush by private industry for the valuable resources the area holds.

“Mining companies should be concerned that their holdings are at risk,” added Inouye. “The mining companies should be taking actions to ensure the Shoshone’s rights are respected because the companies have billions of dollars at stake here.”

That’s the message the Western Shoshone delegation wants stockholders at the Barrick annual meeting to hear, too. And they’re hoping a few, well-targeted queries they planned to deliver during a public question-and-answer session will drive the point home.

“We want to ask if they have an official corporate position on mining in areas of known and existing human rights violations,” said Fishel before the meeting. “What we want to do with these questions is to encourage the company to recognize the pressing need for reform in the way it does business on Shoshone lands.”

A dialogue process the company established earlier with members of the Western Shoshone has proved fruitless and frustrating, Larson Bill, a Western Shoshone added.