FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 18, 2024
Custer, SD – Tuesday night, nearly 100 community members attended a public meeting in Custer, SD in continuous opposition to the U.S. Forest Service’s approval for company F3 Gold to begin its Newark Exploration Drilling Project in the Black Hills National Forest.
Since last year, members of NDN Collective have joined dozens of Custer community members at public meetings about the Newark project to decry this decision and demand the U.S. Forest Service immediately halt the project.
The opposition at Tuesday’s meeting was not new – local residents have submitted hundreds of public comments, and have attended meetings to express concerns since the beginning of last year. Here is footage from just one of those meetings, which took place in February 2023 and features a room packed with water protectors and allies.
However, the collaboration between Native and non-Native community members to form a board that will continue to organize and escalate opposition to the Newark project, is monumental. The community members of Custer made a direct and intentional ask to have an Indigenous person on the board, noting the leadership of Indigenous people in fights like these.
“Through our shared opposition to F3 Gold’s exploratory drilling project, local Native and non-Native communities realized we have similar ideals about how this land should be cared for – and that the only way for us to protect ourselves from toxic mining is to band together as a united force,” said Taylor Gunhammer, organizer at NDN Collective and member of newly formed community board opposing the Newark project. “By pushing F3 Gold’s Newark project through, The U.S. Forest Service has eliminated both environmental review and meaningful tribal consultation altogether.”
“We will not stand by and allow a government agency to sell away our shared environmental future, instead of protecting it for future generations.”
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NDN Collective is an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power. Through organizing, activism, philanthropy, grantmaking, capacity-building, and narrative change, we are creating sustainable solutions on Indigenous terms.