Tag Archives: Blackfeet Nation

Timeline submitted for decision on Badger-Two Medicine drilling leases

August 23, 2015Environmental Issues, NewsBadger-Two Medicine region, Blackfeet Nation, oil and gas development, Solonex, The Wilderness Societynfpa

Two Medicine Lake – Flikr User Phil’s Pixels

The feds have decided to make a decision about energy leases in the Badger-Two Medicine region. By November 30, they will either commence to cancel the leases …or not.

This would be funny if the consequences weren’t so serious. Just read the darn article while I go bang my head on my desk . . .

Public land managers have submitted a court-ordered schedule framing the steps they’ll take to either lift a suspension of oil and gas drilling on a prized and culturally sacred landscape adjacent to Glacier National Park or cancel the energy leases outright.

In setting the schedule, federal land managers for the first time are considering the dissolution of energy leases in the Badger-Two Medicine area as an option to settle a dispute over whether they were granted illegally, as leaders of the Blackfeet Nation contend. The Badger-Two Medicine is home to the Blackfeet creation story and is at the center of a hard-fought legal battle, with the lease-holder calling for the drilling suspension to be lifted on one side and a vast coalition of tribes, conservation groups and Montana politicians urging permanent protection on the other.

The timeline to resolve the decades-old suspension of an energy lease in the Badger-Two Medicine was drafted after a federal judge ordered the U.S. Department of Justice, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service to draft a schedule for the agencies to complete their review.

Read more . . .

Badger-Two Medicine: “Too wild to drill”

August 18, 2015Environmental Issues, NewsBadger-Two Medicine region, Blackfeet Nation, oil and gas development, The Wilderness Societynfpa

The Wilderness Society weighs in on the issue of drilling leases in the Badger-Two Medicine region . . .

As the Blackfeet Nation’s leaders ramp up efforts to protect the Badger-Two Medicine area near Glacier National Park from oil and gas development, a nationwide conservation group has issued a report singling out the sacred region as a top priority for environmental safeguards.

The Wilderness Society’s 2015 edition of “Too Wild to Drill,” which identifies places the group believes should be off limits to energy development, featured the Badger-Two Medicine among three other lands deserving protection, including Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Colorado’s Thompson Divide and Grand Junction region and Utah’s Bears Ears and lands near Desolation Canyon.

Flanked on the northwest by Glacier National Park, on the east by the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and on the south by the Bob Marshall and Great Bear Wilderness, the 130,000-acre Badger-Two Medicine is central to the cultural identity of the Blackfeet.

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Blackfeet ramp up efforts to protect Badger-Two Medicine

June 30, 2015Environmental Issues, NewsBadger-Two Medicine region, Blackfeet Nation, oil and gas developmentnfpa

The Blackfeet tribe is keeping up the pressure to remove the remaining oil and gas exploration lease in the Badger-Two Medicine region . . .

The Blackfeet Nation’s leaders are ramping up efforts to protect the Badger-Two Medicine area near Glacier National Park, and recently highlighted the cultural, spiritual and ecological significance of a region threatened by oil and gas development.

On June 26, members of the Blackfeet Nation launched the most recent phase of a campaign to rally support for the area, with the aim of terminating 18 oil leases within the Badger-Two Medicine. The mountainous area, located between the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness, is a cornerstone of the tribe’s creation story, a spiritual nexus known as the “Backbone of the World” and a pristine, untapped ecosystem home to grizzly bears and other wildlife.

To celebrate the area, the tribe hosted Badger-Two Medicine Days, which among other Blackfeet traditions featured an all-night “holy smoke” ceremony led by spiritual elders, with the goal of warding off oil and gas development, said Tyson Running Wolf, secretary of the Blackfeet Business Council.

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Blackfeet Nation launches campaign to kill oil leases in Badger-Two Medicine

April 24, 2015Environmental Issues, NewsBadger-Two Medicine region, Blackfeet Nation, oil leasesnfpa

The Blackfeet kick it up another notch in their campaign to terminate oil leases in the Badger-Two Medicine region . . .

The Blackfeet Nation is enlisting the help of a member of one of America’s most popular rock bands to help protect a culturally and environmentally significant plot of land on the eastern edge of Glacier National Park.

On April 22, members of the Blackfeet Nation held a press conference to kick off a campaign to rally public support to terminate 18 oil leases within the Badger-Two Medicine. The mountainous area, located between the Blackfeet Reservation, Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness, is an important part of the tribe’s creation story and is known as the “Backbone of the World.”

To help get the word out, the Blackfeet have enlisted the help of Jeff Ament, bass player for Pearl Jam. On Wednesday, Ament posted a message supporting the Badger-Two Medicine effort on the band’s official Facebook page.