Media Contact:
Justin Wasser, jwasser@earthworks.org, 202.753.7016
Window Rock, AZ. – Today, Earthworks released a new short-form documentary that highlights the efforts of Indigenous women leaders fighting for the health and safety of future generations of their tribe against an oil & gas industry that continues to exploit people and lands for profit.
No Man’s Land takes viewers to the breath-taking desert and San Juan Basin of northwestern New Mexico, in the territory of the Eastern Agency of the Navajo Nation. A region impacted by over a century of oil and gas production and, more recently, burdened with the spiked-increase of industrialized hydraulic fracturing and severely complicated by a ‘checkerboard’ pattern of land-ownership that make it challenging to stop pollution and hold the appropriate regulatory agencies accountable.
“It’s a sickness, the violence the oil and gas industry brings – spills on spills, pollution of pollution – with no accountability. What we’re doing as a community is networking among ourselves.” said Cheyenne Antonio, Energy Organizer with Diné C.A.R.E.
Kendra Pinto, Earthworks Four Corners Indigenous Community Field Advocate and Certified Thermographer, travels throughout the region with an industry-standard FLIR optical gas imaging camera that makes visible pollution that otherwise is invisible to the naked eye. She is joined by Robyn Jackson and Cheyenne Antonio from Dine Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment, a local Diné environmental justice organization created and based on the Navajo Nation, to host a ‘Toxic Tour’ of oil & gas harms for the highest ranking woman in Navajo Nation leadership and first woman to be elected to the office of Vice President, Richelle Montoya.
“We bear the future,” said Kendra Pinto with Earthworks. “A lot of times when you’re looking at environmental issues, the people who are leading it are usually female. That speaks a lot to who we are as Indigenous women.”
Along with other tribal leaders, including Counselor Chapter House’s Community Service Coordinator Samuel Sage, these fierce advocates lay out for the world how a history of white supremacy still reigns through how extractive industries take advantage of Indigenous communities. State and the federal government abet these harms by upholding a complex ‘checkerboard’ pattern of territorial division of land ownership – and responsibility for stopping pollution – among the Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Navajo Nation, New Mexico state, and private residents.
“It is exhausting being a checkerboard Diné person,” said Cheyenne Antonio. “And I can see why our elders call it No Man’s Land, because when things get real and dangerous, no one is held accountable.”
Robyn Jackson explains, “Our traditional matriarchal society has always supported the leadership of women and their role in land stewardship. Our original cultural structure persists. The fierce protection of land comes from that heart of our ancestral lineage. Grandmothers direct us as they have always done, and have encouraged Kendra, Cheyenne and others to be strong and outspoken advocates. Our women know what is at stake for our land, water, culture and future generations.”
The two-part documentary series is available at earthworks.org/fourcorners along with more information on how to support or seek support from these inspiring Indigenous women fighting for a better future that will ensure the prosperity and survival of their people.
“This work is important to me because I plan to die here. I plan to remain here until the end of my life. So what do I want for my future here? Above all else, I want to make sure these communities are getting protected,” said Pinto.
For more information:
- earthworks.org/fourcorners