Documentary Explores Struggle Between Native Americans And US Government Over Land Use

during the last decades of the 20th century the image of Native American reservations has changed many tribes who suffered from neglect and property for much of the century began to turn things around by building casinos. Some reservations became prosperous and there were people who saw that as the end of the troubles suffered by Native Americans. A new documentary shows it may have been only the beginning of a new phase of the struggle. The film beyond Standing Rock explores the 21st-century conflict between Native American tribes and the U.S. government over public lands, Andrade -- energy and natural resources. Here's a clip from the trailer. Let's go. There is a whole conversation across the West about public lands. Who owns and controls the public lands. There is a 10 situation in North Dakota. Authorities clashing with demonstrators. The tribes have always been saying it is our land. We are a sovereign nation and putting our foot down. You can't do this to us anymore. Joining me is the executive producer of beyond Standing Rock. Welcome. The protest of the building of the Dakota Access pipeline by the Standing Rock Sioux tribe attracted an enormous amount of publicity last year. Why do you think this protest generated such interest? It is a long story, but it came at a time when I think tribes were beginning to feel more empowered than they had in the past. A number steps that the Obama administration had taken to give tribes more license, more authority, more control over their own resources bit by bit. And that coincided I think with environmentalist increasing focus on pipelines and energy infrastructure. Keystone XL. They were able to stop under the Obama administration, keep the push against Keystone XL and that pipeline going from Canada down to Texas. So they stop to that in the Dakota Access pipeline protest which began very small kind of catalyzed a growing sense of empowerment in Native American communities and a growing sense of empowerment among environmentalist. That this is where we put the end to it. The filmmakers first go to Standing Rock, and there they find this conflict is actually bigger than what is happening with this particular pipeline. What do they hear? At Standing Rock you have a very small tribe, the Sioux tribe. And they began this protest against a little portion of the pipeline that was to go underneath a reservoir just north of the reservation. They said they did not want the pipeline there. They say they were not heard and that their protests were not her by the Army Corps of Engineers who needed to permit the pipeline. There is a dispute about that. But what we found when we got there was it was about water and sacred land. The pipeline would not go on the reservation, but it went on land that they believed were there treaty lands illegally taken from them. So again it wasn't so much finding a pipeline as it was fighting the concept that there land that was historically there's cannot be taken away. And things cannot be done to that land without their explicit permission. And they felt like, and there's a lot of history behind us, like they were steamrolled by the federal government time and time again. A huge portion of their land was taken away in the 40s and 50s when hydropower dams are put up in the land was flooded. So this was the latest insult to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. Give us an overview of the other conflicts in this film? After covering the pipeline in the Dakota Access protest which was a huge story, we went down to southern Colorado where there is another tribe who have done something really interesting. Starting in the 60s and 70s, they realize they happened to sit on top of huge oil and gas reserves and companies are coming in and given them a little money to drill on their land. Instituted a moratorium for 10 years on all oil and gas drilling while they studied and learned how to do it themselves. Then they formed their own companies and began basically taking control of their own resources. They are a multibillion dollar tribe. Whether you are in favor of fossil fuel extraction and oil and gas drilling are not, what you see with this tribe is a tribe that has fought the federal government over and over again to take control of their own resources. And you look at the monument controversy in southern Utah. That is the third chapter of our phone. What we found with that, it is not really about oil and gas drilling or about fossil fuels, but a huge portion of land, over 1 million acres. What happened in the last two or three years is a coalition of tribes that have historically fought over everything, they came together. They were not happy with what the state of Utah was doing and proposing to do with this portion of land which they historically, each of these tribes, consider sacred. It is not reservation land, but it is land that is been used for centuries by Native American tribes for sacred rituals and all kinds of gatherings. So this coalition of tribes came together and went directly to President Obama using their sovereign status and they requested that he declare it a national monument, which he did at the very end of his term in December. The interesting part of this national monument is tribes have an unprecedented role in comanagement of these lands, overseeing how they will be managed. That this -- this did not go over well in Utah. A lot of local people who live in the towns nearby opposed it. the right now the Secretary of Interior is studying this. I think looking to either overturn the national monument designation or significantly shrink the national monument that was declared. Back to Standing Rock, earlier this year President Trump granted the permit for the district -- construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. His administration has signaled he is ready to support similar projects, but they Native American tribes are more willing to fight now than they had been in the past. Do you think the Standing Rock protest will have a lasting impact? Yes I do. In a couple of different ways. I think people who are going to be opposing pipelines strangely have been empowered by this, even though in a sense it was a failure because President Trump has ordered that the pipeline be built and it has in fact been completed. But I think people saw this as Native American tribes as a stand that they will continue to make. As you can see with the southern Utah, not all are opposed to fossil fuel development. But it draws lines in the sand on legal issues regarding sovereignty and consultation. How meaningful your consultation will be with the tribes. You have to be at the table with them and in fact whatever postmortem is written on what happened at Dakota Access, the Army Corps of Engineers and the people who did the permitting of this pipeline learned a tremendous amount about what not to do. About how to carry out these consultations and how to do it in a way that will avoid these kind of protests moving from our perspective the documentary beyond Standing Rock airs tomorrow night on KPBS at 11 o'clock. I have been speaking with the executive producer. Thank you so much.