Shortly after this success other Navajo grassroots environmental groups began to form to fight the overwhelming environmental racism stacked against them. Due to the lower lack of wealth and education on American Indian reservations, and their status as a minority, the U.S. government has allowed the encroachment of mining and energy companies for over 40 years to develop the Diné lands, creating environmental and health devastation and loss of aquifer water resources. CARE found that its success could benefit the other struggling organizations, so they banded together into a conglomerate environmental group representing all of the Navajo people, called Diné CARE. (Diné simply means "The People" and it is what the Navajo call themselves.)