The National: Navajo Nation fighting for its economic survival

Wednesday, February 23, 2011  

"The cragged beauty of the sandstone buttes in this corner of the Utah-Arizona border draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year but the poverty suffered by many of the original Navajo Indians who live here seems to have barely changed since they were depicted in the John Wayne cowboy movies of the 1940s.

Tourism, mining and agriculture, mainstays of the Navajo economy, provide dwindling revenues. Unemployment is more than 40 per cent and many homes in remote areas have no running water or electricity. On the main highways, a common sight is women dressed in traditional long skirts patiently waiting at roadside shacks to sell their Navajo arts and crafts to the rare tourist.

Increasingly stringent pollution controls are being imposed on coal-mining, raising questions about the long-term viability of the industry as a source of jobs. Meanwhile, the deadly legacy of uranium mining persists in the degradation of the land and health of those Navajo exposed to the deadly dust.

Many visitors to Monument Valley do not realise that barely 48 kilometres away there are still piles of uranium waste awaiting clearance by federal authorities, who continue to grapple with how best to clean up more than 500 abandoned mines."

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Navajo Nation fighting for cultural, economic survival (The National 2/22)