via @verdantsquare

Alaska Tribes Appeal to International Body to Pause “Reckless” Canadian #Mining

Canada ordered the tribes be denied “participating #Nation status,” diminishing their say in the permitting process.

By Joaqlin Estus , #ICT

August 8, 2024

#Earthjustice and Re:wild join the 15 tribes that make up the commission in asking Canada to recognize the sovereign rights of Alaska tribes and consult them on all development decisions impacting their traditional territories.

Anchorage, Alaska — "A group of Southeast Alaska tribes requested on Aug. 1 that the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights order a temporary pause on Canadian mining activity. They say 'reckless' mining activity violates their #HumanRights.

"That came after Canada’s Ministry of Land, Water and Resource Stewardship ordered on June 27 that the tribes be denied 'participating Nation status,'' which has the effect of diminishing their say in the permitting process.

"Lee Wagner, who is #Haida, #Tlingit and #Tsimshian, and the assistant executive director of the #Southeast =Alaska #Indigenous Transboundary Commission, said the 15 tribes in the commission did everything they could to prove their ties to Canadian lands where #GoldMining is proposed. They won a lawsuit at the Canadian Supreme Court saying tribes with traditional ties to territory within Canada qualify for participating #IndigenousNation status. That status would require agencies to consult with and accommodate them in the permitting process.

[...]

"[Lee Wagner] said the mines are for gold, a luxury, 'They’re not a necessity, but they’re going to be endangering a whole #ecosystem and biodiverse, cultural, old, traditional, beautiful area.'

"The commission said the #UnukRiver watershed, which supports #salmon and #eulachon runs, is at stake. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the eulachon run nearly disappeared and was shut down in 2005. In 2021 the fishery was opened again but harvest was restricted to one five-gallon bucket per household."

Read more:
https://truthout.org/articles/alaska-tribes-appeal-to-international-body-to-pause-reckless-canadian-mining/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

#FirstNations #Canada #Alaska #ReWild #CulturalGenocide #GoldMine #MiningWithoutConsent
#ProtectTheSacred #Ecocide #NativeAmericanNews #IndigenousNews #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CorporateColonialism #Colonialism

As #NewYork Officials Push #CleanHydrogen Project, #IndigenousNation Sees a Threat to Its Land

The #Tonawanda #Seneca see the industrial development next door as a threat to the woods they depend on for game and medicines, and the failure of the company and permitting agencies to consult them as another assault on their treaty rights.

By Nicholas Kusnetz
November 22, 2023

"When Chief Roger Hill speaks about the clean energy project going up along the border of the Tonawanda Indian Reservation, he turns quickly to the past. Hill’s Seneca ancestors once controlled a large territory across the rolling, wooded hills in what is now western New York, but most of their lands were taken through a series of treaties that shrank the reservation to its current size.

"The territory’s borders have remained unchanged for a century-and-half, but Hill says that a new #HydrogenFuel plant being erected about 2,000 feet beyond them is now threatening his nation’s way of life.

"'This is all we have, so this is why we’re so adamant in protecting the last piece of land,” said Hill, who sits on the council of chiefs for the Tonawanda Seneca Nation. 'We want that there for our children, our grandchildren, their children, our great-grandchildren.'

"With backing from state and local government, a company called Plug Power is building a project that will use zero-emissions electricity to produce hydrogen, a clean-burning fuel that could replace oil and gas in heavy-duty trucks and equipment.

"The plant would produce 74 tons of hydrogen per day and could help New York meet ambitious targets to phase-out fossil fuels. The Biden administration has also set a goal to produce millions of tons of clean hydrogen annually by the end of the decade as part of its plan to slash the nation’s climate pollution."

#FirstNations #GreenWashing #RespectTheTreaties
#NativeAmericanRights
#CulturalGenocide
#EnvironmentalRacism

Climate Strike in Kitchener turns focus on B.C. Indigenous nation

It may be something going on on the other side of the country, but a group gathering in downtown Kitchener Friday afternoon is hoping you'll join them in voicing for change

https://www.kitchenertoday.com/local-news/climate-strike-in-kitchener-turns-focus-on-bc-indigenous-nation-2027579 #climateemergency #environment #climatecrisis #climatestike #pollution #Indigenousnation #canada