Bear Ears Prayer Run Alliance with the United Nations
Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz
Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Victoria Tauli-Corpuz
Submitted
to the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, Agenda Item 10
By
the Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples
I would like to thank the Special Rapporteur, for the opportunity
to address Agenda Item 10: Human Rights, to the United Nations Permanent Forum
on Indigenous Issues. I would like to take this moment to acknowledge your
safety and wellbeing today. In spirit of the many generations of strong
females, our voices will not be extinguished! The Creator positioned each and
every one of us in these sacred places to create our sacred spaces.
We, the Bears Ears Prayer Run Alliance, an affiliate of the
Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples, are a delegation from the
Pueblo of Laguna, Acoma, Hopi, Navajo and Ute. We take this time to thank the
Indigenous Peoples of this land for welcoming and allowing our visit. I would
like to acknowledge the spirits of the Indigenous Peoples that came before us.
My name is Jasmine Felipe, I am Sun Clan, my parents are Monica
and Harold Felipe. (Will state name in my native language) My name translates
as, East side Water Hole Girl – where the koshare live. I am the youth delegate
for the Bears Ears Prayer Run Alliance and the Seventh Generation Fund for
Indigenous Peoples. I am a traditional farmer and trapper. I haul wood, hunt
and fish. I am a proud cultural participant. I am an advocate for the Violence
Against Woman’s Act (VAWA) and a Water Protector.
Mother Earth is me and I am her. I get to be with my mother every
day and she nurtures and heals me. I am not better than her or is she greater
than me. I speak for the animals and the future generations. The Bears Ears region
is the indigenous home of our ancestors. Tribal leaders and President Obama set
forth to protect and safeguard the region for future generations. Our
indigenous identity is represented in the relationship of the land, language,
culture, ceremony and traditional resources. Protection and the boundaries have
been reduced by 85% within the southeastern Utah region. This demonstrates
clear and unfortunate disrespect for the human beings that we are and the human
rights that we deserve.
We would like to invite the return of the Special Rapporteur to
join in our next prayer run. To be our guest, learn about and experience the
land, to hear the stories around the camp fire, share in meal time and build a
relationship to the landscape in the manner our ancestors did when they ran out
on our homelands as we have. To understand and then to return to the United
Nations Permanent Forum next year to report back on the importance of the
preservation of our sacred sites, using Bears Ears, an endangered and targeted sacred
site, critical to our identities, cultures, environment and human rights, as a
living example.
On December 26, 2017, Three Sister’s for Bears Ears a Prayer Run
and Walk was youth organized in response to concerns of the reduction to the
boundaries of the Bears Ears National Monument. March 12, 2018, the Bears Ears
Prayer Run Alliance engaged in a prayer run into the sacred region of our
ancestors. Youth, elders and members of the indigenous peoples, as well as
non-indigenous peoples, came out to run and honor the migration of our
ancestors. Six nights of camping, where stories of the land and a time of our
people were shared around the camp fire. The movements of our elders were
carried out in our actions in that moment. We felt their presence and acknowledged
their existence.
Thank you for this honorable consideration for our sacred sites
of our ancestors and homelands of our elders. To visit and learn, and report
back to the world the realities of our homelands, and how they are targeted by
corporations and extractive industries, will provide the experience of our
ways, culture, customs and the Indigenous needs and threats to our Mother
Earth, identities and human rights. Our Mother Earth is not a commodity.
On behalf of those who have gone before us, those who are here
today, and those who have yet to come. Thank you.
