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5 Great Plains Nat. Resources J. 40 (2001)
Rescuing Paha Sapa: Achieving Environmental Justice by Restoring the Great Grasslands and Returning the Sacred Black Hills to the Great Sioux Nation

handle is hein.journals/gpnat5 and id is 48 raw text is: RESCUING PAHA SAPA: ACHIEVING ENVIRONMENTAL
JUSTICE BY RESTORING THE GREAT GRASSLANDS
AND RETURNING THE SACRED BLACK HILLS TO THE
GREAT SIOUX NATION
JOHN P. LAVELLE'
History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, but if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.
I. The Proposal for Establishing the Greater Black Hills Wildlife
Protected  A rea .........................................................................................   41
II. A Harvest of Sorrow and Blood: The Dispossession of
P aha  Sap a  ..................................................................................................  43
III. The Vital Need for Returning Paha Sapa to the
G reat Sioux  N ation ..................................................................................  63
IV. The Danger and Duty Ahead: Saying No to Environmental
Colonialism  and  Ethnocide ...................................................................   69
V. Returning Paha Sapa and Restoring the Great Grasslands:
An Opportunity for Environmental Justice ......................................... 85
V I.  C onclusion  ................................................................................................... 100
My colleague Professor John Davidson has invited me to comment on a
unique proposal of the Conservation Alliance of the Great Plains for
establishing a Greater Black Hills Wildlife Protected Area in the Northern
Plains region.! I am grateful for Professor Davidson's invitation, especially in
t Associate Professor of Law, the University of South Dakota School of Law. J.D. Boalt Hall
School of Law, the University of California at Berkeley; A.B. Harvard University. Member of
the Santee Sioux Tribe of Nebraska. Special thanks to my colleague Professor John H. Davidson
for inviting me to write this Article, and to Kirsten Jasper, J.D. 2001, the University of
South Dakota, for providing research assistance. I also extend gratitude to Wilmer Stampede
Mesteth and Lisa Standing Elk Mesteth (Oglala Lakota and Sicangu Lakota/Kiowa,
respectively) of Pine Ridge, South Dakota; Darrell Standing Elk and Carole Eastman
Standing Elk (Sicangu Lakota and Sisseton Dakota, respectively) of Concord, California; and
Fern Eastman Mathias (Sisseton Dakota) of Los Angeles, California, for moral and spiritual
guidance over the years and for their continuing leadership in the struggle for the return of
Paha Sapa and the advancement of Indian rights.
1. MAYA ANGELOU, ON THE PULSE OF MORNING (1993), quoted in ELIZABETH
COOK-LYNN, Introduction to MARIO GONZALEZ & ELIZABETH COOK-LYNN, THE POLITICS
OF HALLOWED GROUND: WOUNDED KNEE AND THE STRUGGLE FOR INDIAN SOVEREIGNTY 3
(1999).
2. Tyler Sutton & Joel Sartore on behalf of the Conservation Alliance of the Great Plains,

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