Excerpt from the article…

Tribal members in Arizona are fighting to protect a piece of land they consider their “Mount Sinai.” To the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the 740-acre swath of oak groves and sheer cliffs is sacred ground, a place where they have gone for centuries to hold religious ceremonies and communicate with the Creator.

“No different than Mount Sinai,” said Wendsler Nosie Sr., former chairman of the San Carlos Apache.

But Oak Flat is on a path to destruction.

The land is scheduled to be transferred to Resolution Copper, a company controlled by two foreign mining giants, and turned into one of the largest copper mines in the country. The transfer was set in motion by an eleventh-hour provision slipped into a 2014 defense bill by Arizona’s two Republican senators at the time. …
A group of Apaches and other opponents of the mine took the battle to court in January, suing the federal government to halt the land transfer.

The Apache Stronghold group argued in the suit that the planned destruction of Oak Flat would violate religious freedom protections. It also argued that an 1852 treaty between the Western Apaches and the U.S. gives the tribe rights to the site.

“The Oak Flat Parcel of the proposed Resolution Copper Mine Project is located right smack dab in the middle of the Western Apaches’ 1852 Treaty lands,” the lawsuit says. The treaty was “never amended, rescinded, nor terminated,” it adds.

In court papers filed the day after President Joe Biden’s inauguration, government lawyers argued that Apache Stronghold can’t assert ownership rights to the land because the group isn’t a federally recognized tribe and that even if it were, the land isn’t held in trust for any tribe. …
U.S. District Judge Steven Logan acknowledged that the mine would “close off a portal to the Creator forever and will completely devastate the Western Apaches’ lifeblood,” but he said the loss didn’t appear to breach religious freedom laws. He concluded that the Apache Stronghold group lacked legal standing because it represented individuals rather than a tribal government. …

Rio Tinto, one of Resolution Copper’s parent companies, sparked controversy last year when it destroyed caves in Australia considered sacred by Aboriginal groups. The 46,000-year-old Juukan Gorge caves were blown up in May as part of an iron ore exploration project.