Protecting Our Nature & Our Sacred Land

By Erin Turner and Floor Grootenhuis

SPQ students and the Apache Stronghold are working together to document Oak Flat, Arizona, a landscape sacred to the San Carlos Apache, a site protected since 1955, sitting in the Tonto National Forest. A controversial land-swap presented in an unrelated 2015 National Defense Bill by John McCain, allows Resolution Copper (a joint venture by Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton) to develop a block-cave mine which is estimated to create a 2-mile wide crater. As The Apache Stronghold is fighting to save their sacred ground, this project document aspects of the landscape at-risk of being destroyed in order to generate a broad movement to protect it.

Community Partners:

Artists of the Salt River Pima Maricopa Indian Community, the Gila River Indian Community, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Yavapai Prescott Indian Tribe, the Yavapai-Apache Nation, the Hopi Tribe, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Tonto Apache Tribe, and the White Mountain Apache Tribe, Queens Museum.