Answer: "No."
Most #CriticalMinerals are on #IndigenousLands. Will miners respect #TribalSovereignty?
by Taylar Dawn Stagner, March 26, 2025
"#Mining — whether for #FossilFuels or, increasingly, the critical minerals in high demand today — has a long history of perpetuating violence against #IndigenousPeople. Forcibly removing tribal communities to get to natural resources tied to their homelands has been the rule, not the exception, for centuries.
"Today, more than half of the mineral deposits needed for a global energy transition — including #lithium, #cobalt, #copper, and #nickel to make things like #batteries and #SolarPanels — are found near or beneath Indigenous lands.
"In 2007, the United Nations adopted a resolution called the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [#UNDRIP] that included the right to free, prior, and informed consent to the use of their lands, a concept known as #FPIC. This principle protects #IndigenousPeoples from being forcibly relocated, provides suitable avenues for redress of past injustices, and gives tribes and communities the right to consent to — and the right to refuse — #extractive industry projects like #mining.
"There’s a lot at stake: When followed, FPIC promises a process that gives Indigenous peoples a voice in how their homelands are used, as well as the right to say no to development altogether. And when it’s not, which is the vast majority of the time, #TribalCommunities are further #disenfranchised, facing #violence and #ForcedRelocation as their #sovereignty and rights are ignored.
"There are an estimated 5,000 tribal communities around the world, encompassing roughly 476 million people across 90 countries, according to the U.N. Different tribes have different opinions on mining, but rarely is their legal right to refuse extraction projects recognized, even under the 2007 declaration.
"Grist talked with five experts to better understand what free, prior, and informed consent should look like in this new era of mineral extraction. Their responses have been edited for length and clarity."
#CanPol #CanadaPol #BigOilAndGas #LandBack #IndigenousSovereignty #TribalSovereignty #LithiumMining #RecycleLithium #LithiumAlternatives #RecycleCopper
#NativeAmerican tribes say #ICE harassing members amid raids
by Erin Alberty, Russell Contreras, January 29, 2025
"Some Native American tribes say tribal members are being harassed by federal immigration agents, while others fear they could be wrongly caught up in immigration raids.
"The alarm comes as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says its agents are arresting more than 1,000 undocumented immigrants a day, part of President Trump's push to deport 'millions' of people not authorized to stay in the U.S.
"#ImmigrationRaids in cities such as Chicago and Los Angeles — and Trump's new directives to allow searches in schools and churches in addition to workplaces and homes — have heightened concerns in communities across the country.
" 'My office has received multiple reports from Navajo citizens that they have had negative, and sometimes traumatizing, experiences with federal agents targeting undocumented immigrants,' Navajo President #BuuNygren said in a statement.
"#NavajoNation officials told CNN on Monday that at least 15 Indigenous people in the southwestern U.S. have reported being questioned or detained by immigration officers in the past week.
"The 17.5 million-acre Navajo Nation is in northeastern Arizona, northwestern New Mexico, and southeastern Utah. It's larger than 10 states.
"ICE offices in Utah and Washington, D.C., did not immediately respond to Axios' requests for comment.
"The #MescaleroApache Tribe in New Mexico announced that a member was confronted by ICE agents last week and was asked for ID — first in Spanish, although the member spoke English.
"The #SissetonWahpetonOyate of the #LakeTraverse Reservation in South Dakota said it was temporarily waiving all fees for issuing or replacing tribal IDs amid members' concerns about ICE encounters.
"#Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee — the tribe's governing body — promised in a statement Saturday to "aggressively defend our rights and interests." The tribe offered legal counsel to members who are "improperly detained or questioned," as did the #Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah.
"The #SanJuanSouthernPaiute Tribe, whose land crosses the Utah-Arizona border, advised its citizens to record encounters with ICE, ask for agents' badges and keep their doors closed and ask for a warrant if approached at home.
What they're saying: Trump's immigration executive orders have 'raised concern among our tribal members, particularly regarding the potential targeting of our community by immigration agents,' #ChippewaCree Tribe chairman Harat BaRete said in a statement. The north-central Montana tribe then released a set of guidelines urging members to remain silent, keep ID handy and report encounters to tribal officials.
" 'The #RosebudSioux Tribe is in the process of assessing the legal effects of the unlawful and unconstitutional Trump administration Executive Orders and will fiercely defend against any threat to the sovereignty,' the South Dakota tribe said in a statement.
"Since the Obama administration, U.S. agents have aggressively targeted human smuggling rings that use isolated #IndigenousLands to try to move undetected.
"Congress didn't grant citizenship to #NativeAmericans until 1924 — a development President Trump's lawyers cited in their attempt to justify his temporarily blocked executive order to #OverturnBirthrightCitizenship.
"The administration's attorneys last week invoked an 1884 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that denied citizenship to members of tribes to argue that 'birth in the United States does not by itself entitle a person to citizenship.'
"Some tribal leaders saw the argument as a threat against their members' U.S. citizenship."
Source:
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/29/native-american-immigration-raids-navajo-nation
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/S4abP
#RacialProfiling #ICESucks #ICERaids #LandBack #TrumpSucks #WhiteSupremacy #Colonialism #NativeAmericansWereHereFirst
Second, #corporations & #consumers must help stop the flow of #money driving #destruction. Survival’s report calls for companies to trace their #SupplyChains to ensure that commodities such as #gold, #timber & #soy are not sourced from #IndigenousLands.
“#Public opinion & pressure are essential,” Watson said. “It’s largely through citizens & the #media that so much has already been achieved to recognize uncontacted peoples & their rights.”
Groups living in voluntary isolation have “minimal to no contact with those outside of their own group,” said Dr. Subhra Bhattacharjee, director general of the Forest Stewardship Council & an #IndigenousRights expert based in Germany. “A simple cold that you & I recover from in a week…they could die of that cold.”
Beyond disease, contact can destroy livelihoods & belief systems. #InternationalLaw requires free, prior & informed consent — known as #FPIC — before any activity on #IndigenousLands.
**I've told you all, several times, that you shouldn't trust #BCNDP & that they're #sellout #neoliberals. They pander to #CorporateLobbyists invested in #Ecocide & exploitation of unceded #IndigenousLands. #RCMPCIRG = #CorporateMercenaries funded by #PublicMonies - our #Taxpayers funds. I told you that #DavidEby was groomed by #JohnHorgan too. I wasn't lying. They both lied to public though.**
Controversial B.C. RCMP unit to police opposition to fast-tracked resource projects.
A widely-criticized police unit is participating in provincial committees coordinating surveillance and policing of protest against major resource projects—including those fast-tracked under new legislation.
https://breachmedia.ca/rcmp-unit-controversial-police-opposition-fast-tracked-resource-projects
#BCpoli #CDNpoli #BanCorporateLobbyists #StopCorporateWelfare #DoYourJob #Neoliberalism #Corruption #MilitarizedForce #PublicInterest #PublicTransparency #PublicAccountability #PublicScrutiny #BCNewDeathParty #FossilFuels #BoughtByIndustry
A widely-criticized police unit is participating in provincial committees coordinating surveillance and policing of protest against major resource projects—including those fast-tracked under new legislation
The Rise and Fall of #NuScale: a nuclear cautionary tale
Kelly Campbell
October 29, 2024
"A decade ago, NuScale, the Oregon-based small modular nuclear company born at Oregon State University, was on a roll. Promising a new era of nuclear reactors that were cheaper, easier to build and safer, their Star Wars-inspired artist renditions of a yet to be built reactor gleamed like a magic bullet.
"As of last year, NuScale was the furthest along of any reactor design in obtaining Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing and was planning to build the first small modular nuclear reactor in the United States. Its plan was to build it in Idaho to serve energy to a consortium of small public utility districts in Utah and elsewhere, known as #UAMPS.
"This home-grown Oregon company was lauded in local and national media. According to project backers, a high-tech solution to climate change was on the horizon, and an Oregon company was leading the way. It seemed almost too good to be true.
"And it was.
"Turns out, NuScale was a #HouseOfCards. The UAMPS project’s price tag more than doubled and the timeline was pushed back repeatedly until it was seven years behind schedule. Finally, UAMPS saw the writing on the wall and wisely backed out in November, 2023.
"After losing their customer, NuScale’s stock plunged, it laid off nearly a third of its workforce, and it was sued by its investors and investigated for investor fraud. Then its CEO sold off most of his stock shares.
"NuScale’s project is the latest in a long line of failed nuclear fantasies.
"Why should you care? A different nuclear company, #XEnergy, now in partnership with #AmazonCorp, wants to build and operate small modular #nuclear reactors [#SMRs] near the #ColumbiaRiver, 250 miles upriver from #PortlandOR. #BillGates’s darling, the #Natrium reactor in #Wyoming is also plowing ahead. Both proposals are raking in the Inflation Reduction Act and other taxpayer funded subsidies. The danger: Money and time wasted on these #FalseSolutions to the #ClimateCrisis divert public resources from #renewables, #EnergyEfficiency and other faster, more cost-efficient and safer ways to address the climate crisis.
"A recent study from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis concluded that small modular nuclear reactors are still too expensive, too slow to build and too risky to respond to the climate crisis.
"While the nuclear industry tries to pass itself off as 'clean,' it is an extremely dirty technology, beginning with #UraniumMining and #UraniumMilling which decimates #IndigenousLands. Small modular nuclear reactors produce two to thirty times the radioactive waste of older nuclear designs, waste for which we have no safe, long-term disposal site. Any community that hosts a nuclear reactor will likely be saddled with its radioactive waste – forever. This harm falls disproportionately on #Indigenous and #LowIncome communities.
:For those of us downriver, X-Energy’s plans to build at the Hanford Nuclear Site on the Columbia flies in the face of reason, as it would add more nuclear waste to the country’s largest nuclear cleanup site.
"In #Oregon, we have a state moratorium on building nuclear reactors until there is a vote of the people and a national waste repository. Every few years, the nuclear industry attempts to overturn this law at the Oregon Legislature, but so far it has been unsuccessful. This August, Umatilla County Commissioners announced they’ll attempt another legislative effort to overturn the moratorium. Keeping this moratorium is wise, given the dangerous distraction posed by the false solution of small modular nuclear reactors. Let’s learn from the NuScale debacle and keep our focus on a just transition to a clean energy future–one in which nuclear power clearly has no place."
#EnvironmentalRacism #HoltecLies
#NuclearLies #TEPCOLied
#NoNukes #NoNukesForAI #Hanford #NuclearPowerCorruptionAndLies
Jon Corsiglia
Jon Corsiglia
DoomsdaysCW
Nonilex
Ms. Que Banh