Tribal coalition halts mining at sacred Pe’ Sla site

A coalition of tribes and organizers successfully halted mining operations at Pe’ Sla, a sacred prairie in the Black Hills of South Dakota, within a single week. The movement was triggered when Oglala Lakota scouts discovered drilling had already commenced on the site.

This victory is noted as a rare success for Indigenous groups, who frequently face long-term legal and political battles to protect ancestral lands. The report contrasts this outcome with other recent struggles, such as the transfer of the Apache holy site Oak Flat in Arizona to a copper company and legislative efforts to strip protections from the Ojibwe treaty territory in Minnesota’s Boundary Waters.

Dr. Valeriah Big Eagle of the NDN Collective described the win as a significant break from the pattern of losing land to extraction, noting that organized power allowed the Great Sioux Nation to act effectively across multiple fronts to protect the site.