A multi-media campaign to help mitigate environmental injustices on Cheyenne River

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe has endured greater than a century's worth of environmental injustices, from the effects of nearby heap-leach gold mining, to use of a portion of the reservation for an aerial gunnery range, to the purposeful flooding of over 100,000 acres of prime reservation land, including over 80,000 acres of productive river bottom lands. The primary goal of our ensuing environmental justice project is to foster among Cheyenne River Sioux tribal members an awareness and appreciation of prominent environmental health issues sufficient to drive an organized agenda of environmental health activities, planning, and policy, for the betterment of tribal members health and the ecology of the reservation. To do this, we have implemented a tightly-organized multi-media campaign intended to reach tribal members and broadcast environmental health information, keying particularly on findings from the research conducted through the project. The campaign features an integrated series of informational posters, newsprint articles, and radio public service announcements. This presentation will highlight the project's evolution, including the multiple types and levels of approvals required, and the varied components of the multi-media campaign and a discussion of the outcomes it has achieved, especially in terms of participation and buy-in from the Tribal Council.