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Photo: Luke Goodrich, senior counsel at the Becket Fund, speaks for his client, Apache Stronghold, on May 7, 2025. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ)
A federal court has temporarily halted the federal government’s plan to transfer Oak Flat, a tribal sacred site in Arizona, to Resolution Copper.
The transfer was expected to take place as early as June.
Apache Stronghold – a coalition of Apache people, other Native people, and non-Native allies – filed an emergency request to halt the transfer while the Supreme Court considers the case.
That request was granted on Friday.
The coalition has been fighting the land transfer for years saying the copper mine threatens religious freedom, while Resolution Copper has touted jobs and an economic impact.
New Mexico and Colorado recently created alerts for missing Indigenous people.
Now Arizona is poised to join them with its own “turquoise alert.”
As Gabriel Pietrorazio reports for the Mountain West News Bureau, a legislative bill awaits the governor’s signature.
Had the Turquoise Alert already been law, bill sponsor State Rep. Teresa Martinez (R-AZ) says it could’ve helped find 14-year-old San Carlos Apache Emily Pike.
“Not only was she killed, but she was dismembered. And it breaks my heart that we in the state of Arizona didn’t even go looking for this little girl.”
Another supporter is State Rep. Myron Tsosie (D-AZ) from the Navajo Nation. He remembers 11-year-old Ashlynne Mike, who also went missing.
Her 2016 death aided in bringing Amber Alerts to Indian Country.
“This is for Shiyázhí Emily Pike, this is for Shiyázhí Ashlynne Mike and many others who are still missing. This is for you.”
Jeffrey Lazos-Ferns (Yaqui) speaks to a group of reporters about the importance of specific plants to Indigenous peoples in Arizona.
Native experts in foraging for traditional food are sharing some of their recommendations.
Chuck Quirmbach of station WUWM reports.
In Papago Park, east of Phoenix, Twila Cassadore points to the base of a Palo Verde tree where small branches, dried leaves, and other plant matter have formed the ground nest of a desert wood rat.
Cassadore says the rodent is both a source of nutrition, and knowledge.
“Many of us may not think much about the desert wood rat. But as people who study environmental science and engineering, this friend of ours, also delicious friend, will tell us about climate change.”
Cassadore is a traditional food forager and educator with the San Carlos Apache Tribe.
She explains to a tour organized by the Society of Environmental Journalists that other researchers have found that as the planet warms, the wood rat uses larger plant material to shade or insulate its home.
Twila Cassadore (San Carlos Apache), a food sovereignty advocate and educator, examines the seeds of a mesquite tree during a talk on the importance of desert plants to Indigenous peoples in Arizona.
But where the rat is plentiful, as it is here in the Sonoran Desert, it can also be a source of what Cassadore calls pre-reservation food, from before the years when the U.S. government forced Native people away from their longtime homes.
“They took everyone away from the landscape where they originally foraged from and hunted from.”
Helping Cassadore with the effort to discover more traditional foods is Jeffrey Lazos-Ferns, a naturalist and member of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe.
He points to blossoms and seeds on the Palo Verde tree.
“These flowers, you can make tea out of them. Also, the pods which you may be seeing some of the younger trees out here, they taste like edamame, so you can eat them fresh off the tree, or you can till them, boil them, put salt on them, or store them, for the season you actually do want to use them.”
Lazos-Ferns says some larger cities like Tucson have started to plant more Indigenous plants that need less water or no fertilizer and be a source of food or medicine.
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