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Land Rights

Challenging Land Use and Abuse In Allamakee County

Allamakee County lies in the northeast corner of Iowa, bordering Minnesota and Wisconsin. It is part of a three-state region that, unlike most of the upper United States and Canada, escaped glaciation during past ice ages. This geological oddity is immediately obvious to visitors by the dramatic terrain of bluffs, hills, and valleys. Expansive plains characterize most of the rest of Iowa, where miles-thick glaciers moved over the land like a bulldozer, lowering elevated areas, filling in depressions, and depositing rich, deep till. In contrast, the unglaciated northeast of Iowa, referred to as the Paleozoic Plateau for the geologic era of ancient sea bed limestones visible at the surface, contains thin soils and exposed bedrock.

In A Historic Ruling, ICJ Declares Israeli Occupation Unlawful

In a scathing Advisory Opinion sure to tighten the legal screws on Israel and place its Western allies in a huge bind, the world’s supreme judicial body declared today that Israel’s 57-year occupation and settlement of the West Bank and East Jerusalem are unlawful, that both must end, that settlements must be evacuated, and that Palestinians — denied their inalienable right to self-determination – must be compensated for their losses and allowed to return to their lands. “The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination...

Illegal Sale Of Palestinian Land Embraced By Biden, Local Government

On Sunday June 23rd there was a sale of Palestinian land in Los Angeles, California. The promotional materials included a photograph that looked a lot like Gaza’s shores. According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that fits the image of Zionists wanting to clear out the land for more settlers – an ethnic cleansing operation of murder and starvation against the entire population of Gaza and the West Bank. Although the sale was held at Adas Torah synagogue, the event was not a worship service. It was a venue that was hosting the My Home in Israel real estate agency which promotes prospective home ownership in Israel (occupied Palestine).

Israel Approves Largest West Bank Land Grab In Three Decades

Israeli authorities last month approved the largest seizure of land in the occupied West Bank in over three decades, anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now revealed on 3 July. The activists said the approval allows for the appropriation of 12.7 square kilometers of land in the Jordan Valley, northeast of the West Bank city of Ramallah. By illegally authorizing their seizure, Tel Aviv is allowing the land to be leased to Israelis and banning private Palestinian ownership. According to Peace Now, this marks the largest single appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo Accords. The move comes after the seizure of 8 square kilometers of land in the West Bank in March and 2.6 square kilometers in February.

What’s The Difference Between Indigenous Nations Co-Managing Or Co-Stewarding Their Land?

For a decade, wind farm companies had been eyeing Molok Luyuk — a mountain ridge of religious importance to tribes in northern California, whose people have worked for years to protect it. It’s also widely biodiverse with elk, mountain lions, and black bears, as well as 40 rare plants such as the pink adobe lily. Mia Durham is the secretary for the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, a tribe that has been in a relationship with Molok Luyuk for thousands of years. In response to petitions filed by wind energy companies that wanted to develop the area, the tribe and its allies asked President Biden to protect it in 2019.

Apache Stronghold Asks 29-Judge Appeals Court To Save Oak Flat

Washington - A coalition of Western Apaches and allies today asked all 29 judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to protect their sacred site at Oak Flat from destruction by a mining project. In Apache Stronghold v. United States, a special “en banc” panel of eleven judges split 6-5 earlier this year, refusing to stop the federal government from transferring Oak Flat to Resolution Copper, a foreign-owned mining company that plans to turn Oak Flat into a massive mining crater, ending Apache religious practices forever.

How To Privatize A Mountain

We had followed the trail for a half mile when it ran headlong into a fence. Signs nailed to the trees blared messages of unwelcome: ​“Private Property” and ​“No Forest Service Access.” They were emphatic: The trail ends here. Our map — the official map of the Custer Gallatin National Forest — said different: The trail continued for another seven or eight miles, a substantial orange line winding through the foothills of Montana’s Crazy Mountains. The signs, though, had the desired effect. On the other side of the fence, the trail grew faint. This trail, known as the Porcupine Lowline, had been marked on U.S. Forest Service maps for nearly a century — the earliest I’ve seen is dated 1925.

Hoopa Valley Tribe Reclaim Over 10,000 Acres

The Hoopa Valley Tribe announced today the acquisition of 10,395 acres of land bordering the western boundary of the Tribe’s Reservation. The return of the Hupa Mountain property brings the Tribe’s landholdings to a total of over 102,000 acres. When the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation was created, the Hupa people lost access to and use of more than two-thirds of their ancestral lands. The Tribe’s $14.1 million purchase of the land rightfully returns management, conservation, and use of the land to Hupa People. “Today is a day of intense celebration for our Tribe,” said Hoopa Valley Tribal Chairman Joe Davis.

Violence, Harassment, and Surveillance On Unist’ Ot’ En Land

In December 2019, the British Columbia Supreme Court issued an injunction allowing construction of a 669-kilometer-long Coastal GasLink pipeline that will cut through 22,000 square kilometers of unceded Wet´suwet´en land. The injunction gave the Coastal GasLink pipeline unlimited access to the ancestral lands of the Wet´suwet´en, and was firmly rejected by the Wet´suwet´en people. On January 7, 2020, the Wet´suwet´en Hereditary Chiefs served Coastal GasLink with an eviction notice, effective immediately. Despite the Hereditary Chiefs’ opposition to the pipeline, the Wet´suwet´en elected band council—a form of Indigenous governance established by the Canadian government...

Playbook For RCMP’s Wet’suwet’en Raids Provided By Former CIA Director

The RCMP’s Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG), a special unit that polices Indigenous resistance against resource extraction in British Columbia, has adopted the playbook from former CIA director David Petraeus, according to a presentation at a summit held on Wet’suwet’en territory this week. Kai Nagata, communications director at Dogwood BC, spoke at the third annual Peace and Unity Summit for Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan hereditary chiefs, elders and allies from human rights organizations from around the world. Looking around the room, those in attendance sat in shock at what they were hearing and seeing.

Tijuana Groups Protest Border Wall Construction At Friendship Park

Tijuana, Mexico — Eduardo seemed not to notice the soft midday rain slowly dampening his clothes and beading up on the sleeves of his jacket. Just a couple hundred feet from where the Pacific lapped the beach of both Mexico and the U.S., drawing no distinction between the two, Eduardo pointed out the native and culinary plants he and his friends tend to each week. The corn, fennel and spinach grow just a foot or two from a row of tightly spaced, 18-foot-tall bollards reinforced with tightly woven steel mesh that mark the international border. On the Mexican side, the rusting metal is covered with brightly colored murals that attempt to lend the miles-long barrier a glimmer of humanity.

Judge Orders Stretch Of Enbridge Line 5 Shut Down On Tribal Land

The Canadian oil company Enbridge has been ordered to pay the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa $5 million in damages for trespassing and to gradually shut down part of its Line 5 pipeline in Wisconsin after a federal judge found that the company has placed the tribe's sacred land at risk of an environmental disaster. U.S. District Judge William Conley of the Western District of Wisconsin handed down the ruling on Friday after the Bad River Band argued in court that there are now fewer than 15 feet between parts of Line 5 and the Bad River following the partial erosion of the riverbank in recent months.

Restoring The Land Rights Of The Garifuna African People Of Honduras

The ages-long severe oppression of descendants of West African slaves in Honduras has yet to receive wide attention. The Garifuna African people in Honduras are increasingly being denied their lands and livelihoods by the Honduran government and the multilateral institutions of the Global North. The plight of the Garifuna African people and their fight to restore their lands and livelihoods should no longer be left only to them to face, especially considering their small population of about 300,000. Continental Africans and those in the diaspora should raise awareness about the case. The Garifuna people are a part of Africa.

Shaky Ground: How The United States Uses The Law To Steal Indigenous Land

In Federal Anti-Indian Law: The Legal Entrapment of Indigenous Peoples, Peter d’Errico exposes the capriciousness and hostility with which the United States uses the law to apply — or deny — justice to the original peoples of this land. “When we enter a realm called ​‘federal Indian law’ … we are entering a semantic world created by the United States to control Native peoples and claim their lands,” writes d’Errico, an attorney and professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Despite its confusion and contradictions, federal Indian law — in d’Errico’s terms, ​“anti-Indian law” — has long had an unchanging purpose.

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