On Wednesday, June 25, Nicolas Barbier, a geographer from France, will show his documentary film about current land, sovereignty, and environmental issues affecting the Nez Perce Tribe and neighboring communities in the region. The original 13 million acres of the Nez Perce Homeland spanned the Snake River basin and surrounding areas in north-central Idaho, southeast Washington, and northeast Oregon, with rugged mountain ranges, deep canyons, fertile and intensively farmed hills and prairies, and the largest protected wilderness areas in the contiguous United States. About 3,400 Nez Perce and more than 100,000 non-Indians now live in these landscapes.
All of the wide variety of sixty individuals who speak in this film -- half of them Native American -- are involved in natural resource issues. Among them are scientists, land managers, government officials, tribal leaders, lawyers, association representatives, landowners, hunters and fishers, spiritual leaders, educators, activists, and others. The interviewees express different worldviews and perspectives on political, treaty rights, and resource management issues in the Nez Perce Homeland. Some advocate and actively promote a paradigm shift in our relations with the lands and sustainable practices, while others aggressively pursue the continuation of modern land management systems. The regional context of the film is broadened by two central characters who have worked on numerous Indian reservations across the country: John Trudell, a Sioux political activist and artist, and Winona LaDuke, an Ojibwa rural economist and writer.
The University of Idaho (U of I) Geography Department, Student Organization of People and the Environment (SOPE), and Friends of the Clearwater are sponsoring this excellent opportunity to view an important work about the Nez Perce and the Clearwater basin. Doors to the Borah Theater in the Student Union Building of the U of I campus will open at 6:30 p.m., and a discussion of the film will begin before its 7:00 p.m. screening on Wednesday, June 25. The suggested donation of $3.00 covers room and equipment rental and supports the work of Friends of the Clearwater.
