#indigenousmovements

[mykola3]

Here’s a US to Brazil comparison so you can really see how much of this planet is dying. If you can, help out the indigenous movements. They’re organized, they can keep woodcutting companies away from their land, they are getting murdered for it, and they are the only reason there is any forest left at all . https://www.fundopodaali.org.br/ . https://coiab.org.br/ . http://apib.info/

[solutionspotlight]

Construction of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline Halted

Image via L’eau Est La Vie

With enormous courage and perseverance, Water Protectors have been gathering for more than a year now at the Atchafalaya Basin, ancestral land of the Gulf Coast Atakapa-Ishak tribe, to protest construction of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline. The final frontier of the now infamous Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL), the Bayou Bridge Pipeline is being constructed to ferry crude oil from fracking sites on Native land in North Dakota to refineries in predominantly Black towns in Louisiana. If completed, it would run across private property and through a portion of the country's largest river swamp, destroying about 940 acres of vulnerable wetlands, old growth trees, and the natural buffer for storm surges in the Louisiana Gulf. 

The L’eau Est La Vie (Water Is Life) activist camp, led by a council of indigenous women, has successfully planned and staged dozens of direct actions, repeatedly putting their bodies in the way of construction of the pipeline, rowing up in kayaks to remote swamp construction zones, carrying out tree sits, and chaining themselves to pipeline equipment. 

Image via L'eau Est La Vie

After months of settling into the swamps, eating donated beans, and showering under a tarp, the Water Protectors are celebrating a small but mighty victory. Construction on a section of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline has been temporarily halted after an injunction that was filed against the pipeline builders was supposed to be heard in court on Monday, September 10. The builders, Energy Transfer Partners (a Fortune 500 company who also built DAPL), instead came to an agreement to cease construction for a few months.

The injunction against ETP was filed in July by both private landowners and environmental groups. ETP had not sought or received permission from landowners to begin construction on their land and cited the right of expropriation, a law which allows companies to seize private property for public benefit -- ironic, in light of the concerns that the pipe will pose threats to the Atchafalaya Basin ecosystem and drinking water sources. ETP has agreed to halt construction at least until November, in order to complete the official expropriation process.

With new laws drafted after Standing Rock making trespassing near "critical infrastructure" a felony carrying several years in prison, several activists of L'eau Est La Vie have already been arrested and are facing potential charges.

With so much risk involved, Anya Kamenetz, reporting for The Nation, asked the activists -- why? Why do they risk so much of their personal lives for this cause? The answers are resolute, clear and critical, amounting to this one truth: because in the face of the accelerated assault on the earth and communities most vulnerable to climate chaos, what does it mean to not be accountable?

And the better question might be: Why is it NOT a felony to construct a pipeline that poses enormous threat to the vital ecosystem and human communities nearby without permission from the land owners, the tribes whose territory it runs through, or the people who will inherit the unnatural disasters and toxic backwash in its wake, but a felony to do everything in your power to stop it?

ACTIONS:

Follow L'eau Est La Vie's Facebook group for updates on what's happening on the ground. Share and amplify the news!

Send critical supplies to support the organizing efforts at the camp.

Donate to the legal fund to support Water Protectors facing charges.

Apply to join the camp on L'eau Est La Vie's website.

Organize or join one of the many solidarity actions taking place.

Join the StopETP campaign and organize with your community!

[solutionspotlight]

“Berta Lives On, COPINH is Strong!” - Calls for a Month of Actions for Indigenous, Environmental Justice in Honduras

One year after her life burst into millions of seeds planted, Indigenous nations in Honduras are gathering together this month seeking justice and healing, and to celebrate the life of Berta Cáceres.

Lenca, Pech, Garifuna, Maya-Chorti, and Quechua nations convened in Honduras last week to mark one year since the assassination of Berta Cáceres and call for a month of actions. International delegations arrived in large numbers to march on the capital city of Tegucigalpa in a call for justice in the case of this indigenous sister’s death.

Berta was murdered in her home in March last year while fearlessly resisting a hydroelectric dam project in Lenca territory and on a river sacred to Lenca people, Río Gualcarque.

Ceremony and prayer permeated this gathering for the upliftment of Berta’s family, the Lenca people, COPINH, the organization that she co-founded, and the indigenous community who love and remember her.

Please read below COPINH’s call to the world for action in this time:

On March 2nd, 2016 they assassinated our sister Berta Cáceres. They thought they would get rid not just of her as a leader recognized throughout Latin America and around the world, but also would end a struggle, a political project, that they would destroy the organization of which she was both founder and daughter, COPINH (the Civil Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras).

One year since she spread her wings, since the crime that tried to steal her clarity and leadership from us, the peoples of the world who recognize her legacy are here, walking in her footsteps, confronting the patriarchal, capitalist, colonial and racist system that is imposed upon our peoples. We have been and will continue confronting the deadly projects of transnational corporations and imperialism in every corner of the planet.

In March we won’t just painfully remember that horrendous crime, above all we will celebrate life: the life of Berta, who was born on March 4th and the life of COPINH, which was founded 24 years ago on March 27th.

For all of these reasons, we invite you to use every day of March to multiply:

-Actions of protest, resistance and struggle against the deadly policies of transnational corporations…

-Actions to defend the bodies and lives of women in the face of the patriarchal and colonial system...

-Actions against the criminalization of grassroots movements, against militarization and commodification of the lands and all dimensions of life...

-Actions to denounce the Honduran State in front of its embassies in every country of the world...

-Actions of solidarity with COPINH and with the organizations of the grassroots Honduran social movement...

-Actions to spread the thinking and example of Berta’s life…

-Moments of reflection and spirituality...

We call for these types of actions to be developed and spread through every corner of Abya Yala and the world. As movements, organizations and people, let’s accompany COPINH, embody it, multiply its march.

In all of these potential proposed actions, and all others that your creativity gives rise to, let the world shake with the cry of: “Berta lives on, COPINH is strong!”

In the face of militarization and criminalization, more struggle and organization!

With the ancestral strength of Berta, Lempira, Iselaca, Mota and Etempica, we raise our voices full of life, justice, liberty, dignity and peace.

To date, the authorities of Honduras continue to justify their inefficacy for capturing those in high posts who ordered Berta’s assassination with the capture and subsequent hearings of 4 young assassins and 3 intermediaries who were paid to do the job. Activists warn that this case is being manipulated from high spheres and that the accusations presented do not support a moderate and responsible analysis of this case. Everything surrounding the investigation points to impunity.

Berta’s followers call this 2nd of March, 2017, one year since she was returned to the earth as a seed, that the world vibrate with the sound of: “Berta Vive, COPINH sigue”, “Berta lives, COPINH is strong.”

Post your event here: Acción Global: A Un año de su Siembra:  Berta Vive, COPINH Sigue (Spanish FB Event)

Post on media networks with the following hashtags:  #FueraDESA #1AñoSinJusticia #BertaVive #COPINHsigue

Share your photos, videos and audio to the following email address: [email protected]

Follow COPINH’s posts and reports here:

FB: @Copinh.Intibucá

Twitter: @COPINHHONDURAS

Live community radio: http://a.stream.mayfirst.org:8000/guarajambala.mp3

Image via Centro de Medios Libres.

[solutionspotlight]

DAPL Divestment and the Deeper Momentum Inspired By Standing Rock

Despite the green-lighting of the Dakota Access Pipeline recently and the removal of water protectors from the Sacred Stone Camp beginning on February 22, 2017, the #noDAPL movement has deepened unity across people, brought attention to the historical cycles of trauma, solidified connections between Standing Rock and other groups facing similar struggles across the globe, and sprung strategies and ideas for upholding environmental protection, freedom, and sovereignty. One of those strategies includes a divestment campaign that continues to build momentum.

On February 7, the Seattle City Council voted to divest more than $3 billion in city funds from Wells Fargo, one of the banks invested in the project. The Davis, California city council followed on Seattle’s heels just hours later with another unanimous vote to find a new bank for its accounts of over $124 million. Santa Monica decided to divest about a week later.

Nordea, a Swedish financial services group, recently divested from bonds from Energy Transfer Partners, Sunoco Logistics, and Phillips 66, three companies with stakes in DAPL. Odin Fund Management, a Norwegian firm, announced back in November that it sold $23.8 million in DAPL investments and Yes! Magazine reported on the many tribes that have been divesting, including the Nez Perce tribe in Idaho and the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota, in addition to the Standing Rock Sioux. There is also a reported total of $70,639,277.90 divested by individual consumers at the time of writing (and the number increases daily).

The motivation to take a stand in the way it matters is spreading, with New York mayor, Bill de Blasio, feeling inspired by Seattle’s move and the city of Alameda contemplating a decision. (Update: Alameda has divested from Wells Fargo.)

“There’s momentum, and we can keep it there regardless of what happens," Standing Rock Sioux chairman, David Archambault, said to an audience at Cornell University on February 16, while speaking about the historical struggles of the tribe and the need to instill hope for the future. "The only way we’re going to make a change is if we get the United States to change, because it’s powerful when we unite.”

ACTIONS recommended by DefundDAPL.org:

Divest your personal finances.

Divest your city or community.

Contact the banks. Address your concerns. Ask them questions.

Learn how we can all support climate action and social equality with these alternatives to our current financial system.

Image: Missouri River at sunrise. Via Flickr by vwcampin.

[solutionspotlight]

Youth-Led Nonviolent Direct Actions At Standing Rock

“Who better to speak for people of the past than the voice of the future.” ~ Youth member of the International Indigenous Youth Council

A group of indigenous youth at Standing Rock have been using nonviolent direct action, demonstrations of compassion, and prayer action to get their point across in their stance against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The youth, who Climbing PoeTree had the honor to work with at the camp in November 2016, are part of the International Indigenous Youth Council (IIYC). The group commits to protecting land and water treaty rights, ending environmental racism, empowering tradition among youth, and supporting youth leadership in indigenous American communities.

In November, the young people led several hundred water protectors in a prayer action, a silent march to sit in silence and pray before the police barricade that blocked their access to the pipeline.

Talking to the officers through the barricade, a member of the group, Terrell Catt-IronShell, said, “We came today to do this prayer. We’re praying for our people. We’re praying for the land, we’re praying for the water. We’re also praying for you guys who stand here. All of you in uniform, all of you who have to be here.” The youth then offered the officers some water.

“There’s a lot of power in silence,” Ironstrong said later of the moment, “It shows a lot of discipline and humility. That’s one of the main things we were trying to get across today.”

On another day, IIYC youth members took supplies to the Morton County police department after seeing a list that the department had sent out to its community asking for supplies to help its police stay warm and fed through the winter.

“What we’re doing here today is proving to the world that we will not become the oppressors that have once oppressed us for so many years,” said one of the youth. “What we’re doing here is we’re offering them this water of life to show the Morton County Sheriff’s office, to show the people who believe that we’re here to hurt them, that we’re actually here fighting for your rights to clean water.”

Image via Flickr by Lucas Zhao/OcetiSakowinCamp.

[solutionspotlight]

The Victory of Standing Rock

Some of the following text is extracted from Other Worlds Are Possible (copyleft).

The power of mobilized, united people was proven once again when the Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit necessary for the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) to be laid under the Standing Rock Sioux tribe’s ancestral Missouri River.

After 6 months of marches, prayer ceremonies, daily direct actions, hundreds of Water Protectors facing arrests, and thousands withstanding frigid weather and blizzards in unheated tents and tipis in the Standing Rock camps, the Army announced on December 4, 2016 that it would explore alternative routes.

Despite these advances, victory is not assured. The Trump administration may clear legal roadblocks so that Energy Transfer Partners, the company behind the $3.7 billion oil project, can proceed.

Trump is not only philosophically in favor of the 1,172-mile pipeline. He is also financially involved, having as much as $300,000 in combined personal investments in Energy Transfer Partners and Phillips 66, which would be a stakeholder in the completed project.

The Standing Rock movement has quickly grown as a national symbol of, and call to action for, Native power and sovereignty; the rights of Mother Earth, especially water; and opposition to government impunity and corporate supremacy.

From Palestinians to Peruvians, people from as many as 30 countries and 300 indigenous nations have traveled to North Dakota to stand against the pipeline.

The Standing Rock Sioux have the right to free, prior, and informed consent – guaranteed by the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to which the US is signatory – before any development can take place on their lands. In 22 countries, Convention 169 of the UN International Labor Organization provides the same protection for indigenous peoples, though it is almost invariably violated. Many indigenous movements are pressing hard for their rights under the convention. The US government has refused to sign onto Convention 169.

Fierce political pressure is essential to stopping the pipeline from being dug under the river as per the current plan, or from a rerouted access point in another community with less power.

Similar responses to growing pillaging and extraction are underway around the globe, where indigenous and other land-based movements are defending their own lands, waters, forests, minerals, life forms, knowledge (otherwise known as intellectual property rights), and more.

ACTIONS:

Explore:

What is a pipeline or other extractive project underway in your region and who is most directly impacted?

What kind of response is Native leadership asking for?

How can you show up to defend your local natural resources, and what can you learn from Standing Rock to be most effective?

Image: “Standing Rock.” Via Flickr by Dark Sevier.

[solutionspotlight]

Legacy of Berta Cáceres Lives On As Indigenous, Afro-Indigenous & LGBTI Honduran Communities Stand Together

A powerful alliance of indigenous, Afro-indigenous, and LGBTI communities in Honduras are continuing the legacy of Berta Cáceres through traditional ceremonies and protest action in defense of natural resources, ancestral lifeways, and fundamental human rights.

Alliances have been strong for many years among indigenous Lenca, afro-indigenous Garífuna and LGBTI (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual and Intersex) social movements in Honduras.  Berta Cáceres wove these communities together by her life and work as co-founder and general coordinator of COPINH (Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras), and as a warrior for human rights.

Berta Cáceres, indigenous Lenca woman, was assassinated in her home on March 2, 2016 in a case that is not yet brought to justice.  She was killed because of she and COPINH’s strong position in defense of the waters that they hold sacred while standing in opposition of the construction of a Hydroelectric dam on the Rio Gualcarque.

When she won the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2015 she called for humanity to “wake up because we are out of time!” We can honor Berta’s life by being of service to this awakening.

There is faith among the Lenca and Garifuna in upholding the practice of traditional ceremonies and ancestral rituals as a source of strength and resilience. Gatherings in beauty, family and community happen each 2nd day of the month in Honduras to sustain the call for justice in Berta’s assassination.

Prayer, singing, dancing, elaborate altars, chanting, all of these are fearless protest actions. Solidarity through vigils, altar-building and prayer actions can expand and concentrate positive intentions and have been happening around the world in support of these consistent, commemorative calls for justice. We can participate in our own way and from our own homes each 2nd day of the month.

Independent community radio is another foundational organizing tool in Honduras and for its social movements! COPINH has one AM and four FM radio stations that are part of the Mesoamerican Network of Community, Indigenous, Garifuna and Feminist Radio in Honduras: La Voz Lenca FM, La Voz Lenca AM, Radio Guarajambala FM (listen to us online), Radio la Voz del Gualcarque FM, Radio la Voz de Opalaca. We can support this community driven organizing and cultural tool directly via this  RADIO FUNDRAISING CAMPAIGN  for COPINH through November 2016.

Honduran security forces have been implicated in Berta’s case and in many cases of violence and injustice against indigenous, Afro-indigenous and LGBTI groups. The U.S. has financially and politically supported the Honduran State, military and police for some time. HR5474, the Berta Cáceres Human Rights in Honduras Act, was introduced into Congress by Henry Johnson (D), Georgia earlier this year. It calls for a suspension of U.S. military and police aid and training to Honduras until human rights violations committed by Honduran security forces cease and their perpetrators are brought to justice.

ACTIONS:

We can support this stance by calling on our representatives to act in support of life, and specifically now, while the House is in recess until Nov. 14, 2016. Representatives can tell Johnson’s aide Sascha Foertsch they are on board, and Johnson’s office can use their names for publicity.

The names and their aides of ones who have signed similar letters in the past:

Deutch (FL) Casey Kustin

Bass (CA) Janice Bashford

Cicciline (RI) Elisa Moskowitz

Grayson (FL) Joe Racalto

Lowenthal (CA) Scott Walker

Others to address because of their past record:

Robin Kelly (IL) Zachary Ostro

Tulsi Gabbard (HI) Jamie Morgan

Grace Meng (NY) David Bagby

Castro (TX) Ben Thomas

Image via Flickr by Prachatai.

[solutionspotlight]

‘Aha Pūnana Leo: The Hawaiian Schools that Lead the Way to Restoring the Hawaiian Language

In Hawaii, a group of preschools has been an inspiring example in the global indigenous revitalization movement. In the last several decades, the schools have pioneered a unique educational approach which includes immersing its students entirely in a Hawaiian language environment.

‘Aha Pūnana Leo, which means “nest of voices,” was founded in the 1980s to revitalize the Hawaiian language, which was then near the brink of extinction. Up until the 1990s, Hawaiian was forbidden in schools, per U.S. policy, leaving mainly elders and isolated pockets of Hawaiians still fluent in the language.

The schools established a community-centered early childhood approach, where children are taught completely in the Hawaiian language. At the heart of the schools’ mission is the concept that language contains the keys to ancestral Hawaiian worldviews, customs, and value systems. Survival of the language is survival of the culture. The children are also nurtured into a strong sense of identity that will follow them throughout their lives.

The schools have been at the forefront of a wave of efforts to revive the language and indigenous aspects of the culture.

There are thousands of graduates of ‘Aha Pūnana Leo schools who are fluent in the language. The success of the schools provide a window into how educational strategies can create huge social shifts.

ACTIONS:

The recently launched Global Center for Indigenous Language Excellence (GCILE) is a result of the work of programs like ‘Aha Pūnana Leo’s. It aims to incorporate successful language revitalization strategies while building a fertile space for cross-pollinating global indigenous perspectives. Check out the 2016 Symposium which featured presenters on Māori, Hawaiian, Sámi, Greenlandic, and Gaelic languages!