The war on Indigenous women and girls is synonymous with the war on Mother Nature. Indigenous peoples have endured centuries of aggressive settler colonialism and genocide. None have suffered more than Indigenous women and children. In the same vein Unči Maka - Grandmother Earth - Is raped and plundered by "extractivists" who only care about how they can mine, drill, frack, or otherwise exploit her natural resources. Unči Maka is bleeding oil and next to nothing is being done to heal her wounds, so now humanity inevitably faces a "man-made" climate crisis - But something can be done! Governments in the Global North have proven time and again they will do nothing to stop the bleeding. Many people don't believe in the effects of climate change until it happens to them. Hazardous materials are EVERYWHERE - Not only oil and gas, but also coal, sludge, and nuclear waste. Despite their struggles, including the highest rates of murder, rape, and disappearance among all ethnic groups, Indigenous women continue to lead the way for the environmental movement. "The Women of Standing Rock: Fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline" highlights the important role several Native women from the Standing Rock Indian Reservation played both during and after the Dakota Access protests. DAPL might have been a "success" for the Enbridge pipeline company, but the grassroots effort sparked a global debate, and these women of Standing Rock have contributed to the divestment of $39.2 TRILLION globally for oil and gas exploration!
*Photo still courtesy "End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock"
* Click here or on photo to view the trailer for "End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock"
April Eve Wiberg, whose traditional name is Medicine Spear Dancer, hails from Mikisew Cree First Nation, and she is an advocate for "Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, Children, & Two-Spirit". Wiberg is a survivor of the tarsands mancamps in Alberta, where many Indigenous women have gone missing, and have never been found. She is the founder of the Stolen Sisters Awareness Walk. [Brandi Morin/Al Jazeera]
* Click here or on photo to read our feature-length article "Tarsands Mancamps & MMIWG2S"
Upper Klamath Lake is dying from blue and green algae blooms covering its surface every summer. Nearly all of the pollution comes from agricultural run-off originating from farms upstream. Most communities in the U.S. would rally to rescue an endangered species like the C'waam or Koptu suckerfish, but not in Klamath Falls, where the indigenous fish are just another reminder of the tribes "unwanted" by much of the white community - The farmers and ranchers want the Klamath Tribes to feel unwelcome in their own 'Home' - "Erasure" is the name of the game in settler-colonialism - If there are no Native people left, then the "Doctrine of Discovery" and "manifest destiny" will be complete!
C'Waam (Lost River suckerfish) and its smaller cousin Koptu (shortnose suckerfish) are not only a food staple for the Klamath but part of their Creation story. The population of C'Waam and Koptu have been reduced from millions in the 19th-century to an estimated 25,000 and 3,400 respectively. Pesticides and agricultural run-off lead to poor water quality, cattle grazing destroys spawning habitats, and dams block traditional migration. C'waam and Koptu have not reproduced in a long time, but they are long-lived, and the suckerfish found dead on the lake are 30-years-old from the last successful round of reproduction in the early 1990s! Current water levels are only high enough to keep elderly fish on "life support", and suckerfish larvae now never reach maturity. Klamath Lake's water level is the bare minimum to prevent extinction.
Over a century of land-theft, unsustainable agricultural practices, and water depletion has poisoned Indigenous waterways by farmers in the Klamath Basin. Farmers argue they desperately need water from Upper Klamath Lake to irrigate their crops. They claim the water is theirs by "right", a promise the U.S. Department of Reclamation made to settlers in the early 20th century, one which they intended to keep when water was considered an infinite "resource", unlike the 1864 treaty "guarantees" between the Klamath Tribes and the federal government. Klamath Tribes Chairman Don Gentry paraphrased local white folks' sentiments: "The fish are worthless and the tribes are worthless because they care about the fish." Being an Indigenous person in Klamath Falls, Oregon has always been enough to make one a target of broken promises and racist attacks, but with the 2021 water shortages, the streets of Klamath Falls had never been more unsafe for the Klamath Tribes.
* Photo of Joey Gentry (Klamath Tribes member) at Upper Klamath Lake courtesy Josh Rushing/Al Jazeera
* Click here or on photo for the feature length article "Klamath Basin Water Wars"
Native Hawaiians have been warning about the EXTREMELY high risk of a leak at Red Hill for several decades. More than 200 MILLION gallons of jet fuel are stored in the fuel tanks at the Navy’s Red Hill facility. The tanks are buried just 100 feet above the Red Hill well, which is the largest aquifer in O'ahu, and the facility has secretly been leaking fuel regularly for decades, with no attempts at prevention or remediation, and now jet fuel levels found in tap water are 350 times the "safe limit" - That's a 35,000% increase! Most people outside the U.S. military don't know that the Navy has more fighter jets in their military division than the Air Force. What the U.S. Navy is conveying through its actions is that keeping their fighter jets in the air is more valuable to them than to provide clean drinking water to the citizens of O’ahu, even for the 400 military families who have been evacuated from the iconic military base at Pearl Harbor!
Needless to say the tap water from the Red Hill well is undrinkable at the moment. More than 400,000 residents of O'ahu had their water from the Red Hill well cut off in December 2021, nearly one month after the initial jet fuel pipeline burst and spilled an estimated 21 THOUSAND gallons of jet fuel into an area of the Red Hill facility not equipped to contain a spill of such magnitude. According to the U.S. Navy, less than 2,000 gallons of jet fuel was actually cleaned up, and the first estimate of exactly how much jet fuel escaped was incredibly low compared to how much the investigation detected. Essentially the Navy has so much jet fuel that it doesn’t even know how much it actually has, so when 21,000 gallons of it went “missing” in May 2021, nobody actually noticed until the fuel pipe erupted six months later in November or that at least 20,000 gallons of jet fuel was unaccounted for, until water began running out of the taps at Pearl Harbor military base reeking of jet fuel after it had seeped into the water system.
Instead of being in a State of Emergency, and immediately responding, Navy officials are dragging their feet and saying “we’ll get to it by the end of 2024”. Now in a state already experiencing below-average rainfall from the man-made climate disaster, the amount of water available to the ONE MILLION Kama'aina, the human beings, living in O’ahu has now been reduced to less than half of what it was before December 2021. Remember there were 400 THOUSAND Hawaiians in the Honolulu area who lost their drinking water from the Red Hill well contaminated by jet fuel, as if any amount of jet fuel in the water is “safe”, for over a month before the well was shut down, but only the 400 military families unfortunately affected by the spill got minimal media attention, as the Pentagon did its best to keep the Red Hill disaster hush-hush. There are thousands of Native Hawaiians who need to haul their water, and they cannot afford bottled water, nor do they want to leave their Home, their Island, their 'Āina!
Photo via CODEPINK
*Click here or on photo for Water Protector feature "Battle for Native Hawai'i"!
On October 4, 2021 the Trudeau government invoked a 1977 treaty with the U.S. to force "bilateral negotiations" over Enbridge Inc's Line 5 pipeline, which ships 540,00 barrels per day of crude and refined petroleum from Superior, Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario. However the State of Michigan ordered Enbridge to shut down Line 5 due to worries a leak could develop in a section running beneath the Straits of Mackinac in the Great Lakes - More than 30 MILLION people rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water - 10% of the U.S. population and 30% of Canada!
Enbridge ignored Michigan's order to stop the flow of the antique pipeline in disrepair, and the sides are embroiled in a legal battle. Ottawa has been pushing its counterparts in the U.S. to intervene. In a statement Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau said Canada's 1977 treaty with the U.S. "guarantees the uninterrupted transit of light crude oil and natural gas liquids between the two countries."
Meanwhile Line 5 crosses over 400 ecologically sensitive wetlands and waterways - None more vulnerable than the Straits of Mackinac where currents are strong - There is ten times more flow in the Straits than there is over Niagara Falls! Line 5 is 67 years-old, in poor condition, and there is always a hazard of a dropped anchor rupturing the pipeline. In fact during April 2018 an anchor drop broke two electrical cables, spilled over 600 gallons of oil, and put three dents in the already deteriorating Line 5.
Photo by Cory Morse/The Grand Rapids Press via AP
* Click here or on photo for Water Protector feature "Retire Enbridge Line 5!"
Wet'suwet'en tribal members have become "intruders" in their traditional territories in the eyes of the Canadian government. The bridge crossing the Wedzin Kwa, the life-giving river of the Wet'suwet'en people, has been turned into a military checkpoint as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) "defend" the Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline from water protectors. On November 18, 2021 more than a dozen people, including Indigenous land defenders, a photojournalist, and documentary filmmaker, were arrested at gun-point in Wet'suwet'en territory.
They were at the Coyote Camp, set up by water protectors on the Morice River Forest Service Road, a main access point to work sites and camps for the CGL - A $6.6 billion liquified natural gas pipeline which will run for 416 miles across northern British Colombia (BC). Approximately 120 miles of pipeline stretches through unceded Wet'suwet'en territory - Land that was never "legally" signed over to the Crown or ratified by treaty with the Commonwealth of Canada.
The camp was established to stop CGL's plans to drill a tunnel for the pipeline under the Wedzin Kwa - A river so pure people can drink directly from it. On November 14 members of the Gidimt'en Clan - One of the five clans of the Wet'suwet'en Nation - Along with other clans and supporters served an eviction notice to CGL. The elected band council of the Wet'suwet'en have approved the CGL, and this forced "consent" is what the RCMP is using to justify their military campaign against water protectors, but the band council are the result of colonial law imposed on First Nations in Canada.
Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs, who oversee the management of all traditional lands, have categorically rejected the CGL. The band councils are the result of a racist law known as Canada's Indian Act, imposed more than 100 years ago to try and dictate every aspect of the political, economic, and infrastructure development of First Nations. In laymen's terms, CGL greased the palms of the Wet'suwet'en band council, gaining their "consent" - Without ever consulting the hereditary chiefs whose approval CGL never would have gotten!
*Photo credit: Jessie Winter/Star Metro
* Click here or on photo to read our feature "Wet'suwet'en CGL Pipeline"
On a hot June day in Minnesota amid a statewide drought, thousands of water protectors gathered separately - More than a thousand were marching on a highway near the Mississippi Headwaters. Meanwhile five hundred people led by Indigenous Anishinaabekwe women shut down an active Line 3 pump station! The direct action on June 7, 2021 halted construction of Enbridge Line 3 tarsands crude oil pipeline.
What's most important to know about Enbridge Line 3 is that the pipeline company has used a loophole in the law for their "replacement" project to manipulate the State of Minnesota and U.S. government into giving them a new right-of-way through the Mississippi Headwaters - A source of drinking water for over 13 million people! Between Line 3 and Line 5, Enbridge is putting the drinking water of 43 million people in danger, and their guarantees of "safety" and "proven science" belie their bad track record - Enbridge is GASLIGHTING!
More than a thousand water protectors were arrested protesting Line 3, but despite the resistance, Minnesota Public Utilities Commission and the Army Corps of Engineers gave Enbridge the thumb's up, without a peep from the White House. Enbridge wanted to replace the "deteriorating" Line 3, meaning there are already many leaks along the poorly-maintained pipeline which have developed over the past 60 years, with a new pipeline that could carry nearly twice as much oil along with a new route across Minnesota. "The natural resources in that corridor are unique. Many of them are irreplaceable," said Scott Strand, an attorney representing Friends of the Headwaters. When asked by the PUC for a "least objectionable" route alternative for Line 3, tribes and environmental groups said they were all bad options - "All of them suck," said Paul Blackburn, attorney for the Native environmental group Honor the Earth.
* Photo courtesy Alex Kormann/Star Tribune via AP
* Click here or on photo for Water Protector feature "Stop Enbridge Pipeline 3!"
In June TC Energy Company, which owns KXL, abandoned the pipeline after U.S. President Joe Biden eliminated any chance for KXL being built, and has filed a claim under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to recover economic damages caused by the project's cancellation. The 1,210-mile pipeline would have shipped 830,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta to Nebraska. Former U.S. President Barack Obama vetoed KXL in 2015, then in 2017 Donald Trump signed an executive order allowing KXL to proceed, and Trump signed yet another presidential order in 2019 in an attempt to speed up production. Joe Biden made good on his campaign promise to stop KXL within days of his inauguration, saying he had "been against Keystone from the beginning." This has been a point of contention between the U.S. and Canada, as the two-faced "environmental thug" Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed "disappointment" when KXL was cancelled. Right-wing Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, whose province invested $1.1 billion into KXL last year, urged Biden to reconsider. Indigenous activists say the project's cancellation is a "vindication" for all the efforts of water protectors and land defenders and their sacrifices after years of KXL protests. Matthew Campbell, staff lawyer at the Native American Rights Fund (NARF), said in January the move recognized "the tribes will be heavily impacted by the pipeline and so it should not be approved".
*Artwork via inlander.com
Mâzâskâ is the Lakota word for money. So far "divestment" - Convincing investors to remove their stocks from oil and gas exploration - Has proven the most effective method to blocking future pipelines before they can be built. The fight for clean water exists all over the world, but right now the main battleground is in Canada, where four oil and gas pipelines are on the table, with the Trans Mountain and Coastal Gas Link pipelines already underway. Despite the man-made climate crisis-induced flooding in Vancouver, British Colombia recently, which has left 18,000 people homeless, the hypocrite "faux-environmentalist" Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called for the immediate continuation of construction for the TransCanada pipeline! Politicians all across the Global North are committing war crimes against Mother Earth, which have resulted in thousands of deaths and millions of climate refugees in the Global South - But rich nations are not safe from the man-made climate crisis either! Government subsidies for oil and gas should be diverted to the $100 billion - A paltry sum - Promised to combat climate change in the Global South over FIVE years ago! Dissuading investors from buying stocks in petroleum companies is an uphill battle - They have been "winners" for a long time running - But $39.2 trillion has ALREADY been divested! Exxon/Mobil have known about the impending climate crisis since 1979 - Hence decades of propaganda convincing people to depend on oil - Mâzâskâ Talks tells a different story.
Artwork by Jackie Fawn
* Click here or on artwork for more from Mâzâskâ Talks blog!
