They Fought for Their Tribe—and Won Women use the National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to protect Rosebud Sioux
Reservation from corporate exploitation GROWING UP on the
windswept plains of the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South
Dakota, Oleta Mednansky and Eva Iyotte had little interest in
either the U.S. legal system or environmental laws. But that
changed when a corporate hog producer announced plans to build
one of the nation's largest pig farms on their reservation. Now,
following a successful five-year court battle, the women are
teaching other tribes to use one of the nation's bedrock
environmental laws, the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA), to protect Native American lands from corporate
exploitation. "Eva and Oleta will be guides for other tribes,
indeed for every American, about how important NEPA is in giving
citizens a voice about maintaining their quality of life," says
Steve Torbit, director of NWF's Tribal Lands Conservation
Program. The controversy began in early 1998, when Mednansk