Last Updated on November 13, 2011
The following video is six-minute clip is from Poison Wind, a documentary that examines the devastating impact Uranium mining has had on Indigenous People in the four corners region of New Mexico and Northern Arizona.
“As a government’s cruel secret is carried on the face of the wind,” writes Jenny Pond, one of the film’s co-producers, “Poison Wind tells the story of a corrupt government, unconscionable greed and a policy of destruction aimed at the Aboriginal Homelands of Indigenous People from the 1940’s until today.”
It also tells the stories of those who worked at the mine, of those who struggle to stop the mining and gain compensation for what’s been done to them, their Elders and Children.
It’s a painful truth–one all too common among the Laguna and Acoma Pueblo, the Navajo, Shoshone, Lakota, Tohono O’dham, Hopi, and others. At the rate things are going today, it’s also one that will come to be known by thousands, perhaps millions more around the world.
In the US alone there are over 1000 abandoned uranium mines, thousands of open exploratory well holes, and at this very moment, more than 400,000 mining claims waiting to be approved… I bet you’d be surprised to know that Canada is a major part of those claims. Canada’s also begun to increasingly mine uranium at home. So has Australia for that matter (especially in the Northern Territory.)
The prospects here can be no more daunting. And yet there is still hope, because in the face of what can only be called developmental genocide, Indigenous People like the Acoma and Laguna Pueblo are coming together and working together to ensure the health and safety of future generations; to make sure not one more person falls victim to a silent and brutal death.
Across the world right now, Indigenous peoples are facing a renewed assault on their lands, rights, and ways of life.
From extractive industries pushing deeper into ancestral territories, to governments rolling back hard-won protections,
the threat is global—and it is growing.
What makes this moment especially dangerous is how little attention it receives.
Stories like this are disappearing in real time. Mainstream media
barely covers it and the coverage is fragmented. The public is left without the context
needed to understand what is truly at stake.
That is exactly why IC Magazine exists..
For more than 20 years, IC has reported on Indigenous struggles worldwide — consistently, independently, and without compromise.
We don’t follow news cycles; we trace patterns. We don’t sensationalize; we provide context.
And when the world looks away, we stay focused.
But this work is increasingly difficult to sustain.
We refuse to lock our reporting behind a paywall. We don’t sell access through subscriptions.
And we don’t answer to advertisers. IC Magazine survives solely because readers like you choose to
support independent Indigenous journalism.
Please donate today if you can. Every contribution helps us to continue this crucial work.
Thank you,
John Ahni Schertow
Founder and Editor in Chief
