An Eagle Feather was recently attached to the permit at the Beaver Creek hydraulic fracturing (fracking) well site. It was placed there by Dr. Phil Bellfy, a member of the White Earth Band of Minnesota Chippewa. Bellfy is a recently retired Professor Emeritus of American Indian Studies at Michigan State University. He is 67, and has lived his entire life in Michigan, and is currently living in Sault St. Marie.

He is also active in the Idle No More environmental movement, which addresses many environmental concerns, including an aim to stop fracking at the Beaver Creek well. Article32.org is an online home for the movement. In a “Letter to Gov.” which can be read on the website, Bellfy said that he placed the feather at the site under Section 6.2(a)(ii) of the 2007 Inland Consent Decree, which according to him states that Tribal members may engage in “historically traditional activities.” He has placed another Eagle Feather on a proposed well pad in Kalkaska County, and another at a threatened Dune Sanctuary near Whitehall.

“Idle No More grew out of a frustration among First Nations in Canada after the Canadian government enacted Bill C-45, which essentially stripped environmental protections over the ‘navigable waters’ in Canada,” said Bellfy. “Over 99% of lakes and rivers that were previously protected in Canada no longer are.”

The concerns of Idle No More spread quickly to the U.S. In addition to fracking, Bellfy said that Article32.org is opposed to the sale of surplus state land, the proposed wolf hunt, an attempt in Whitehall to put a road through a Critical Dune Sanctuary, and the proposal in the Eastern UP to establish a cellulosic ethanol refinery in Kinross, which he says will result in the cutting down of every tree within a 150 mile radius, over time.

“What all these proposals are doing is violating Tribal members’ rights to ‘the usual privileges of occupancy,’ which is the language of the 1836 Treaty of Washington,” said Bellfy. “And the delineation of those Rights which are laid out in the Consent Decree. Tribal members have ‘rights to access’ the resources of the entire ‘public land’ area covered by the 1836 Treaty.”

“I have been involved in environmental issues for over 40 years in both Michigan and Ontario, often working directly with Tribes and First Nations, but always working with all groups and all peoples to defend the environment,” said Bellfy. “As Indigenous People, we’re obligated to act today with a commitment to the next Seven Generations. My Seventh Father, Apiish Kagoge (White Raven), signed the 1842 Treaty of LaPointe which ceded the western half of the UP and parts of northern Wisconsin and Minnesota.”

Bellfy is a member of that Seventh Generation, and due to the family connection to the Treaties, he said that he feels compelled to stand up for the Rights that they are intended to provide.

When Bellfy asked those opposed to fracking in Michigan which well site is likely to be the first to be fracked this spring, the answer was Beaver Creek.

“So, in a sense, Beaver Creek is symbolic of all of our opposition, and identified as the best choice to make a stand against the imminent danger that the fracking of that well poses,” said Bellfy. “In many respects, the damage has already been done. It’s obvious that they took an intact forest and simply bulldozed a huge swath of it. It’s now simply an ugly, destructive industrial site in the middle of the woods. It’s very disconcerting, and even more disconcerting when you realize that this exact scenario is being played out in hundreds of wilderness areas all across the state, with hundreds more in the planning stage.”

Bellfy says that his opposition to fracking is based on the United States Constitution, which as he points out, specifies U.S. Treaties as the “Supreme Law of the Land.” He said that, under the Constitution, States cannot pass laws that violate Treaty provisions.

Bellfy pointed out that during the 1800s, the US government negotiated several “land cession” Treaties in order to gain control over the land that would then become Michigan (in 1837). The 1836 Treaty ceded a huge portion of Michigan, about 1/3rd of its present size, including the Lower Peninsula north of a line roughly from Grand Rapids to Ionia, to Atlanta, to Alpena, and the eastern half of the Upper Peninsula, and includes the Grayling area. “The language of the 1836 and the 1842 Treaties are nearly identical,” said Bellfy. “Both contain the ‘reserved rights’ language as it relates to ‘resource access.’”

Bellfy explained that, “the 1836 Treaty also had this language that became the subject of the 2007 Consent Decree: “The Indians stipulate for the right of hunting on the lands ceded, with the other usual privileges of occupancy, until the land is required for settlement. (“Article 13 Rights”)”

“The Consent Decree was negotiated to figure out just what those ‘usual privileges’ were, and how were Tribal members going to be allowed to exercise those ‘retained rights,’” explained Bellfy. “So, the Consent Decree ‘is intended to resolve conclusively such claims, and to provide for the protection of the resources in the 1836 Ceded Territory.’”

To Bellfy, a key phrase is ‘protection of the resources.’

“This phrase is the underlying basis of our dispute with the state over the fracking of Beaver Creek,” he said. “The other word that is important here is ‘conclusively,’ that means the state cannot now go back and claim that they have a different interpretation of the Treaty, one that gives them the right to violate the Consent Decree and destroy the resources, when they have pledged to protect them.”

“President Obama officially announced U.S. support of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People on Dec. 16, 2010,” said Bellfy. Article32.org refers to Article 32 of the Declaration. The second paragraph of Article 32 follows: “States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources, particularly in connection with the development, utilization or exploitation of mineral, water or other resources.”

“Article32.org is one of those “representative institutions” referenced in that Declaration,” said Bellfy. “The Article also references the ‘utilization of … water’ as one of those acts that triggers the responsibility of the state to ‘obtain our free and informed consent prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources.’ It doesn’t take a constitutional lawyer to understand what that section says, the language is pretty straight-forward and very clear.”

“So, the letter to the Governor and others, lays out these arguments, and the Eagle Feather I placed on the well-head at Beaver Creek is, in essence, our ‘Indigenous Injunction’ against the ‘utilization’ of our water resources to frack that well,” said Bellfy. “We are asking the Governor to sit down with us, Article32.org and the Tribes, in order to ‘lift that injunction,’ if they want to ‘obtain our free and informed consent’ prior to fracking that well with our water.”

But Bellfy’s points are certainly disputed. Brad Wurfel is the communications director for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. “Gas and oil development is legal in Michigan and does not require the consent of the indigenous population,” he said. “Article 32 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People is just that – a declaration. It encourages an approach but it is not a legally binding instrument under international law, according to the United Nations. Just because the gentleman from Sault St. Marie calls it an injunction to hang animal parts on private property does not make it so, and while we respect his position and will work to address his issue individually, we don’t acknowledge this act under Michigan law.