Protect Juristac: No Quarry on Mutsun Sacred Grounds
Mobilizing UUs in solidarity with Indigenous front-line communities is a critical part of our climate justice work. Communities where Black, Indigenous, and People of Color live are hit first and worst by the impacts of climate change and the pollution that causes it. Our climate advocacy must center the lived experiences and knowledge of these frontline communities.
UUs Beth Ogilvie with Starr King Unitarian Universalist Church and Colleen Cabot with First Unitarian Church of San Jose reached out to Side With Love to share an important call to action from the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band to the Protect Juristac Advocacy Partners Coalition. Please read their update, take the actions they share, and consider what climate justice looks like in your community? Who is most impacted, how, and where? How can you work in solidarity with the people most impacted?
With deep appreciation for UUs doing the good work,
Rachel Myslivy, UUA Climate Justice Organizer
The climate crisis is caused by taking – from the earth and from other beings, human and otherwise – exploiting, extracting, consuming, destroying – without regard to the consequences. Those who have more power take from those who have less, and the taking continues unabated. This system is built on injustice and cannot function without it.
Image: Photo of the sacred hills of the Juristac Tribal Cultural Landscape during the day, with overcast skies and a shadow falling across the foreground. Text: PROTECT JURISTAC. NO QUARRY ON MUTSUN SACRED GROUNDS.
An example of this injustice is unfolding in a place called Juristac, the most sacred grounds of the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, just south of the San Francisco Bay Area. A development company wants to construct a massive open pit gravel mine that would destroy this sacred ground for all time, and with it the spiritual and cultural heart of Mutsun life. It would also block a vital wildlife corridor connecting 3 mountain ranges. Wildlife cannot speak for themselves at Planning Commission hearings, or submit comments on the Environmental Impact Report, but the tribe can, and is, and we are supporting them. Please join us in helping prevent this irreversible injustice, this human rights tragedy. There are other sources of sand and gravel. There is only one Juristac. This 4-minute video tells the story.
What you can do:
Sign the petition to protect Juristac.
Submit a comment on the Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) by Sept 26. The DEIR states that the mine will have “significant impact on the Juristac Tribal Cultural Landscape.” No kidding! Tell the Planning Commission why this is morally unacceptable and the permit must be denied.
If you’re in Northern California, attend the rally in San Jose Sept 10. Details will be on ProtectJuristac.org/deir.
As members of the Protect Juristac Advocacy Partners Coalition, both our churches have passed resolutions supporting the tribe and opposing the mine. We have been taking the Juristac story to churches and other faith communities to raise awareness and enlist support.
We are doing this work as UUs committed to justice and healing, which includes:
Raising awareness of the true history of colonization and conquest and genocide, of extraction and exploitation, and how these patterns continue to this day.
Marshaling support among UUs and other faith communities to support the Amah Mutsun in protecting their most sacred grounds from permanent desecration, and in regaining access so they can restore their culture and their spiritual practices.
Promoting the understanding that Indigenous spirituality is equal to other religions and has a lot to teach about stewardship and reciprocity.
Thank you for your commitment to climate justice through Indigenous solidarity,
Beth Ogilvie with Starr King Unitarian Universalist Church
Colleen Cabot with First Unitarian Church of San Jose