VICE News
Cursed by Coal: Mining the Navajo Nation
2015 • E50 Mar 18, 2015 14m
There's a resource curse on the Navajo Nation. The 27,000-square-mile reservation straddling parts of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah has an extremely high abundance of many energy resources — particularly coal. That coal is what's burned to provide much of the Southwest with electricity, and it creates jobs for the Navajo. But the mining and burning have also caused environmental degradation, serious health issues, and displacement. VICE News travels to the Navajo Nation to find out how its abundance of coal is affecting the future of the Navajo people.