Land Rights

Former Customary Chief Jean Maurice Matchewan Speaks Out

October 13, 2014 Former Customary Chief Jean Maurice Matchewan, www.montreal.mediacoop.ca Strategize! Canada, History, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights

As the Customary Chief of Mitchikanibikok Inik (Algonquins of Barriere Lake) for almost 20 years altogether, I was also under constant attack by the federal and Quebec governments. I had a target on my back because I fought with everything I had against the Quebec and federal governments to protect our ancestral lands from over exploitation and our Algonquin Anishinabe way of life for future generations. In the 1980s, our traditional territory, located about 3 hours north of Ottawa in Quebec, was being devastated by clear-cuts. Under my leadership we camped out on Victoria Island for weeks and blockaded logging roads for months to get the governments’ attention and let them know they were on Algonquin territory and that we never gave up our jurisdiction to the land.

Videos: Hawaiian Activists Block Illegal Construction On Sacred Mountain

October 11, 2014 Christina Rose, www.indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com Resist! Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Science

“One victory for us is a victory for all people,” Pua Case, Hawaiian activist and traditional practitioner, announced on the telephone, one day after activists convinced funders and scientists to abandon a groundbreaking ceremony for a copy.4 billion, football field sized, Thirty Meter Telescope. On Tuesday, October 7, at the base of Mauna Kea, the world's tallest mountain, close to 200 activists joined in prayer, to preserve Hawai’i’ s most sacred place. The groundbreaking ceremony came to a dead halt when Joshua Lanakila Mangauil, a Native Hawaiian cultural practitioner, and other supporters made their way to the top of the mountain. Mangauil, who can be seen in the video below, stormed the ceremony unexpectedly and denounced the actions taking place. Mangauil’s impassioned pleas, among others, halted the events.

Welcome To Coca-Cola Town: America’s Scary Corporate Naming Problem

October 7, 2014 Jonathan Zimmerman, www.salon.com Educate! Capitalism, Corporatism, Land Rights

Around the country, the names of our public spaces are being sold off to private donors. Brooklyn’s busy Atlantic Avenue subway station is now the Barclays Bank station; Chicago is selling naming rights to its “L” stops; and Cleveland recently named an entire bus route “The Health Line,” after receiving $6.25 million from the Cleveland Clinic and University Hospitals. In several other cities, meanwhile, Kentucky Fried Chicken’s logo festoons manhole covers and fire hydrants. A few municipalities have sold ads on their police cars. And seven states now allow pizza chains and other companies to advertise on school buses. That’s good news for business, which can engage old customers and target new ones. And it’s good for our cash-strapped local and state governments, which can make long-needed improvements to crumbling infrastructures. Everyone walks away happy. Right? Wrong.

Land Defenders Blockade 6 Sites

October 6, 2014 WildCoast, www.us3.campaign-archive1.com Resist! Energy, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights

In northern BC's Sacred Headwaters near Iskut, the Klabona Keepersare seeking to prevent another Mount Polley mining disaster on their land. They are blocking the Red Chris mine, which was set to open this year. Imperial Metals, the company that operates the Red Chris and Mount Polley mines, is going to court Monday to try to evict Tahltan First Nation people from their own territory. Now is the time to join the grassroots movement to defend the Sacred Headwaters of the Skeena, Nass, and Stikine Rivers. Please send support here. Get in touch to stand with the defenders.

Imperial Metals Takes Legal Action For Damages From Blockade

October 6, 2014 Michael Mui, www.westcoastnativenews.com Educate! Canada, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Law

Imperial Metals is applying in court to have Mounties come and remove First Nations blockaders who have closed off access roads to its Red Chris gold and copper project in northwest B.C. In an Oct. 3 filing, Imperial subsidiary Red Chris Development Company Ltd. said the blockaders — from the Klabona Keepers and the Secwepemc — “will not allow anyone or any supplies through” to reach the project site. “An enforcement order is required as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have taken the position that they will not enforce a court order for an injunction without an enforcement order,” Imperial said. Currently, according to the application, blockaders are letting people leave the site as long as supplies aren’t being flown to it instead.

Havasupai Tribe Celebrates Key Win

October 1, 2014 Protect Grand Canyon, www.scgrandcanyon.com Resist! Energy, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights

Arizona’s Havasupai Tribe and a coalition of conservation groups are praising Judge David Campbell’s decision today to uphold the U.S. Department of the Interior’s 20-year ban on new uranium mining claims across one million acres of public lands adjacent to Grand Canyon. The court ruled that the decision complied with federal environmental laws and that it was not too large, as plaintiffs had argued. At stake is protecting the aquifers and streams that feed the Colorado River and Grand Canyon from toxic uranium mining waste and depletion. “The court’s ruling affirms conclusions by five federal agencies, including scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey,” said Grand Canyon Trust’s Roger Clark.

Tahtlan Blockade Imperial Metals’ Red Chris Mine

October 1, 2014 Warrior Publications, www.warriorpublications.com Resist! Energy, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights

We call on our friends and allies in every community across this so called nation for an EMERGENCY DAY OF ACTION. On Wednesday, we all act. So occupy an office, set up a meeting, march on Imperial Metals headquarters in Vancouver 580 Hornby Street. Show up at your legislature, at your parliament if you’re East. Make it known you are standing with us. Make it known we are standing. It’s colder up here and it’s raining, the wall tents are up and the bus is heating. The Elders are joyful and the children are happy. We are standing up, standing strong, we are stopping the destroying.

West Virginia To Frack Beneath Ohio River

September 30, 2014 Emily Atkin, www.thinkprogress.org Educate! Energy, Environment, Fracking, Land Rights, Water

Nine citizen and environmental groups are urging West Virginia Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin to reconsider his plans to let companies drill for oil and natural gas underneath the Ohio River, citing concerns that drilling and fracking could contaminate the drinking water supply and increase the risk of earthquakes in the region. In a letter sent to the governor this month, the coalition of Ohio- and West Virginia-based groups said Tomblin’s Department of Environmental Protection has not proved that it can adequately protect the Ohio River, which supplies drinking water to more than 3 million people. The groups cited drilling currently taking place in a state-designated wildlife area, which some have complained is unacceptably disrupting the nature preserve, and a chemical spill in January that tainted the drinking water supply for 300,000 people.

The Battle Against Tar Sands Can Be Won

September 30, 2014 Mike Hudema, www.westcoastnativenews.com Resist! Energy, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Tar Sands

The fight against the tar sands is a big one. We stand in defense of the land, water, climate and communities against the richest companies on the planet, and a federal and provincial government who are intent on extracting tar sands as quickly as possible regardless of the cost. Working in Alberta, the belly of the tar sands beast, the odds are often overwhelming but, over the past few months, something has changed. The resistance to the tar sands has not only grown in leaps and bounds, it is changing the dynamics of the entire fight. Last week’s massive People’s Climate March in New York that brought over 400,000 people to the streets of New York, led by climate impacted and Indigenous communities, was just one of many signs of hope that are starting to emerge. People are standing up to the largest carbon bullies on the planet and we are starting to win.

Occupy Chicago Unites To Fight Eviction

September 27, 2014 Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign, www.chicagoantieviction.org Resist! Chicago, Eviction, Housing, Land Rights

Rallying around longtime resident Vernell Rowell, 62 years old, and her family, neighbors and local supporters rally to keep her from being evicted by the Cook County Sheriff’s deputies. Two weeks ago, supporters of the Rowell family held a vigil to highlight this family’s plight, calling on Reverse Mortgage Services, Inc., to keep the family in the home, only to find out that their eviction had been scheduled for the morning of September 25th. This eviction is part of worrying trend, where, according to the Woodstock Institute, foreclosure auctions have continued to rise in South Side neighborhoods like Ashburn (up 29.8 percent), Calumet Heights (up 36.7 percent), and Auburn Gresham (up 20.9), during the first six months of 2014.

6 Years Of Powerful Resistance To KXL

September 25, 2014 Anastasia Pantsios, www.ecowatch.com Resist! Environment, Indigenous Rights, Keystone, Keystone XL, Land Rights

Six years ago climate activists, Native American groups, ranchers, farmers, students and other began their ongoing campaign to block the proposed construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, intended to carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico to be shipped overseas. In that time, more than 2,000 activists have been arrested, more than 50,000 rallied in Washington, D.C. in February 2013 to protest the pipeline, and countless small groups have gathered in their own communities to demonstrate against it. Because the pipeline is unbuilt, 1,818,530,000 barrels of tar sands oil remain in the ground, and more than one billion metric tons of CO2 has been keep out of the atmosphere.

Tribes Worried About Black Hills Uranium Mines

September 16, 2014 Talli Nauman, www.indianz.com Resist! Clean Up the Mines, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights

In the wake of federal hearings about reopening uranium mines and milling in Black Hills treaty territory, members of the Washington, D.C.-based Atomic Safety and Licensing Board (ASLB) must decide if Native American sacred sites would be adequately preserved under the hotly contested license for the proposal. The proponent, Powertech Uranium Corp., which is changing its name to Azarga Uranium Corp. and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) staff, argued at August hearings that a Programmatic Agreement for phased-in surveys of cultural resources is sufficient to justify granting the license to operate in the 10,500-acre Dewey-Burdock mining area of southwestern South Dakota. “The complete evaluation of the historic and cultural resources adequately satisfies NRC requirements,” Powertech Azarga Counsel Christopher Pugsley said, in arguing for dismissal of contentions.

Response To Tahltan Mining Protest In Sacred Headwaters

September 15, 2014 Vancouver Observer, www.vancouverobserver.com Resist! Energy, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Mining, Police, Protest

A First Nations group protesting a copper and gold mining site in the heart of the Sacred Headwaters of northwest B.C. was responded to by RCMP officers with rifles on Friday afternoon, according to several eyewitness accounts. Members of the “Klabona Keepers” have occupied a drill site in Tahltan territory, near Iskut B.C. for several days. The drill is operated by Firesteel Resources of Vancouver. Tahltan band member Peter Jakesta helps run the protest camp, and said four RCMP members came in unannounced, took their radios, and told them to leave or risk being charged with theft.

Tsilhqot’in To Declare Site Of New Mine A Tribal Park

September 13, 2014 Larry Pynn, www.vancouversun.com Create! Energy, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Mining

What a Dasiqox Tribal Park would help to protect: (1) Would connect five surrounding parks: Ts’yl?os, Big Creek, Nunsti, Big Creek, and Southern Chilcotin Mountains. (2) More than 10,000 hectares of threatened white bark pine forest, perhaps the largest and healthiest such stands remaining in Western Canada, not decimated by white pine blister rust, the mountain pine beetle, and wildfires driven by climate change. (3) The last viable refuge for the dryland grizzly bear, which historically occurred down the western mountains of North America in the lee of the coast ranges. The diet of these grizzlies ranges from white bark pine nuts to salmon. (4) Important spawning habitat for chinook, sockeye, and coho salmon, having made lengthy journeys via the Fraser and Chilcotin rivers; the low sockeye run in Yohetta Creek is considered a unique genetic stock that is endangered. (5) Migratory routes for mule deer as well as ancient Tsilhqot’in trails, both local and long-distance, some of them thought to date back thousands of years.

Quebec Aboriginal Nation Declares Its Independence

September 10, 2014 Pierre Chauvin, www.ijsbergmagazine.com Resist! Canada, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights

Monday, September 8, 2014, the Attikamek nation declared independence of Quebec. The Attimakets are protesting against the exploitation of natural resources in their traditional territory. Unlike many other indigenous nations, Attikamek never signed treaties with the French colonists, British or the Canadian government, and thus did not give up their land. In June the Supreme Court of Canada made one of the most important decisions on Aboriginal rights by granting the demands of the Tsilhqot'in Nation, who had not signed a treaty with British Columbia. The court recognized the Tsilhqot'in territory, giving them the power to decide which economic activities can take place there. The Declaration of Independence of the Attikameks involves 80 000 km2 of land in Quebec.

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