What the BBC didn't say about Yellowstone

Mark Thompson,
Director-General
BBC
PO Box 1922
Glasgow
G2 3WT

Dear Mark Thompson,

The BBC's recent programme about Yellowstone National Park in the US ('Yellowstone', BBC2, 24 February 2010) completely failed to acknowledge the fact that the creation of the park meant expelling 1000s and killing 100s of the people who used to live there.

I appreciate that wildlife was the focus of the programme, but its description of the region as a 'lost world' implied it was uninhabited before the park was created. This is false. The part of the programme called 'Yellowstone people' was an opportunity to mention those who had once lived there, but no such mention was made.

This is an extract from a recently-published book by investigative journalist Mark Dowie about Yellowstone:

'For a few years after its (the park's) creation seven native tribes – the Shoshone, Lakota, Crow, Bannock, New Perce, Flathead, and Blackfoot – lived, hunted and fished there. But 'strict natural protection' combined with wilderness romanticism to change policy, and by 1877 all Indians were ordered to leave the park for good. Resistance to eviction led to the deaths of hundreds of Indians – three hundred Shoshones in one particularly lethal encounter.' (Dowie, Conservation Refugees, MIT 2009)

The reason why it is crucial to draw attention to this is twofold:

1) Indigenous people around the world are regularly made 'invisible' on their own land. This makes it easier for governments and companies to claim their territory and exploit its natural resources for their own benefit and wealth.

2) Indigenous people around the world are regularly expelled from their land to make way for national parks. The number of people affected, known as 'conservation refugees', is estimated to be in the millions.

As your programme stated, Yellowstone was the world's first national park. . . but it also created the world's first 'conservation refugees'. By failing to acknowledge this, the BBC has seriously misled the public about the region and its history.

Yours sincerely,
James Pliny