#forestdefenders — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #forestdefenders, aggregated by home.social.
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#Kayapó #ForestDefenders Urge #UnitedNations to Help Halt Illegal #GoldMining in #Brazil
By #BrendaNorrell, #CensoredNews
July 23, 2024GENEVA -- "#Indigenous from Brazil urged the United Nations to join them and demand Brazil halt illegal gold mining, and its #mercury #contamination, now destroying the ancestral homelands of #Kayapó, #Yanomami and #Munduruku Peoples, during the U.N. Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
"Doto Takak Ire, Mebêngôkre, said, 'The Kayapó are still warriors and we will always be defenders of the forests.'
"'We do not want any kind of #exploitation of #NaturalResources in our territories. We want the #Amazon protected, so that our children and all the children of the world can grow up healthy.'"
Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/07/kayapo-forest-defenders-urge-united.html#NoGoldMining #NoMining #NoMiningWithoutConsent #ProtectTheForest #ProtectTheAmazon #IndigenousPeoples #IndigenousRights #CulturalGenocide #WaterIsLife #Pollution
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They keep killing the ancients.
Men who kill elder trees, are men who kill their children's futures.
Souls must be disconnected from nature & their spirits desperate for money, for them to be OK destroying #OldGrowth forests, for a temporary paycheque.
There are more ethical ways to earn a living.
Stop believing industrial & government #greenwashing lies.
#ClearcutLogging kills #ecosystems & throws #ecological balance out of whack.Government tells us to not fret, that they're managing #forestry better - they're #greedy, #sellout #LIARS. You can go see for yourself, how many clearcuts are still happening on big scales, at several places across Vancouver Island & some parts of BC interior where greedy corporations are decimating the last inland #TemperateRainforest in the world. Our #neoliberal BC NDP government is OK with ongoing mass ecocide - they get money from industry lobbyists 🤑🤮😡
Don't stop, fighting to #ProtectOldGrowth #forests 🌲❤️🌲 #AncientTrees need #ForestDefenders in times of increased, rampant #CorporateGreed & sellout #ecocide enabling governments ✊️
#BCNewDeathParty #BCpoli #SaveOldGrowth #DefendNature #TreesOverGreed #TreesAreEarthsLungs #Nature #ProtectNature #WildFirst #BCForestryReform #deforestation #StopEcocide #StopClearcuts #photography #BanCorporateLobbyists #DavidEby #BCNDP #EbyTheEnabler #ProtectForests #BCTourism #VancouverIsland #Cowichan #VanIsle #PacificNorthwest #Cascadia #PNW #BCgovernment #BCNDPLegacyoOfDeath #StopDeforestation #OneEarth #BritishColumbia #Canada #WorldInMyEyes #YYJphotographers #DisabledPhotographers #Activism #ActivistPhotography #Environmentalist #EcoJustice #FightForNature #NatureGuardians #StopTheSaws #CrimesAgainstHumanity #morose #SuperUnnaturalBC #TourismBC #TourismVanvouverIsland #EcoCrimes #monochrome #BWphotography #BWphoto
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Inside the last-ditch effort to stop the #MountainValleyPipeline
The project is over budget and behind schedule, with a lot of hard work left to do. Its opponents hope that makes #FossilFuel companies think twice about building the next one.
By Katie Myers
Published Jan 16, 2024"As day broke over the small mountain town of #EllistonVirginia, one Monday in October, masked figures in thick coats emerged from the woods surrounding a construction site. Three of them approached three excavators and, one by one, locked themselves to the machines, bringing the day’s work to a halt. As they did so, several dozen of their fellow protesters gathered around them, unfurling banners and chanting amid the groaning and beeping of construction equipment.
"They made their way across the field, over patches of bare earth, around sections of rusty pipe meant for burial beneath the mountain. Eventually the metal tubes will form yet another section of the Mountain Valley Pipeline, which will soon carry 2 billion cubic feet of #fracked #methane from the #ShaleFields of #WestVirginia to #NorthCarolina each day. Their breath billowed in the crisp air. Beyond them stretched a bright blue sky, and mountains tinged with yellow. The past night’s rain pooled on the muddy and compacted soil beneath their feet.
"Workers in highlighter-yellow vests and hard hats milled around, some looking amused, others frustrated. One or two engaged with the #protesters, only to be told off by an irate site manager. A few miles away at the West Virginia state line, another three dozen or so activists did much the same atop #PetersMountain. One even managed to crawl under an excavator and lock herself in place, despite the cold. The others rallied around, enclosing her in a tight, protective circle.
Some might wonder why they bothered. After all, the project is, by the Mountain Valley Pipeline company’s estimate, 94 percent complete and will be wrapped up before summer. It stalled for several years amid legal fights over various permits, but Senator #JoeManchin, a moderate Democrat from West Virginia, almost single-handedly revived it in 2022 in exchange for his support of key Democratic priorities. Since then, the Biden administration and the Supreme Court have all but assured its completion. With the approximately 303-mile pipeline approaching the final stretch after almost a decade’s work, it might seem hardly worth fighting at this point.
"A large contingent of steadfast opposition begs to differ — and will enthusiastically explain why. The pipeline is six years behind schedule, about half a billion dollars over budget, and, despite promises that it would be done by the end of last year, delayed once again. The remaining construction is over rugged terrain, with hundreds of water crossings left to bridge. The company recently postponed, shortened, and rerouted its planned extension into North Carolina, a proposal long stymied by permitting problems with the main line. And, just last month, #Equitrans, which owns the #pipeline and many others across the country, was said to be considering selling itself. The road to the pipeline’s completion remains rocky, its opponents argue, with many opportunities to make finishing it as difficult as possible.
"'We cannot let them destroy our land and water,' said a young woman named Ericka. Like many interviewed for this story, she gave only her first name out of fear of reprisal from #MountainValleyPipelineLLC, which has begun suing #protesters in a bid to silence them. She had brought her three children to occupy the land that day. 'What are we going to drink? Where are we going to live? People have to come here and stop this.'"
#SilencingDissent #DirectAction #ClimateCatastrophe #NoFracking #WaterIsLife #SLAPPs #Fascism #CriminalizingDissent #WaterProtectors #ForestDefenders #EnvironmentalActivists #ClimateActivists #ClimateJustice #CorporateColonialism #EcoActivists #Censorship
#HumanRightsViolations #Article20 #RightToProtest #BigOilAndGas -
Demonstrators Decry #SLAPP Lawsuits Targeting Movement Against #MountainValleyPipeline
via @igd December 21, 2023
"Report on recent protest in Abingdon, Virginia against SLAPP lawsuits targeting the movement fighting the Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP).
"Mountain Valley Pipeline is suing dozens of pipeline opponents in multiple jurisdictions for millions of dollars as part of a campaign of ongoing repression. Penn Stuart, the law firm behind the injunctions currently being levied against pipeline fighters in Virginia, and their Lawyer Wade Massie are hired by EQT Midstream, the largest partner in the MVP. Today, people had an office party at the Penn Stuart offices in Abingdon, VA, causing a ruckus."
Read more:
https://itsgoingdown.org/demonstrators-decry-slapp-lawsuits-mvp/#SLAPPs #DirectAction #Fascism #CriminalizingDissent #WaterProtectors #ForestDefenders #EnvironmentalActivists #ClimateActivists #ClimateJustice #SilencingDissent #CorporateColonialism #EcoActivists #Censorship #HumanRightsViolations #Article20 #RightToProtest #BigOilAndGas
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Don’t Stop: Continuing the Fight against #CopCity
Six More Months in the Movement to Defend the Forest
2023-12-12 via #CrimeThinc"Escalating Repression: #RICO and the Furtherance of the Conspiracy
"With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that the 'tactics of organized criminals' language Governor Kemp used on July 2 was not just boilerplate copy drafted by an intern, nor was the August 2 press conference simply propaganda to assure backers that the state could still protect their investments. These phrases and statements were shaping operations, carefully crafted interventions designed to position the government for their next operation: the blanket criminalization of the entire movement.
"On August 29, the Attorney General of #Georgia, Christopher M. Carr, filed an indictment with the Fulton County Superior Court, bringing charges against 61 people under Georgia’s version of the Rackeeter-Influenced Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act O.C.G.A. § 16-14-4. The indictment became public on September 5. The document, which is over 100 pages long and very poorly written, claims that the 'conspiracy' (which it names 'Defend the Atlanta Forest') was 'founded' on May 25, 2020—the day that #MinneapolisPolice officers murdered #GeorgeFloyd, precipitating a nationwide #uprising.
"This was a serious escalation. It did not catch everyone by surprise: the #AtlantaSolidarityFund has been braced for such charges since February. The authorities and their extreme-right proxies had been demanding a full-scale crackdown on the movement for over a year, spreading a conspiracy theory that the movement was a mafia controlled by a shadowy and well-connected group (a narrative some activists also reproduced, apparently with no sense of irony). According to one version of this conspiracy theory, circulated by far-right trolls, the Network for Stronger Communities (a Georgia-based nonprofit organization) operates a number of financial enterprises, including the Atlanta Solidarity Fund, that coordinate acts of terrorism in order to accumulate wealth and influence. Of the 61 accused, three were members of the Atlanta Solidarity Fund. The 42 people already facing #DomesticTerrorism charges were also indicted, as well as a number of other people whose connection to the movement was unclear. The indictment alleged that some people had committed acts in 'overt furtherance of the conspiracy' such as buying #GlueSticks for #SignMaking. [UK is using similar tactics, arresting people for just having #Superglue or #BikeLocks in their possession.]
"The RICO indictment was not a legal procedure but a political act. It was not a judicial intervention to suppress criminal activity but a government measure to crush what the text describes as '#anarchism,' '#collectivism,' '#SocialSolidarity,' '#MutualAid.”
"It is not simply 61 people who are on trial. By dating the case to the murder of George Floyd, the prosecution showed that their real target was the entire population of millions that participated in the consequent revolt. This is not an unusual court case, but a new chapter in the fight between those who seek to preserve the hierarchies of a structurally white supremacist society and those fighting to destroy it root and branch. The indictment does not present a list of crimes. It describes the contours and values of a rival society emerging within the movement to stop Cop City, aspiring to reinvent the world according to a different logic.
"The Fulton County Judge assigned to the RICO case immediately recused himself. Until then, judges had not recused themselves from cases related to the movement even when they possessed obvious ties to the Atlanta Police Foundation."
#JusticeForTort #StopCopCity #ACAB #DirectAction #Fascism #CriminalizingDissent #ForestDefenders #EnvironmentalActivists #ClimateActivists #ClimateJustice #SilencingDissent #CorporateColonialism #EcoActivists #Censorship #HumanRightsViolations #Article20 #RightToProtest #SLAPPs
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#Lawsuits Have Become the Weapon of Choice Against #Activists
Legal intimidation suits known as “#SLAPPs” are becoming the norm for private #corporations and #governments trying to silence those who speak out on matters of public interest.
by Katie Redford
July 17, 2023“On May 31, #Atlanta #SWAT teams with riot gear and battering rams broke down #MarlonKautz’s door. Police dragged Kautz and two colleagues to jail in their pajamas, charging them with #MoneyLaundering and charity fraud.
“Kautz, Adele MacLean, and Savannah Patterson, are volunteer board members of the #NetworkForStrongCommunities Inc., which was incorporated in 2020. Through it, they are able to raise funds for the #AtlantaSolidarityFund (#ASF). Since 2016, the fund has bailed out people arrested in #Georgia while exercising their First Amendment right to protest and helped them find legal help.
“Recently, the ASF has supported Atlanta activists who have been protesting a new $90 million police training center known as '#CopCity,' arguing that it will rob Atlanta of a #VitalGreenLung and increase inequality in surrounding neighborhoods. The state of Georgia, on the other hand, has charged dozens with 'domestic terrorism' for participating in largely peaceful protests.
“Georgia authorities claim that the money laundering charge is based on evidence of a fund transfer to another organization, but they haven’t shared any other details about their allegations. Magistrate Judge Altman, who presided over the bail hearing, described the state’s evidence as 'unimpressive,' reinforcing the defendants’ claims that the arrests are politically, not legally, motivated.
“Shortly after the arrest, Governor Brian Kemp announced that the state would go after everyone involved, and Attorney General Chris Carr tweeted that the funders of the bail and legal defense fund were next. As an executive director at a climate philanthropy who made charitable donations to the ASF for legal defense, I had to wonder: Was my door going to be battered down next?
“Some of the accused may have trespassed or destroyed property, but to charge protesters with 'domestic terrorism' and a legal defense fund with money laundering is a cynical political act that bears no relation to the misdemeanors alleged. Any American committed to democracy should be interested in making sure these charges lose in both the court of law and the court of public opinion.
“These charges seek to silence and stop opposition to an unpopular development project. They also telegraph a message to others in the state and nationwide: We will not tolerate lawful protest in Georgia. This strategy is known as strategic litigation against public participation (SLAPP), which is an intimidation lawsuit, typically used by private corporations against those who speak out on matters of public interest. Various state governments are increasingly deploying this tactic, too.
“SLAPPs don’t usually win in court, but that’s not what they’re intended to do. Instead, they set out to threaten activists and drain the financial resources of social movements. They often unfold as years-long wars of attrition, where corporations and governments with disproportionately large resources grind down the financial, emotional, and legal capacities of activists. The threat of such a suit—typically brought against individuals or groups that confront powerful people or institutions—discourages free speech and association, chilling democracy itself.
“As a lawyer on the front lines of climate justice activism, I witnessed firsthand how a SLAPP was used to weaponize the law against free speech and association. During the mass protests by Indigenous water protectors and environmentalists campaigning against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, SLAPPs were used widely.
“As #StandingRock became a global cause célèbre, the pipeline’s owners brought a $900 million #racketeering case against individuals and #NGOs like #BankTrack and #Greenpeace, alleging a vast global conspiracy to damage the company’s reputation and bottom line through fraud and #defamation.
“A federal court ultimately dismissed the lawsuit. But despite its eventual failure in court, the SLAPP tactic served its intended purpose: intimidation. #KrystalTwoBulls, one of the Standing Rock organizers that my organization represented, said that being sued tangled her up, practically and emotionally, in a legal battle that diverted her attention, taking her away from her work on the climate crisis and #Indigenous #LandRights.
“She began to #censor herself; she withdrew from her community and the movement, fearing that conspiracy allegations might extend to anyone she touched. And that, of course, is the point of these suits: to send out the message to either shut up or suffer the consequences.
“The case against #Kautz in #Atlanta similarly seeks to spark fear in activists and donors against supporting #FirstAmendment rights and legal defense. There is reason to believe that prosecutors may also be preparing #RICO charges against anti–Cop City activists, another dangerous use of the legal system to quell #grassroots movements.
“Since Standing Rock, over 20 states have passed '#CriticalInfrastructure' laws, which dramatically increase civil and criminal penalties related to protests at or near #FossilFuel projects. #DomesticTerrorism laws like that in Georgia have a similar intention: to weaponize the legal system against critics and stifle #DissentingVoices.
“I have no doubt that the majority of the domestic terrorism charges around Cop City will fail. But in the process, a political point will have been made, at the expense of the constitutional right to free speech. People protesting to protect the #environment and #climate will have been publicly accused of being harmful to America’s security, and they will have been forced to defend themselves—likely at exorbitant cost—against a 30-year jail sentence. Other potential activists will surely remember these charges when they consider whether it’s worth it to attend a concert, sit-in, or protest.
"The best strategy for stopping SLAPP suits in their tracks, whether they emanate from the private sector or are used by the state, is to keep speaking out, to support defamed activists, and to make the litigants pay a price. About 30 states have introduced legislation that protects against SLAPPs. And last year, #Jami Raskin introduced the #SLAPPProtectionAct of 2022 to #Congress. It must be reintroduced.
“My organization, #EquationCampaign, created a fund to provide lawyers and legal support for people who face this kind of legal retaliation for their environmental and climate work. I’m astonished at the wide range of people who need our help: from #farmers and ranchers to #journalists and #IndigenousActivists. All of them are on the receiving end of David vs. Goliath legal tactics that have long served powerful interests with near-endless resources.
“Absent federal protections, we all must be vigilant in the face of the egregious proliferation of #antiprotest laws and lawsuits.
“#Democracy and the future of this #planet require people to speak up. The law should serve—not silence—those of us who do."
https://www.thenation.com/article/activism/slapp-legal-intimidation-activists/
#ForestDefenders #DefendTheForest #StopCopCity #DirectAction #Fascism #RICO #CriminalizingDissent #WaterProtectors #EnvironmentalActivists #ClimateActivists #ClimateJustice #SilencingDissent #CorporateColonialism #EcoActivists #Censorship #HumanRightsViolations #Article20 #RightToProtest #SlowMarch #BigOilAndGas #EnvironmentalRacism #NoDAPL #DakotaAccess #StandingWithStandingRock
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The #Tonawanda #Seneca Nation’s Fight to Protect the #BigWoods and stop STAMP
By Margaret Wooster (WNY Environmental Alliance) with Sarah Howard (Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation + Allies of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation) June 16, 2023
"One of Western #NewYork’s greatest treasures is a 20,000-acre #wetland-#grassland complex located mainly in the Town of Alabama, and locally known as 'Alabama Swamp.' It is also known as the Sixth Great Lake, a glacial lake now largely underground but surfacing in the plentiful streams and pools that make this watery landscape essential to the many reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds who live or pass through, especially during spring migration.
"This area is also home to the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, a federally recognized Nation and part of the #HaudenosauneeConfederacy. The extraordinary #biodiversity of this area is in large part a testament to their ongoing #stewardship and reciprocal relationship with the more-than-human beings who also call this place home.
"But now, this place, and the Tonawanda Seneca Nation itself, faces an existential threat to their well-being. The #GeneseeCounty Economic Development Center (#GCEDC) has purchased 1,260 acres of habitat and farmland to build a Science and Technology Advanced Manufacturing Park (#STAMP) adjacent to the Nation’s territory. The site is also located within a few miles of multiple state and federally protected areas, including the #Iroquois National #Wildlife Refuge and the John White Wildlife Management Area.
"The STAMP plan capitalizes on federal and state subsidies for #microchip fabrication. To date, however, its only tenant is Plug Power, a #HydrogenFuelCell manufacturer whose product will have to be trucked many miles to market, undermining its justification as 'green power.'
"Two other possible developers – semiconductor producer #EdwardsVacuum and the warehouse developer #ScannellProject – would pave or build over the site’s northern 600-plus acres and bring an extra 140 #cars and #diesel trucks per hour up the narrow country road that leads to the refuge and through the Nation.
"However, the Tonawanda Seneca Nation and their allies, including other local residents and numerous environmental organizations, are fighting back against this industrial development. In February [2023], the GCEDC applied for a 'Full Campus Incidental Take Permit' that would allow them to remove habitat for #endangered and threatened #wildlife species known to occupy the site, including the #ShortEaredOwl and the #NorthernHarrierHawk. In response to the hundreds of letters it received from the public about this permit, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) required the GCEDC to hold a public hearing, which took place on May 11 in the town of Basom.
"More than 185 people attended the hearing. All 49 who spoke were opposed to the permit and the majority expressed opposition to the entire STAMP project. Speaking in opposition were numerous members of the Tonawanda Seneca Nation, including titleholders, as well as allies from groups including the Buffalo Niagara #Waterkeeper, #SierraClub, #SaveOntarioShores, SUNY ESF, University of Rochester, Western New York Environmental Alliance and the #CleanAirCoalition of Western New York. In the words of Tonawanda Seneca Nation Sub-Chief Scott Logan (Bear Clan), 'If this permit were to be granted, it would be an immense injustice to #MotherEarth. And as a #Haudenosaunee person, and all the Haudenosaunee People in here, that is our birthright. It is our, what we are here for, is to protect the earth. And the STAMP Project goes a hundred percent against what we are — what we’re all about.'
"The STAMP site is located immediately adjacent to the Nation’s present-day reservation boundaries. Indeed, the most intensive manufacturing will be located along the project’s border with the Nation. However, as their Council of Chiefs has repeatedly stated in public comment letters and letters to agencies responsible for granting permits sought by the developers, the project’s approval process has continuously and egregiously undermined the Nation’s #sovereignty. In violation of their status as a federally recognized #TribalNation, the Tonawanda Band of Seneca’s Council of Chiefs – their traditional governance structure – has not been afforded a robust consultation process in decision-making about the project. Instead, opportunities for consultation have been perfunctory at best, and have focused almost exclusively on mitigation.
"In their official letter to the NYDEC regarding the proposed Part 182 Take Permit (mentioned above), the Nation’s Council of Chiefs wrote that, 'The Tonawanda Seneca Nation opposes this habitat destruction and would directly be impacted by it. The permit would allow for unmitigated incidental take on Nation lands when, inevitably, increased human presence, noise, excavation, light and traffic would disturb these species and turn them away… We do not want our Territory, people or future generations to be burdened by the negative impacts of these projects. This is a human rights issue for the Tonawanda Seneca Nation and the Haudenosaunee, who would bear a disproportionate burden from the industrialization of the land at STAMP.'
"The Council of Chiefs has demanded that a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) be carried out to assess the possible impacts on the Nation, its culture and its environment; to date there has been no such study and the 2012 STAMP EIS (which did not analyze impacts on the nation) is badly outdated."
https://globaljusticeecology.org/tonawanda-seneca-nation/
#ForestDefenders #SenecaNation #FirstNations #NativeAmericanRights #CulturalGenocide #EnvironmentalRacism #Greenwashing #HydrogenPower
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#FairyCreekBlockade #roadside #SupportCamp #memories from last Autumn.
#ForestDefenders #EarthProtectors #WaterProtectors #Indigenous #BIPOC #RainbowNation #Ecowarriors #Activists #landback #Community #ProtestCamp #friends #PortRenfrew #vanisle #VancouverIsland #PNW #PacificNorthwest #BritishColumbia #Canada #SaveOldGrowth #protectOldGrowth #WorthMoreStanding #StopEcocide #StopClearcuts #StopDeforestation #ClimateAction #ResistanceToEcocide #OneEarth #ScenesFromMyLife