Last night's Homeland screening

Last night, Colorado AIM hosted a screening of "Homeland-four portraits of Native Action" on the Auraria Campus.

Homeland is a documentary that examines four contemporary cases of the resource exploitation of Native Homelands and the actions of Native Peoples to defend their Homeland. Although the defense of those homelands is a collective effort by impacted Nations and communities, Homeland is personalized by highlighting the efforts of key individuals who have played a major role in that defense.

For more information on the documentary please visit www.katahdin.org

The four portraits of action in Homeland are:

1. The case of the Northern Cheyenne in their efforts to stop 75,000 methane wells on the borders of their land. Gail Small is featured in this segment and she can be reached at Native Action, P.O. Box 409, Lame Deer, MT 59043 or email gailsmall001@aol.com.

2. The Gwich'in and their decades long fight to prevent oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. This segment was narrated by, and featured, Evon Peter along with his wife Enei Begaye(Dine'). To learn more about the Gwich'in struggle, please visit the Gwich'in Steering Committee

Also, Evon Peter is the chairman of Native Moevement, which is is a non-profit organization dedicated to Grassroots
Awareness, Action, and Advocacy. Visit the website at www.nativemovement.org

Enei Begaye is in this segment and to learn more about one of the issues she works on, please visit Black Mesa Trust

3. The people of Crownpoint and Churchrock,NM-on the Navajo Reservation-and their campaign to stop Uranium Mining in their community. The story focuses on the work of Mitchell and Rita Capitan and their key roles in Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining (ENDAUM).

To learn more about ENDAUM, please visit their site here ENDAUM

4. The Penobscot legal battle to stop the pollution of their territory by a paper and pulp factory as well as their political struggle to protect their inherent sovereignty from attacks by the State of Maine. The story is told by Penobscot Chief, Barry Dana.

To learn more about the Penobscot River Restoration Project, please visit the site of the Penobscot Nation

After the screening, we had the special honor of having Winona LaDuke(Honor the Earth) and Wynoma Foster(ENDAUM)-who were also in the documentary-as panelists . We were also pleased to have Kuwanwhynum Cockrum on the panel as well and she spoke about the exploitation of Black Mesa. Denver AIM member, Leslie Andrews, was the final panelist and related some of the projects that this chapter has been working on.

Winona LaDuke's site can be found at Honor the Earth