Native Americans pass green legislation

The Navajo Nation has become the first Native American tribe to pass green jobs legislation to cut an unemployment rate that is currently more than four times the US national average.

The Navajo Green Economy Commission, which was voted into being by tribal lawmakers this week and will be staffed by volunteers, is expected to take two years to enact the legislation.

The first year will be spent defining the community's employment needs and the second applying for stimulus funds and grants from a range of federal and state agencies, the private sector and large foundations.

Community members will then be able to apply for financing to set up small-scale green businesses. The legislation states that such businesses must produce minimal or no greenhouse gas emissions and/or counteract the negative effects of such emissions.

The aim is to support sustainable practices that already exist on the reservation, such as organic sheep and cattle farming, while encouraging the development of secondary industries such as gourmet food production, farmers' markets, weaving co-operatives and wool mills.

Other projects could include weather-proofing housing stock and introducing domestic solar and wind generation as well as harvesting rain water.

The legislation, which closely aligns with traditional tribal values, will also ensure the creation of green job-related training programmes in collaboration with the Navajo Technical College and Dine College.

Unemployment rates on the reservation, which covers 26,000 square miles, currently stand at 44 per cent compared with a national average of 10 per cent.

Most workers have to travel a considerable distance to find employment, while every $0.77 (46p) earned on the reservation in jobs found mainly in hospitals, schools, tribal government or dirty industries such as coal mining, is spent off it.

One of the goals of the initiative is to enable the community to ween itself off the royalties paid by coal, oil and gas industries for using its land – an income stream that is currently the main contributor to the local economy.