New Series on KPFK Features Voices of Land Defenders and Environmental Justice Advocates

Creative FRONTLINE airs on KPFK, from Producers Robert Lundahl and Tracker Quinone

The Creative FRONTLINE series is now airing on KPFK 90.7 Los Angeles, Calif., The Pacifica Network.

(LOS ANGELES, Calif.) - The Creative FRONTLINE series is now airing on KPFK 90.7 Los Angeles, Calif., The Pacifica Network. The series features "voices from the frontline," from Producers Robert Lundahl and Tracker Quinone (Apache).

These voices include land defenders Josephine Dick and Dorece Sam (Paiute), Preston Arrow-weed and Faron Owl (Quechan/Kamya), Geronimo's Great Granddaughter, Mahlee Yellowfeather (Apache), and many others, alongside Archaeologists, Attorneys, and Environmental Justice advocates.

The mission of this collective is determined by the issues of development and inequity becoming more prominent, more destructive, and occurring now across California and the West, with little oversight.

Development is not that of new communities or highway infrastructure. In this case, "development" means mining. Mining for minerals worth billions to corporate giants, leaving destruction in its path.

Gone forever are sacred ancestral grounds, burial grounds, and lands lived and walked upon by Native American Tribes for "time immemorial". Until now.

The Creative FRONTLINE series will discuss the controversy over would-be copper mining at the native sacred site, Oak Flat, at Nevada's Thacker Pass, at the Salton Sea, and gold mines like Oro Cruz near Yuma, Arizona, just to name a few.

Producer Robert Lundahl states, "From my filmmaking experience, I have been made aware the federal government is making it easy on developers, "Fast Tracking" huge projects like Thacker Pass, in pursuit of lithium to make electric vehicle batteries."

Robert Lundahl is an Emmy Award winning documentary filmmaker.

Lundahl's work in Washington state on the Elwha River Dam Removal and Ecosystem Restoration Act helped create the largest dam removal success story anywhere in the world (Unconquering the Last Frontier).

His work in the Mojave Desert (Who Are My People?) supported Native American law and environmental justice for Southern California's 44 tribes and stopped or delayed several large (and damaging) energy projects.

According to Attorney Will Falk, "The Thacker Pass lithium mine project is a great example of government agencies knowing that they don't have to do anything about consultation.

"...The resistance to the Thacker Pass Mine has been non-violent and it will remain non-violent, but one of the reasons why it has to remain non-violent is we know what happens when you resist the federal government for things like mining.

"The 31 Paiutes that were murdered in Thacker Pass are the perfect example of what happens."

Amid the conflicts are stories which inform, inspire and empower a more educated public to care about the environment, and the people and communities who depend on that environment for their sustenance, both nutritional and spiritual.

Mahlee Yellowfeather is the great granddaughter of the legendary warrior, Geronimo. To her, Oak Flat is a sacred site. She tells the story of how one day, that sacredness was interrupted by an unexpected military incursion.

The dispute over law, land, and the right to mine Oak Flat has become no less incendiary a conflict of values than an old-time Western land war, continuing the Apache-United States conflicts of the 1800’s, from before the West was “settled.”

Preston Arrow-weed introduces the series.

Preston is a Kamya/Quechan elder, from the Fort Yuma reservation, and he calls for unity between tribes and tribal groups.

He says, "On the Quechan people's traditional land, pressure is mounting from international mining firms, developers, and the federal government, to approve projects like lithium extraction with little oversight.

"We're allied with Oak Flat on the Apache Nation, Paiute, Shoshone and other tribes and sacred places. We need to bring a different world into being. Out of our collective spirit, we create that world.

"I'm here to introduce our story series on new thinking and standing up. It's called Creative FRONTLINE, produced by Robert Lundahl and Apache, Tracker Quinone."

Creative FRONTLINE will air on KPFK 90.7 Los Angeles, Calif., The Pacifica Network as part of the overnight "What's Happening" program and is included occasionally in three existing Native American programs on an ongoing basis.

Story ideas are welcome, serving often remote communities with an opportunity to participate in public discourse in the media.

For more information or to share ideas, please contact producers at: robert@studio-rla.com