Gold Butte wilderness

Sacred Sites International as a member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation Cultural Resources Protection Coalition just signed onto a letter going to Senator Reid, Senator Ensign, Representative Heller and Representative Titus to support federal legislation for designating Gold Butte, located in northeastern Clark County, Nevada, a National Conservation Area.

Gold Butte Petroglyphs are often victims of Vandalism

The area is currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management with inadequate staffing. There are a lot of off-highway vehicle routes and the area has become a destination for enthusiastic but uninformed visitors who do not understand the value of the area’s fragile resources.

To find out more about how you can support this special environmental, cultural and sacred natural resource visit The Friends of Gold Butte.

Knowth Passage Graves, Ireland

Knowth passage graves, located near the Boyne River in Ireland, are part of the great megalithic complex surrounding Newgrange. The sites are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Bru na Boinne, because of their pristine condition, their solar alignments, ritualistic function and concentrations of megalithic art.

Newgrange, Ireland

Newgrange Entrance Slab

The nearby village of Slane applied for permission to build a freeway overpass over the Boyne River. The road would carry large trucks so that they would no longer have to travel through the village.

Sacred Sites International has protested the plan asking for undergrounding of the road because it would be most visible and audible from the Knowth site and within 500 meters of 44 archaeological and cultural sites. We have just heard from the Irish An Bord Pleanala, the government office that would grant permission for the road. They have asked for 12 detailed additions to the Environmental Impact Statement, including alternative road routes, alternative designs for what is being called the Slane Bypass, “a report of all geophysical and archaeological investigations carried out.”

Nantucket Sunrise is Sacred to Wampanoag

The Wampanoag Indian Tribe of Massachusetts have spiritual practices that require them to visit sacred sites with a clear view of the rising sun when they perform special ceremonies on the solstices and upon the death of elders. The Cape Wind project would compromise the natural integrity of a sacred site for the Wampanoags by industrializing their view of the rising sun.

The Cape Wind Farm’s plan is to build 130 wind turbines, each over 400 feet tall. The project would be several miles from the Cape Cod shoreline covering a 25-square-mile section of federal land.

Action is urgently needed before February 29, 2010. Please write to Secretary Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, Department of the Interior, 1849 C St NW, Washington, DC 20240; or email Secretary Salazar at feedback@ios.doi.gov; or telephone the Department at 202-208-3100.

Please make the following points:
1. The Wampanoag, People of the First Light, require an unobstructed view of Nantucket Sound in order to view the rising sun on solstices when they perform their sacred ceremonies and upon the passing of elders.
2. Wampanoag ancestral remains are buried in the Sound and the wind turbines would dis

For more information contact: the Wampanoag.

Other resources, including an excellent photo of the sound with proposed Wind Turbines, can be found at: The Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound.

The groups fighting the development include the Chumash Indian Wishtoyo Foundation, the Center for Biological Diversity, the TriCounty Watchdogs and the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment.

Mati Waiya of the Wishtoyo Foundation says the development threatens Chumash sacred sites and the endangered condor whose habitat would be gravely disturbed. The condor is central to the perpetuation of Chumash culture and ceremonial practices. The magnificent bird features prominently in Chumash oral histories and in sacred cave paintings.

You can read more about the issues surrounding the lawsuit and the destructive development in the press release from the Center for Biological Diversity.

Aboriginal Elders fear the blasting will endanger sacred stones, fragile plants and animals central to their culture. The quarrying will contaminate their water flowing from a brook that feeds into the Swan River.

The site complex at Red Hill in the Darling Range includes petroglyphs, ceremonial sites, grinding stones and ochre deposits used in spiritual practices. Of special interest is the Guardian Ancestral Owl Stone. You can learn more at Perth Independent Media.

For more information please visit the Susannah Valley website.

Petrochemical development has been threatening other sacred sites in Australia. The Dampier Rock Art, Burrup Peninsula located in Murujaga, Australia was included on the Sacred Sites International 2005 Most Endangered List. The site was again listed on the SSIF 2008 List of Sites because it is still highly endangered.

In 2005 SSIF featured Tara Hill on our Most Endangered Sacred Sites List. The threat at that time, a freeway built right next to the sacred hill, is still the threat. Yet, another freeway!Fresh from the Irish government’s disgraceful ruination of the Tara-Skryne Valley sacred landscape, they’re planning another assault on the area containing many of Ireland’s primary ritual sites.Take a look at the link below. And watch this space; we’ll post details of who to contact as and when we know them.The Hill of Tara is not the only important heritage threatened by the Leinster Orbital Route. The Heritage Town of Trim is to be bisected.Check this story on Indymedia:http://www.indymedia.ie/article/94705UN MUST SAVE TARA PETITIONhttp://www.savetarapetition.net

The magnificent prehistoric painted cave of Lascaux, located near Montignac, France, is in serious danger of being destroyed. The paintings are deteriorating from an overgrowth of black spots from fungus and bacterial growth. You can read more about this at the International Committee for the Preservation of Lascaux.

Urgent-Action Letters are desperately needed to urge the French Minister of Culture to work with the International Committee for the Preservation of Lascaux. Send letters to: Mr. Frederic Mitterand, Minister of Culture, 3 Rue de Valois, 75033 Paris Cedex 01, France.

Please send polite letters making the following points: 1) Please convene a committee of international experts to develop a study on the causes of the damage. 2) An effective scientific treatment must immediately be developed and employed to stop the proliferation of black fungus. 3) There must be scientific supervision of the cave; this is immediately needed and needs to be part of the ongoing management of the site. 4) An overall management plan for the cave should be developed and implemented with independent expert monitoring.

The latest UNESCO list of Intangible Culture includes several sacred sites and sacred traditions. The Committee considered these cultural elements as endangered despite the efforts of the communities or groups concerned. Following the inscription, States concerned will implement specific safeguarding plans, as indicated in their nomination files. Intangible cultural elements in need of urgent safeguarding will be eligible for financial assistance from the Fund established to this end.

We can thank the National Museums of Kenya for their efforts in nominating the forests and for the efforts of scholars such as Celia Nyamweru who has been working with the Coastal Forests Conservation Unit, a division of the National Museums of Kenya. Visit the Sacred Sites Map on this website by clicking here for more information on Kaya Forests in an article by Celia Nyamweru.

Kenya / Traditions and practices associated to the Kayas in the sacred forests of the Mijikenda

The Mijikenda include nine Bantu-speaking ethnic groups in the Kaya forests of coastal Kenya. The identity of the Mijikenda is expressed through oral traditions and performing arts related to the sacred forests, which are also sources of valuable medicinal plants. These traditions and practices constitute their codes of ethics and governance systems, and include prayers, oath-taking, burial rites and charms, naming of the newly born, initiations, reconciliations, marriages and coronations.

Kayas are fortified settlements whose cultural spaces are indispensable for the enactment of living traditions that underscore the identity, continuity and cohesion of the Mijikenda communities. The use of natural resources within the Kayas is regulated by traditional knowledge and practices that have contributed to the conservation of their biodiversity. The Kambi (Councils of Elders) acts as the custodians of these Kayas and the related cultural expressions. Today, Mijikenda communities are gradually abandoning the Kayas in favour of informal urban settlements.

Due to pressure on land resources, urbanization and social transformations, the traditions and cultural practices associated to the Kaya settlements are fast diminishing, posing great danger to the social fabric and cohesiveness of the Mijikenda communities who venerate and celebrate them as their identity and symbol of continuity.

We worked on an urban site that was a cemetery and ritualistic site. The Native American descendant assigned to the site decided to leave the site alone and allow a commercial development to be built on top of the burials. Considerations were as follows: it is better not to disturb ancestral burial sites; grave objects should remain with the dead and it protected the site from looting. The subject is dealt with in an excellent book, Sacred Objects and Sacred Places by Andrew Gulliford. It is a benefit of membership in Sacred Sites International at the Donor Level. In 1990, President George H. W. Bush, signed into law the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, providing sanctity for graves on public land and the return of human remains and grave goods to their tribes from any museum receiving federal funds.