Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T19:42:20.749Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEWS AND CASE STUDIES: The National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the Silencing of Native American Worldviews

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2015

Kurt E. Dongoske ,
Theresa Pasqual  and
Thomas F. King
Kurt E. Dongoske*
Affiliation:
Principal Investigator/Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Zuni Cultural Resource Enterprise, Zuni, New Mexico
Theresa Pasqual
Affiliation:
Director, Acoma Historic Preservation Office, Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico
Thomas F. King
Affiliation:
Consultant, 410 Windsor Street, Silver Spring, MD 20910
*
Address correspondence to: Kurt E. Dongoske, Principal Investigator/Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Zuni Cultural Resource Enterprise, P.O. Box 1149, Zuni, NM 87327; (e-mail) [email protected].
Get access

Abstract

Upon its enactment, the United States’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) established a national policy for promoting the protection and enhancement of the human environment. NEPA sets forth procedural requirements for federal agencies to prepare Environmental Impact Statements (EISs) for any major federal actions that may impact the environment. At the core of these environmental documents is the dominant Western worldview of scientific materialism. In many instances, NEPA’s sole reliance on a Western scientific materialist evaluation of environmental impacts fails to consider and incorporate Native American perspectives of, values about, and relationships with the environment. For example, many Native American Tribes perceive the environment through an animistic ontological lens that embodies a sense of stewardship, manifest through a spiritual, umbilical connectedness to the natural world. Thus, Native American perceptions of the environment often clash with the dominant Western culture’s scientific perspectives, especially as they relate to determining environmental impacts. This conflict of cultural worldviews intensifies when compliance with other federal laws is coupled with the NEPA process. This article examines the effects of employing solely a Western scientific perspective in assessing environmental impacts on indigenous communities through the NEPA process and how this can have the unintended consequence of promoting the perpetuation of colonialist attitudes toward Native peoples. It will also discuss how taking into consideration Native American worldviews can offer more affirmative and inclusive environmental practices associated with the NEPA process.

Environmental Practice 17: 36–45 (2015)

Type
Features
Information
Environmental Practice , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , March 2015 , pp. 36 - 45
Copyright
© National Association of Environmental Professionals 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anschuetz, K.F. 2013. Perspectives on Managing Multi-Cultural Landscapes: Use, Access, and Fire/Fuels Management Attitudes and Preferences of User Groups Concerning the Valles Caldera National Preserve (VCNP) and Adjacent Areas. USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Ft. Collins, CO.Google Scholar
Cajete, G. 2000. Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence. Clear Light Publishers, Santa Fe, NM.Google Scholar
Carson, R. 1962. Silent Spring. Fawcett World Library, New York.Google Scholar
Fisher, F. 2000. Citizens, Experts, and the Environment. Duke University Press, Chapel Hill, NC.Google Scholar
Grijalva, J.M. 2008. Closing the Circle: Environmental Justice in Indian Country. Carolina Academic Press, Durham, NC.Google Scholar
Grijalva, J.M. 2011. Self-Determining Environmental Justice for Native America. Environmental Justice 4:187–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, S., and Harper, B.. 2011. A Method for Tribal Environmental Justice Analysis. Environmental Justice 4:231–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harper, B., and Harris, S.. 2011. Tribal Environmental Justice: Vulnerability, Trusteeship, and Equity under NEPA. Environmental Justice 4:193–197.Google Scholar
Holder, C. 2008. Culture as an Activity and Human Right: An Important Advance for Indigenous Peoples and International Law. Alternatives: Global, Local, Political 33:7–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, E. R. 1995. Zuni and the Courts: A Struggle for Sovereign Land Rights. University of Kansas Press, Lawrence, KS.Google Scholar
Indian Country Today . 2002. Visions of a Native Science: Appreciation of Gregory Cajete. Available at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2002/08/19/visions-native-science-appreciation-gregory-cajete-87987 (accessed December 31, 2014.Google Scholar
Ladd, E.J. 1980. Pueblo Uses of High Altitude Areas: Emphasis on the A:shiwi-Zuni. Paper prepared for the School of American Research Symposium on High Altitude Archaeology, October.Google Scholar
O'Neill, C. 2000. Variable Justice: Environmental Standards, Contaminated Fish, and “Acceptable” Risk to Native Peoples. Stanford Environmental Law Journal 19:3–119.Google Scholar
Pandey, T.N. 1980. Some Reflections on Aboriginal Land Use of the Zuni Indian Tribe. Manuscript prepared for the Zuni Tribe, Available at the Zuni Cultural Resource Enterprise. Zuni, NM.Google Scholar
Ranco, D., O'Neill, C.A., Donatuto, J., and Harper, B.L.. 2011. Environmental Justice, American Indians and the Cultural Dilemma: Developing Environmental Management for Tribal Health and Well-Being. Environmental Justice 4:221–230.Google Scholar
Ranco, D., and Suagee, D.B.. 2007. Tribal Sovereignty and the Problem of Difference in Environmental Regulation: Observations on "Measured Separatism" in Indian Country. Antipode 39:691–707.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suagee, D.B. 1991. The Application of the National Environmental Policy Act to "Development" in Indian Country. American Indian Law Review 16:377–495.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suagee, D.B. 2002. NEPA in Indian Country: Compliance Requirement to Decision-Making Tool. In. Justice and Natural Resources: Concepts, Strategies and Applications, K. Mutz, G. Bryner and D. Kenney, eds. Island Press, Washington, DC, 225–251.Google Scholar
Yard, M.D., Coggins, L.G., and Baxter, C.V.. 2009. Foraging Ecology of Nonnative Trout in the Colorado River, Grand Canyon: Predation on Native Fishes and the Effects of Turbidity. US Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center, Grand Canyon Monitoring and Research Center, Flagstaff, AZ.Google Scholar