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Indigenous Activism

Annual Run To Raise Awareness About Sacred Site Mount Graham

A group of Indigenous activists and their allies will run from the San Carlos Apache Reservation to the summit of Mount Graham starting Thursday to honor one of their most sacred sites and to commemorate the beginnings of a local Native grassroots movement to preserve Indigenous sacred places. The 31st Annual Mount Graham Sacred Run begins at the Old San Carlos Monument, the site of the original Indian agency and military post, dating to when Apache people were first restricted to the San Carlos Reservation. It will continue along state and local highways to the summit of Mount Graham, one of the Southwest's Sky Islands.  "We're headed back to where we started," said Wendsler Nosie. The longtime tribal rights activist and former San Carlos Apache Tribe chairman is also the head of grassroots group Apache Stronghold, which is organizing the event. 

Canada’s Brutal And Dangerous ‘Pipeline Police’

The expansion of oil and gas exports has become a strategic priority for a major section of the capitalist class in Canada and its political enablers. The declining possibilities for export to the US, moreover, have led ‘business and political leaders...to pivot to East Asia, particularly China.’ This has involved the development of the required infrastructure in the western provinces, including the construction of major pipelines. Obviously, this whole initiative can only compound the impacts of climate change and other forms of environmental degradation. It has also put the Canadian state on a collision course with Indigenous nations who are determined to prevent such an assault on their traditional territory.

Another Young Ecuadorian Dies During National Strike

On Tuesday, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon (CONFENAIE) denounced the death of an Indigenous protester as a result of police brutality in the city of Puyo, in the province of Pastaza. "The hands of the National Police and the Guillermo Lasso administration are stained with the blood of our brother who was vilely murdered with a shot at close range," the CONFENIAE said and released images in which Byron Guatatuca can be seen dying on the ground. . The Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) denounced that the repression has increased since President Lasso decreed the State of Exception to try to end the national strike, which has already completed 9 consecutive days.

Indigenous Protesters Continue To Arrive In Ecuador’s Capital City

Hundreds of demonstrators continued to enter Ecuador's capital on Monday during the eighth day of a mobilization against the government called by the indigenous movement, while the blockade of roads connecting the city of Quito (north) with the north and south of the country is maintained, Images published on social networks show people walking on the road or in buckets of pick-up trucks in their eagerness to mobilize. In the afternoon, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) reported the arrival of indigenous people from the south of the country, who are currently near the Machachi canton (center), bordering the province of Pichincha, whose capital is Quito.

What Made Bruno And Dom Targets?

The disappearances of indigenous rights advocate Bruno Pereira and journalist Dom Phillips echo like a tragic cry for help from the Amazon rain forest and its original inhabitants. Today, everyone knows that there, in that pile of leaves that you can see on Google Maps, where the Vale do Javari Indigenous Reserve is located (the second largest in Brazil), two heroes gave up their individual lives to defend the collective lives which are destroyed daily by mining, gold, agribusiness, drug trafficking, predatory fishing and even by religious missionaries – unscrupulous defenders of a god of death. Bruno Pereira was not supposed to be there. He had already been depicted by genocide agents on t-shirts designed with 3 targets: one in the front, one in the back and a third stamped on his forehead. He was marked for death.

Internationalist Solidarity And Support For Disappeared Defenders

Friends of the Earth International expresses its concern, indignation and condemnation at the disappearance of Brazilian indigenist activist Bruno Araújo Pereira and Dom Phillips, a British journalist and contributor to The Guardian newspaper. The two men disappeared on the morning of June 5 in the indigenous territory Vale do Javari, in Brazil’s Amazonas state. The defenders were last seen as they made their way from the community of Ribeirinha São Rafael to the town of Atalaia do Norte (where they were expected). Both men were working on a project with the Indigenous group Unión de Organizaciones Indígenas de Vale do Javari (UNIVAJA). The Vale do Javari Indigenous Reserve was recognised and demarcated in 2001 and is inhabited by 26 Indigenous Peoples, among them peoples who live in voluntary isolation and others with recent initial contact.

Australia’s Environmental Movement Is Breaking The Deadlock In Politics

The federal election saw voters’ growing concern about Australia’s laggardly response to climate change finally addressed, with teal independents garnering seats in Liberal heartland and record votes for Greens candidates. But what caused this seismic shift in Australia’s political landscape? And why now? We believe the rapid growth and diversification of Australia’s environmental movement since 2015 played an important role. For example, almost a million Australians volunteered for an environmental charity in 2019, whether by planting trees, organizing candidate forums or joining a climate strike. The environmental movement is also increasingly crossing into traditionally conservative areas, with the emergence of groups such as the Coalition for Conservation and Farmers for Climate Action, which has united 7,000 farmers and 1,200 agriculture industry supporters.

To Save The Salmon, We Have To Slow Climate Change

No one in the Pacific Northwest is exempt from the impacts of climate change. Rising global temperatures are intensifying floods, droughts and warming waters. Last summer’s heat dome led to temperatures in western Washington as high as 110 degrees. We didn’t just break records — we obliterated all-time records over an incredibly hot four-day period. The ocean, the rivers and the streams ran hotter than ever. Thousands of salmon died, and the people and animals that depend on them suffered. As salmon disappear, so do dozens of other species dependent on the nutrition they provide. It is as my mentor Billy Frank Jr. once said, “As the salmon disappear, so do our tribal cultures and treaty rights. We are at a crossroads, and we are running out of time.”

How Native Americans Are Keeping The Bees Alive

Honeybees are a declining population. Indeed, between October 2018 and April 2019, commercial beekeepers reported a loss of 37.7% of the managed honeybee population.  There are a plethora of reasons that can explain the rapid decline of the honeybee numbers, such as the varroa mite entering hives and spreading diseases, loss of habitat, pesticide exposure, and poor management practices. That being said, the good news is that Native American tribes are joining the government to turn the situation around. Also, there’s a lot you can do to help save the most important pollinators in the world and the billion-dollar crops they aid every year. Yet, this is just the tip of the iceberg of this complex topic that is paramount for humans, flora, and fauna. Read on to learn more about how Native Americans are doing their part to keep the bees alive.

From Alcatraz To Moss Lake, The Land Back! Movement Is Not New

Land Back! is a popular slogan among Natives on social media in the form of memes, hashtags and posts advocating decolonization. It is spray painted on the sides of buildings and bronze statues of euroamerican colonizers (preferably in red), as well as appearing as a talking point on an episode of Reservation Dogs. Although the term has gained popularity via social media and perhaps viewed as a recent trend, Land Back! actions have been in effect since the Red Power movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. One of the more well-known Land Back! events from that era was the 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island, a former federal prison near the San Francisco Bay. Hundreds of angry and motivated Natives arrived by the boatload and demanded the deed to the island.

Indigenous-Led Activists Protest Oil Pipeline In Green Bay

Green Bay, Wisconsin – About a dozen environmental activists took to the streets of downtown Green Bay Friday evening to protest a proposed oil pipeline reroute in northern Wisconsin. “We’re trying to raise awareness about Line 5,” said organizer Justice Peche. Canada-based Enbridge Energy is rerouting the Line 5 pipeline around the Bad River Ojibwe Reservation at the request of the tribe. About 12 miles of active pipeline pass through the reservation, but as easements have started to expire the tribe filed a lawsuit in 2019 to have the pipeline removed. The company is planning a new 41.2-mile section around the reservation, but tribal officials and activists are calling for greater scrutiny of the project arguing that construction and operation threatens rare plants and animals in the area.

Native Activist Found Not Guilty In Border Protest

Amber Ortega, a Southern Arizona border activist facing two federal charges for protesting the construction of the border wall near Quitobaquito Springs, was found not guilty by a federal judge on Wednesday. Following a short motions hearing, U.S. Magistrate Judge Leslie A. Bowman ruled that the federal government had imposed a "substantial burden" on Ortega's exercise of her religious faith by closing access to the border road that runs just south of Quitobaquito Springs — an area that remains central to the spiritual practices of the Hia C-ed O’odham. The on-the-spot change in the verdict felt like "a dream," Ortega said. Ortega and her friend and mentor Nellie Jo David were arrested on Sept. 9, 2020, by National Park Service officers just beyond Quitobaquito — about 120 miles southwest of Tucson...

Tulalip Flag Soars At Every Marysville School District Campus

For the first time ever, the red, white and black colors of the Tulalip flag are soaring over every Marysville School District campus. Tulalip’s iconic orca was raised up at each elementary, middle school, high school, and even District headquarters during the week of November 17th.  In each instance, the 3 foot by 5 foot cloth signifying the Tulalip Tribes as a sovereign nation was raised by a proud student representative and young Tulalip culture bearer. “About a decade ago, my coworker Ricky Belmont and I started asking the schools we work at to fly the Tulalip Tribes flag out of recognition for the tribe being a sovereign nation and to honor the treaty lands that schools are built upon,” explained Matt Remle, Indian Education Program Coordinator for Marysville School District.

It’s Time To Free Leonard Peltier, Longest Serving Political Prisoner

Too few have heard of Leonard Peltier, an American Indian Movement activist who has been imprisoned for 44 years based on accusations that were never proven and a trial that was appallingly mishandled. Based on his mere presence in South Dakota’s 1975 Pine Ridge Reservation shoot-out, where one Native American activist and two FBI agents were killed, Peltier has spent the better part of his life behind bars. As the website FreeLeonard.org points out, this gross miscarriage of justice has been condemned by everyone from by Amnesty International and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights to Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Rev. Jesse Jackson, among many others who consider him America’s longest serving political prisoner.

Line 3 Replacement Has Been Completed So Why Are Activists Still Camping Out?

Every few days, Jaike Spotted-Wolf walks over to a well near Camp Migizi to refill several five-gallon water containers. At the camp, where Spotted-Wolf is one of several matriarchs, there is no plumbing, no pipes and no faucets. Residents take turns getting water, which they need for basics such as cooking and showers. The camp was — and is — one of several resistance camps formed to oppose Enbridge’s now-completed Line 3 project, which replaced a corroding oil pipeline built in the 1960s with a new, larger pipeline. The pipeline runs through northern Minnesota to Superior, Wisconsin. Nearly a month and a half after oil-laden tar sands began flowing through the pipes, activists are still living at Camp Migizi and other sites.
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