First Nations/Indigenous

Tsleil-Waututh Nation release landmark independent Assessment of Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain proposal

Tsleil-Waututh Natio, Sacred Trust Initiative, May 26, 2015

NORTH VANCOUVER, BC and COAST SALISH TERRITORY, May 26, 2015 – Today, the Tsleil-Waututh Nation the “People of the Inlet” released the outcomes of its independent assessment of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline and tanker project (TMEX), conducted as a matter of its own jurisdiction and law. On the basis of its assessment – which found that the TMEX proposal represents unacceptable risks and would violate Tsleil-Waututh law – Tsleil-Waututh announced that it has denied approval for the TMEX project to proceed in its territory.

Canadian Aboriginal Group Rejects $1 Billion Fee for Natural Gas Project

Ian Austin, New York Times, May 20, 2015

OTTAWA — A small aboriginal community in British Columbia has rejected a $1 billion payment for a natural gas project, the latest setback for the Canadian energy industry’s effort to bolster exports.

Wind powers "green" growth in Kenya, but for whom?

Chris Williams, Truthout, April 6, 2015

Barely discernible among the surrounding rock-strewn ground, a meandering dirt track winds its way up a barren, windswept hill. In the arid heat, dotted amid the dry ocher soil, the rocks look baked from the sun. A few stubby trees and scrubby bushes bestrew a landscape with no obvious signs of habitation in this parched land of northern Kenya. But on top of the hill, sitting behind a low wall made of the abundant stones that litter the ground, we find six men. They have been living on the hill for eight years.

The Right to Be Cold: a revelatory memoir that looks at what climate change means for the North

Naomi Klein, Toronto Globe and Mail, March 29, 2015

The girls were in for what Watt-Cloutier now describes as a “brutal shock.”

They were assigned to the home of a family named Ross, headed by a man with a nasty temper. Watt-Cloutier missed her family terribly and longed to return to her “Arctic childhood of ice and snow.” Raised on seal and whale meat, she pined for “country food,” as Northern game is known, and found the fresh peas and “tumblers full” of cow’s milk at the Rosses’ to be “revolting.”

Canadian government pushing First Nations to give up land rights for oil and gas profits

Martin Lukacs, The Guardian, March 3, 2015

A rally against the expansion of the Kinder Morgan tar sands pipeline on Burnaby Mountain in British Columbia, Canada, in November, 2014. Photograph: Mark Klotz/flickr

The Harper government is trying to win support for its pipelines and resource agenda by pushing First Nations to sideline their aboriginal rights in exchange for business opportunities, documents reveal.

The news that Canada’s Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs is working to this end by collaborating with the Assembly of First Nations (AFN) is sparking strong criticism from grassroots Indigenous people.

Inside the fight to save the Salish Sea: photo essay

Chris Jordan-Bloch, Earth Justice, February 22, 2015

The name Salish Sea recognizes the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Haro Strait, the Strait of Georgia, and Puget Sound as a single marine ecosystem. Coast Salish tribes have sustained rich cultures from the bounty of the Salish Sea since time immemorial.

If Kinder Morgan's proposed tar sands oil pipeline is built, a catastrophic oil spill could decimate the salmon and shellfish that feed and support Coast Salish tribes.

From fish-ins to sit-ins: Native resistance in the 50s and 60s

Ragina Johnson, We Are Many, February 20, 2015

(A talk delivered at Socialism 2014.)

The new plunder of Native lands

Ragina Johnson, Socialist Worker, February 20, 2015

THOUGH YOU wouldn't know it from the mainstream media, the U.S. economy continues to suffer the aftershocks of the Great Recession of 2008. California is a special case in point, where the unemployment rate hovers at 10 percent.

For a future that won’t destroy life on earth, look to the global indigenous uprising

Kristin Moe, Yes! Magazine, February 11, 2015

Melina Laboucan-Massimo stands next to logs from clearcuts at a proposed tar sands site north of Fort McMurray, northern Alberta, Canada. Photo by Jiri Rezac.

There’s a remote part of northern Alberta where the Lubicon Cree have lived, it is said, since time immemorial. The Cree called the vast, pine-covered region niyanan askiy, “our land.” When white settlers first carved up this country, they made treaties with most of its original inhabitants—but for reasons unclear, the Lubicon Cree were left out. Two hundred years later, the Lubicon’s right to their traditional territory is still unrecognized.

Shut Down Canada calls for action across the country

Alec Salloum, School of Journalism, University of Regina, February 4, 2015

During a senate committee meeting on Aboriginal peoples Paul Martin was asked if he thought that if Aboriginal peoples “coalesced, could they not bring this country to a standstill?” Martin answered, “We would hope not; and that we would hope not because government will react before that happens.” Shut Down Canada, a grassroots movement calling for action on Feb. 13 plans to challenge this.

First Nations/Indigenous

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