The Case for Returning U.S. #PublicLands to #IndigenousPeople

by Joe Whittle, Mar 6, 2025

"Since the start of Trump’s second term, his administration has fired thousands of federal workers across multiple public lands agencies, including the National Park Service, the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The effects of this are vast: It’s going to have a profoundly negative impact on the environment and the way millions of Americans enjoy public lands, cause immeasurable harm to America’s wildest places, and devastate the economies built around them.

"After serving 12 years as a backcountry wilderness ranger for the U.S. Forest Service, I'm convinced there is an alternative: the U.S. needs to return its public lands to Native Americans. In fact, I believe that might be the only way to save our parks and forests from corporate privatization and destruction, as well as preserve public access to them. If the U.S. won’t properly care for its public lands, why not return them to their original caretakers?

"This isn’t a new idea. #NativeAmericans argued that treaty law required
'abandoned' federal land to be returned to tribes during the occupation of #Alcatraz Island by the #AmericanIndianMovement in the 1960s. In more recent years, the #LandbackMovement has given rise to increased calls for the return of territorial land to #IndigenousNations, and the return of land management based in #TraditionalEcologicalKnowledge—expertise gathered from thousands of years of having deep relationships with specific environments. There’s a strong legal argument that land return is constitutionally required as damages due for hundreds of treaty violations. However, there’s also a lot of data showing Indigenous land management is more ecologically sound than government or industrially managed land. For instance, #ProjectDrawdown, a global leader in science-based #ClimateChange solutions, estimates that returning 1,000 million hectares of land to Indigenous tenureship by 2050 would sequester over 12 gigatons of carbon dioxide."

Read more:
https://time.com/7262838/us-public-lands-return-indigenous-people/

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/QnF32

#LandBack #AIM #StolenLand #StolenLands #NationalParks #TEK #ClimateCrisis #ClimateSolutions #IndigenousPeoples #IndigenousPeoplesMonth #GiveItBack #Stewardship #LandIsLife #WaterIsLife #AlcatrazIsland #Resistance #USPol #TrumpSucks #RespectTheTreaties

Meanwhile, in #Canada...

#FirstNations Warn #Carney’s Push to Build #Canada Could Tear It Apart

The prime minister’s #FastTrack law has already set off a wave of #IndigenousProtest

by Joy Spearchief-Morris
Aug. 8, 2025

Excerpt: "The last time the federal government passed sweeping industry-friendly legislation without proper #Indigenous consultation, it triggered one of the largest grassroots political movements in Canadian history: #IdleNoMore. The movement was a direct response to the 2012 passage of the omnibus budget bill #C45, legislation that endangered #TraditionalLands and resources by reducing federal oversight on thousands of #waterways. Indigenous people across the country took part in Idle No More with widespread protests, including teach-ins, flash mobs, round dances, and blockades. Though the law remained in place, the movement showed that when governments legislate without meaningful Indigenous involvement, the consequences can be swift, sustained, and impossible to ignore.

"Yet, across Canada’s history, Indigenous people have been European settlers’ longest allies. Relations with French settlers led to the birth of the Metis people; First Nations played pivotal roles in British efforts during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. And many Indigenous people volunteered and fought as part of Canada’s contributions to the first and second world wars.

"Now, Canada faces new threats as the US president muses about making Canada an unwilling fifty-first state while launching a trade war on Canadian goods. But as history has proved, Canada cannot succeed in defending itself as a nation-state without acknowledging and partnering with #IndigenousNations."

https://thewalrus.ca/first-nations-warn-carneys-push-to-build-canada-risks-tearing-it-apart/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us

#CanPol #WaterIsLife #MarkCarney #NoMiningWithoutConsent #NoDumpingWithoutConsent #FirstNations #IndigenousNews #IndigenousResistance #CorporateColonialism

[Video] #AskomiwKsanaqak (Forever Dangerous) – #IndigenousNations Resist #NuclearColonialism

Nov 20, 2024

"Indigenous nations and communities continue to express their opposition to nuclear energy and radioactive waste. The Passamaquoddy Recognition Group (PRGI) and the CEDAR project at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick, Canada, co-produced a report and this video to amplify these Indigenous voices. Featuring Chief #HughAkagi, Chief #RonTremblay and Councillor #PeytonPitawanakwat."

Watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i7XtIGFqyY

The report is available here: https://cedar-project.org/indigenous
#NuclearWaste #NuclearWasteStorage #NoNukes #WaterIsLife #LandIsLife #WolastoqGrandCouncil #NuclearPowerPlants #NoNukes #PeskotomuhkatiNation #PassamaquoddyNation #CEDARProject #Radioactivity #Pollution #RadioactivePollutionKills
#IndigenousNationsResistNuclearColonialism

Event: Religion and Democratic Ideals: Rematriation, Land, and Healing

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2024, 6 – 7:30PM
This event is free and open to the public.
A liberal democracy should produce societies that are inclusive, equitable, dynamic, and responsive to the needs of citizens. This se

https://husseinrashid.com/2024/10/event-religion-and-democratic-ideals-rematriation-land-and-healing.html

#Events #Politics #Religion #democracy #FirstNations #indigeneity #IndigenousNations #politics

#Texas county sidelines #librarians, reclassifies book on abuse of #NativeAmericans as "fiction"

Judd Legum
Oct 14, 2024

"A Texas county has mandated public libraries move a well-regarded children's book documenting the mistreatment of Native Americans in #NewEngland — #Colonization and the #Wampanoag Story — from the 'non-fiction' section to 'fiction.' The decision was made after the government of #MontgomeryCountyTexas, under pressure from #RightWing activists, removed librarians from the process of reviewing #ChildrensBooks and replaced them with a 'Citizens Review Committee.' Colonization and the Wampanoag Story was 'challenged' by an unknown person on September 10, 2024. The Committee responded by ordering that the book be moved to the fiction section of public libraries in Montgomery County by October 17, 2024, according to public records obtained by the #TexasFreedomToReadProject shared with Popular Information.

"The author of Colonization and the Wampanoag Story is #LindaCoombs, a 'historian from the #WampanoagTribe.' Coombs spent three decades working at the #WampanoagIndigenousProgram, an initiative to preserve the history of the Wampanoag people. The book is published by Penguin Random House, which describes the book as '[t]he true story of the #IndigenousNations of the American Northeast, including the Wampanoag nation and others, and their history up to present day."

"Colonization and the Wampanoag Story tells the real story of the brutalization of the Wampanoag people by #EuropeanSettlers. An excerpt:

"'[C]ertain ship captain began kidnapping Wampanoag men and those of other tribal nations along the coast. Sailors invited them aboard their ships under the pretense of trading, then lifted anchor and sailed away. The men were prisoners, stolen from their families and homes.

"'They were taken to #England and #Spain to be sold into slavery and paraded through the streets as "novelties," something for the people of Europe to gawk at as curiosities — not as human beings. Imagine how these men must of felt when they realized their situation: they would never see their children, parents, wives, relatives or communities and homelands again. What a terrible shock for all their families when they realized their men were gone — just disappeared forever.'

"This is fact, not fiction."

Read more:
https://popular.info/p/texas-county-sidelines-librarians

#IndigenousPeoplesDay #Colonization #Censorship #Fascism #IndigenousHistory #TruthAndReconciliation vs #LiesAndDenial

Join our next #UNIGISTalk on 15 Feb 2024, online. We will take a look at #AMAZONGISNET and how #GIS is used by #indigenousnations in Latin America - with Richard Resl and Leo Zurita from UNIGIS América Latina.

Register here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6471385029067182167?source=mastodon

#geoinformation #geoinformatics #gis #communidadsig #indigenousnations #amazon #amazonas

Just Released: "Mining the Sacred: #IndigenousNations Fight #Lithium Gold Rush at #ThackerPass

Watch now:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLO7ClVtlBA

"#Cree Journalist Brandi Morin said, 'We are taking back the narrative and this story about North America’s largest lithium mine being constructed while violating sacred Indigenous territories is told from the Native perspective. The 'green' energy revolution isn’t what you think it is!'

IndigiNews Media and The Real News, September 12, 2023

Go watch! @IndigiNewsMedia @TheRealNews @ricochet_en

"Follow Native journalist Brandi Morin, who came from Canada, and covered this powerful story.

"In Nevada’s remote Thacker Pass, a fight for our future is playing out between local #Indigenous tribes and powerful state and #corporate entities hellbent on mining the lithium beneath their land. Vancouver-based Lithium Americas is developing a massive lithium mine at Thacker Pass, but for more than two years several local tribes and #environmental organizations have tried to block or delay the mine in the courts and through direct action.

"The Thacker Pass Project is backed by the Biden administration, and companies like General Motors have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in the project, looking to capitalize on the transition to a 'green energy economy,' for which lithium is essential. While it is a vital component in the manufacturing of electric vehicles and batteries, though, there’s nothing “green” about mining lithium. Ending our addiction to fossil fuels is urgently necessary, but the struggle of the local tribes around Thacker Pass reveals the dark side of a 'green revolution' that prioritizes profit and consumption over everything (and everyone) else."

-- Mining the Sacred

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2023/09/just-released-mining-sacred-indigenous.html

#IndigenousNews #LithiumMining #IndigenousRights #Greenwashing #Pauite #ProtectThackerPass #EnvironmentalRacism

PROTECT THACKER PASS

#ThackerPass, or Peehee mu'huh, the site of the largest #lithium deposit in the #UnitedStates, anticipated to produce 25 percent of global lithium in the near term.

We stand at a #crossroads. As we press forward to replace #FossilFuels with #RenewableEnergy, we must answer a question: will we show respect for #IndigenousNations by honoring their right to self-determination and #land possession,

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