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Indigenous Peoples: Civil disobedience to halt dirty Tar Sands pipeline in US | the narcosphere

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At the Protecting Mother Earth Gathering, First Nations activists announce civil disobedience to halt dirty Tar Sands pipeline in US

Article and photo by Brenda Norrell

NEW TOWN, North Dakota –The resistance to the dirty Tar Sands announced plans for civil disobedience in Washington to send a message to the Obama Administration to halt a plan for use of the dirtiest oil on the planet, which threatens natural resources and humanity in North America, including Indian country.

Speaking at the Protecting Mother Earth Gathering, Clayton Thomas Muller said civil disobedience is planned for Washington to challenge the Obama Administration and US State Department, now presiding over a key decision regarding dirty oil from the tar sands pipeline, the proposed TransCanada Corp. Keystone XL pipeline.

Muller said if this pipeline is allowed to proceed from Canada to the Gulf Coast, it would cross sacred lands and endanger Indian country resources, including the Lakota aquifer.

“It is an absolutely insane plan, especially in a time of climate change,” Muller said, adding that already Gulf Coast industries are getting ready for this dirty oil.

Muller spoke to Indigenous Peoples gathered from as far away as Guatemala, Mexico and Canada, at the Indigenous Environmental Network’s 16th Annual Protecting Mother Earth Gathering, July 28-31, 2011, in New Town, North Dakota, which included two workshops on halting destruction from the Alberta Tar Sands. Navajos came who are fighting coal-fired power plants and the draining of their aquifers by Peabody Coal, while Wixarika (Huicholes) came to join forces to halt mining by First Majestic Silver Corp. in Vancouver, BC, from destroying their sacred mountains.

The Gathering was held on the land of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara, where local Native Americans are fighting a plan approved by the BIA for 3,000 oil and gas wells. Already, the air, water and land are devastated here by massive oil and gas wells, with drilling, truck traffic and an explosion of oil and gas workers, wrecking the environment, economy and daily lives of the people.

With the goal of shutting down the fossil fuel industries and halting the dirty tar aands in Alberta, and its proposed pipeline in the US, Muller spoke of the recent victory for the Caribou.

In Canada, Federal Court Judge Justice Peter Crampton gave Environment Minister Peter Kent until Sept. 1 to release his promised national recovery plan for the caribou. Justice Crampton said the federal government must revisit its refusal to issue an emergency order aimed at protecting the endangered caribou in the Alberta oil sands region, the Edmonton Journal reported.

Earlier, the minister failed First Nations and concluded that there are no imminent threats from the oil sands to the national recovery of boreal caribou.

Chief Allan Adam, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation at Fort McMurray, said earlier that the decisions by Alberta’s Department of Sustainable Resource Development, headed by Minister Mel Knight, threatens Treaty Rights of traditional hunting, trapping and gathering.
The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation said the “provincial government consistently fails to meet even our basic needs when it comes to air, land and water within the region and fails to meaningfully engage First Nations in land management decisions in accordance with our aboriginal and Treaty Rights.»
«Until Alberta makes meaningful efforts to protect land, regulate industry and ensure that First Nations are at the table as full partners to develop solutions to the serious environmental challenges that government and industry are creating, they can count on our opposition to further development within the region.”
In Canada, First Nation’s Leslie Cardinal said, “The government of Canada formally endorsed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in a manner that is consistent with Canada’s Constitution and laws. The UN Declaration is clear that Indigenous people have the right to maintain and strengthen their distinctive spiritual relationship with their traditionally owned or otherwise occupied and used lands, territories, waters and other resources and to uphold their responsibilities to future generations.
The Beaver Lake Cree Nation launched a massive civil lawsuit claiming unbridled oil and gas development in their traditional territory renders their treaty rights meaningless.

The statement of claim lists more than 15,000 approved or proposed developments in their traditional lands, near Lac La Biche. The band said “developments have forced band members out of traditional areas, degraded the environment and caused a decline in wildlife, making it impossible for them to meaningfully exercise their Treaty 6 rights to hunt, trap and fish,” the Edmonton Journal reported.

The crude oil extraction not only takes enormous amounts of energy and resources, but the thick oil is highly corrosive, increasing the number of pipeline spills and endangering the public and natural resources.

Oil sands extraction projects threaten the land when the bitumen is initially mined with large deposits of toxic chemicals. The oil sands extraction threatens the water during the separation process and through the drainage of rivers. Further, the air is polluted due to the release of carbon dioxide and other emissions. Additional indirect environmental effects from the petroleum products are produced when they are burned, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Heavy metals are present in oil sands.

Protecting Mother Earth Gathering Series

Natives in Alaska and Louisiana devastated by nation’s largest oil spills
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/08/natives-in-alaska-and-louisiana.html

Greenwashing: orporations target Indian country with scams
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/08/greenwashing-corporations-target-indian.html

Indigenous Peoples: Civil disobedience to halt dirty tar sands pipeline in US
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/08/indigenous-peoples-civil-disobedience.html

Mayan in Guatemala: Seeds, ceremonies and the Year 2012
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/07/maya-in-guatemala-seeds-ceremonies-and.html

Chief Arvol Looking Horse speaks at Protecting Mother Earth Gathering
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/07/chief-looking-horse-speaks-at.html

Also on Blogtalk Radio:

Listen to Anishinabe Water Walker Josephine Mandamin:
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/brenda-norrell

Indigenous Peoples: Civil disobedience to halt dirty Tar Sands pipeline in US | the narcosphere.

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