Indigenous Rights

IEN Denounces COP27 Lack Of Progress For Indigenous Peoples And Climate Justice

November 29, 2022 Last Real Indians. Educate! climate crisis, Climate Justice, COP27, Indigenous Rights

Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt - The UNFCCC Conference of the Parties concluded its 27th session in the early hours of Sunday, November 20, 2022 with the adoption of the Sharm El-Sheikh Implementation Plan. Despite the extended COP, Parties failed to take adequate steps and action to address climate change. The most glaring omission in the Plan is a failure of the Parties to cut fossil fuel emissions at the source and there were only vague references towards achieving the Paris Agreement temperature goal of 1.5 degrees Celsius. False solutions such as REDD+, carbon markets, carbon offsets, climate-smart agriculture, climate geoengineering technologies, and nature-based solutions were focal points at COP27. Additionally, climate finance, adaptation and mitigation as well as loss and damage were at the forefront of negotiations at this year’s session.

Why I’m Thankful For 500 Years Of Indigenous Resistance

November 25, 2022 Wakíƞyaƞ Waánataƞ (Matt Remle), Last Real Indians. Resist! colonization, History, Indigenous Activism, Indigenous Rights

Starting in 1452, under the guise of the Papal Bull Romanus Pontifex and later the 1493 Papal Bull Inter Cetera, the Christian Doctrine of Discovery, European Christians began their efforts to expand colonial rule, and the Christian Empire, throughout the world. These Papal Bulls sanctioned European Christian Nations to “capture, vanquish, and subdue the saracens, pagans, and other enemies of Christ, to put them into perpetual slavery, and to take all their possessions and property” and were authorized “to take possession of any lands discovered that were not under the dominion of any Christian rulers.” Early colonial efforts centered on the western coast of Africa as Portugal “claimed” lands and engaged in the trafficking of African slaves.

Yakama Nation Calls On Washington State And Supporters To Honor Native American Heritage Month

November 23, 2022 Press Pool, Indian Country Today. Create! Indian Child Welfare Act, Indigenous Rights, Indigenous Sovereignty

Washington - November is Native American Heritage Month, when we recognize and celebrate the first peoples of this continent; their resilience, accomplishments, and traditional knowledge. In 2009, President Obama signed “The Native American Heritage Day Resolution,” designating the Friday after Thanksgiving as “Native American Heritage Day.” On this highly commercial day, many United Stated consumers give very little thought about the indigenous people of this land, but the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation encourages you to take a moment to confer. To observe Tiinmamí alxayx, explore the history of this land. The Yakama ancestors and those of the related tribes and bands, lived, traveled, traded, and practiced traditional and religious ceremonies across this region.

Lack Of Native Voices, Little Familiarity With ICWA Law In Brackeen Case

November 22, 2022 Elyse Wild, Tribal Business News. Educate! Indian Child Welfare Act, Indigenous Rights, Indigenous Sovereignty, Supreme Court

In a federal case that many advocates in Indian Country consider to be the most significant threat to sovereignty in modern times, not a single Native voice presented as part of oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court. At issue is the fate of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), a 43-year-old federal law designed to keep children who are tribal members with Native families. The law came in response to hundreds of years of tribes being decimated by the forced separation of children and families, in which children were often placed in residential boarding schools and subject to horrific and sometimes deadly abuse. Congress enacted ICWA less than a decade after the Association on American Indian Affairs found that 25 percent to 35 percent of all Native children had been removed from their families and placed in foster homes, nine out of 10 times with non-Native parents.

53rd National Day Of Mourning Indigenous Pride, Power And Protest

November 20, 2022 K. James, Workers World. Resist! Day of Mourning, Indigenous Rights, Thanksgiving

What are the United States’ foundational myths? Who created them, and who do they erase and harm? For the past 52 years, United American Indians of New England (UAINE) and supporters have gathered on so-called Thanksgiving Day in Plymouth, Massachusetts, to ask these questions, confront settler mythologies and commemorate a National Day of Mourning for the Indigenous people murdered by settler colonialism and imperialism worldwide. The National Day of Mourning protest was founded by Wamsutta Frank James, an Aquinnah Wampanoag tribal member. In 1970, Wamsutta had been invited by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to give a speech at a banquet commemorating the 350th anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrims.

Apaches Get Rehearing In Fight To Preserve Oak Flat

November 19, 2022 Alejandra Molina, Religion News Service. Educate! Apache, Arizona, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Sacred sites

Arizona - A federal appeals court will rehear Apache Stronghold’s case against the United States to save the sacred site of Oak Flat, a 6.7-square-mile stretch of land east of Phoenix that a private venture is seeking to turn into an underground copper mine. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals announced Thursday (Nov. 17) that it will rehear the case in front of a full 11-judge court instead of the original three-judge panel. Earlier this summer, the divided federal appeals court, in a 2-1 ruling, held that the government could proceed with the transfer of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper, a company owned by the British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto. It ruled that Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit working to protect Oak Flat, failed to show a substantial burden on its religious exercise.

Indigenous Resistance And The Roots Of Ecuador’s National Strike

November 17, 2022 Ashley Bishop, The Real News Network. Strategize! Ecuador, Indigenous Rights, National Strike, Neoliberalism

“He was my uncle. They killed him during the strike in the center of Puyo, here in Ecuador. He was my uncle, he was Oldemar Guatatoca Vargas.” Yolanda Vargas, a Shuar woman in her mid-30s, sits in her parked car in the remote jungle outpost of Palora, located within the province of Morona Santiago. She drove out there so she could get a cell phone signal to talk to me. The ride from her community takes roughly an hour over the dirt roads winding a narrow path through the Amazon. With everyone else in the community, besides her elderly and sick mother, in the capital of Quito taking part in El Paro Nacional—the National Strike—she’s had to bring her school-aged children with her, smooshed shoulder-to-shoulder in the front and back seats.

Rally In Defense Of The Indian Child Welfare Act

November 13, 2022 Jay Gibbs, Fight Back News. Resist! Indian Child Welfare Act, Indigenous Rights, Supreme Court, Wisconsin

Oneida, Wisconsin – On November 9, over 50 people gathered on the Oneida Indian Reservation in northeast Wisconsin to show solidarity with the Oneida people and all indigenous people as a Supreme Court decision regarding the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) looms. The crowd included members of the Oneida Tribal Nation, concerned community members and several organizations that helped facilitate the event. The gathered community members, both tribal and not, were met with hospitality from the Oneida hosts, with homemade corn soup and community-building conversation being shared before the speakers began. The first speaker had firsthand experience seeing the effects of harsh U.S. policy concerning the children of oppressed groups.

Hoopa Valley Tribe Sues Over Water Contracts In California

November 9, 2022 Last Real Indians. Resist! California, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Trump Administration, Water

California - Today, the Hoopa Valley Tribe renewed a 2020 lawsuit it had filed against the Trump Administration for financial misconduct, environmental depredation, and violation of tribal sovereignty and fishing rights in California’s Trinity River fishery. For more than a year, the Tribe made repeated attempts to have the Biden Administration hold the Bureau of Reclamation accountable for illegally waiving at least $400 million owed to the Treasury by contractors who use water and power from Reclamation’s massive Central Valley Project in California, and falsely claiming that federal programs to restore environmental damage caused by industrial farming operations and other actions were both complete and successful.

Supreme Court Takes Up The Indian Child Welfare Act

November 7, 2022 Mary Annette Pember, Indian Country Today. Educate! ICWA, Indigenous Rights, Indigenous Sovereignty, Supreme Court

The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are inscribed above the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C. The terse phrase powerfully underscores the conviction that the nation’s judiciary occupies a special plane of existence in which momentous decisions are made in a protected sphere of legal purity. For many Supreme Court watchers, however, the court’s recent rulings overturning abortion rights, expanding gun rights, limiting the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency and blurring the lines separating church and state reflect the alarming impact of an ultra-conservative majority among justices. Indeed, a September 2022 Gallup poll shows that 42 percent of Americans think the Supreme Court is too conservative, a new high for that response.

Wet’suwet’en Water Protector To CEO: ‘You Are Not A Climate Leader’

October 30, 2022 Brent Patterson, PBI Canada. Resist! Canada, climate crisis, Genocide, Indigenous Rights, Water Protectors, Wet’suwet’en

On October 27, Wet’suwet’en water protector Eve Saint spoke at a protest outside the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Toronto as the London, Ontario-based Ivey Business School presented RBC CEO Dave McKay with their Ivey Business Leader award. Ivey notes: “More than 400 guests, including some of Canada’s most distinguished business leaders, attended the formal dinner at The Ritz-Carlton. The award honours individuals who have made significant contributions to the advancement of business in Canada, and demonstrated leadership in both business and their communities.” The day before the award ceremony RBC released its 2030 emission reduction targets. McKay claimed: “RBC is committed to helping build a cleaner future.” But Saint said of McKay: “You are not a climate leader, you are a leader in genocide.

Wet’suwet’en Land Defender: ‘It’s Time To Protect What Is Left’

October 21, 2022 Brent Patterson, PBI Canada. Resist! Coastal GasLink Pipeline, Indigenous Rights, land defender, Wet’suwet’en

On October 19, Wet’suwet’en land defender Molly Wickham (Sleydo’) along with Hereditary Chiefs Woos and Na’moks spoke at a Decolonial Solidarity online organizing call attended by more than 300 people. Wickham told those assembled: “[The drilling at the site of our sacred headwaters] is happening now. The salmon are spawning in the river and you can actually hear the drilling happening from kilometres away. You can feel it in the ground, in the earth, from kilometres away. …The salmon are spawning and you can feel the vibration of the drilling happening.” She highlighted: “We are calling on you, our allies, other Indigenous nations, labour unions, anarchist groups, environmentalists, students, climate activists. The threat to our survival and our freedom is our collective responsibility. Enough is enough. It’s time to plan, prepare and protect what is left.”

Seattle – Greater Tacoma Foundation Call For Forterra Resignations

October 20, 2022 Last Real Indians. Resist! Indigenous Rights, Seattle, Washington

Seattle, Washington - A recently obtained letter reveals further fallout from the Snoqualmie Tribe’s exposing the Seattle-based land conservancy Forterra of misleading the tribe and the federal government in obtaining a grant worth up to $20 million. Last week, 78 Forterra staff members issued a letter expressing their support for Snoqualmie Tribe risking their careers. Now, LRI has obtained by the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation that calls for the, “Replace[ment] (of) Forterra’s executive team with an experienced team that can restore trust with partners.” The letter further states, “Communications to the Hilltop community and recent letters from the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, Forterra’s CEO, and former Forterra employees reveal misrepresentation and plans that were never intended to be delivered on to begin with.Seattle, Washington - A recently obtained letter reveals further fallout from the Snoqualmie Tribe’s exposing the Seattle-based land conservancy Forterra of misleading the tribe and the federal government in obtaining a grant worth up to $20 million. Last week, 78 Forterra staff members issued a letter expressing their support for Snoqualmie Tribe risking their careers. Now, LRI has obtained by the Greater Tacoma Community Foundation that calls for the, “Replace[ment] (of) Forterra’s executive team with an experienced team that can restore trust with partners.” The letter further states, “Communications to the Hilltop community and recent letters from the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, Forterra’s CEO, and former Forterra employees reveal misrepresentation and plans that were never intended to be delivered on to begin with.

Why We Should Transfer ‘Land Back’ To Indigenous People

October 18, 2022 Naomi Ishisaka, Seattle Times. Create! American genocide, colonization, Indigenous Rights, Land Back

“Land Back.” You may have seen this slogan recently on T-shirts or hashtags, but its roots are as old as the colonization and displacement of Native people in the U.S. In recent years, Washington has seen several new Native land reclamation efforts, ranging from ancestral land purchased by tribes themselves to land returned to tribes that was purchased by conservation groups or other entities. At their core, Land Back initiatives are intended to support the sovereignty and self-determination of Indigenous people. The reclamation efforts begin to remedy the injustice of government policies that stripped land, language and culture from Native people. They also recognize the urgent need to approach our environment and ecology in a more sustainable way that protects life for seven generations and beyond.

Forterra Staff Defy Bosses, Show Support For The Snoqualmie Tribe

October 12, 2022 Last Real Indians. Resist! Indigenous Peoples Day, Indigenous Rights, Washington State

We, the undersigned, are former staff members and leaders of Forterra who are writing to express our solidarity and support for the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe, which has made public very serious allegations of misconduct by Forterra. It is clear from publicly available information that Forterra has, at minimum, behaved in an inappropriate, disrespectful, and misleading manner inconsistent with the organization’s stated value: We show respect for people, place, culture and each other. It appears that Forterra has mistreated a sovereign Tribal Nation on its own ancestral lands while claiming to act in its best interest. Beyond that, instead of approaching this embarrassing mistake with “accountability, humility and care”, it appears Forterra’s executive team has engaged in victim blaming, pointing to the Tribe’s “bad faith”.

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