#indigenousactivism — Public Fediverse posts

#ApacheStronghold at Peehee Mu'huh Locked Gates for People of Prayer

On the Journey to the Supreme Court

By Apache Stronghold, #CensoredNews
August 8, 2024

"Apache Stronghold visited Peehee Mu’huh (#ThackerPass), the second stop on the Prayer Journey to the Supreme Court [#SCOTUS] to Stop the Shattering of Human Existence and Protect #MotherEarth.

"We visited with the People of #RedMountain, who are fighting a #LithiumMine that is destroying their #SacredSite. When we arrived at the entrance to Peehee Mu’huh, we found a chain link wall with a locked gate, blocking everyone except those authorized by the mine.

"Security trucks came to go through the gate, and one of the drivers admitted that they knew the Apache Stronghold would be there with the People of Red Mountain.

"One truck drove off toward the mine, while the other driver re-locked the gate and left, emphasizing that the mining company has access to Peehee Mu’huh, but the Indigenous people who were stewards of the land since time immemorial, and all others who would go there to pray, are locked out.

"Dr. Wendsler Nosie Sr. said, 'It’s a sad reminder that people don’t know the day could come, if #OakFlat is ever transferred to #ResolutionCopper, that the acorns, #MedicinePlants, and water could be locked away behind a gate facing death at the hands of a corporation.

"'People need to come together to stop this desecration happening at Peehee Mu’huh and prevent it from happening everywhere else, before it’s too late.'

"Costanoan Rumsen #CarmelTribe said, 'We are honored to welcome and pray along side the Apache Stronghold and Protect Oak Flat on their Prayer Journey. Please join us in prayer this Saturday from 7 am-12 noon.' Chief Ya'anna Learning Village and Tuatukar Eco-Cultural Center for Indigenous Regeneration, 4500 Via Marisol, #Los AngelesCalifornia 90042.

"For those who can’t join us in person, please pray for us as we travel to the Supreme Court, and follow along on the journey here.

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/08/apache-stronghold-at-peehee-muhuh.html

#PeeHeeMuhuh #NoCopperMiningWithoutConsent #IndigenousPeoples #IndigenousNews #RioTinto CopperMine #BHP #Apache #NDAA #BigMountain #CulturalGenocide #Genocide #Arizona #ChichilBildagoteel #RioTinto #CopperMine #SanCarlosApache #Arizona #ProtectOakFlat #protectthesacred #DefendTheSacred #IndigenousActivism #SaveOakFlat #WaterIsLife #SacredSite #CopperMining #RecycleCopper #MiningWithoutConsent #ProtectTheSacred #CulturalGenocide #Ecocide #NativeAmericanNews #Greenwashing #NoMiningWithoutConsent #CorporateColonialism #PeacefulProtest

[Photos] #PrayerHorseRide to Peehee Mu'huh

Nanesootuhina Pookoo Goobakatudu

#CensoredNews, March 28, 2024
Photos by Melissa Robles-Dyer

Peehee Mu'huh (#ThackerPass) -- "The Prayer Horse Ride, March 17-26, began in Schurz on its jouney to Peehee Mu’huh, Thacker Pass. The ride is in the traditional, ancestral and #unceded lands of the #Paiute, #Shoshone and #Bannock.

"'We do this prayer ride to reconnect our way of life,' said #JoshDiniSr., #WalkerRiverPaiute, #WaterProtector and #PrayerHorseRider.

"The Prayer Horse Ride is to raise awareness about #LithiumMining in #McDermittCaldera, and also #CopperMining in the #PineNutHills, in remembrance of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women/People (#MMIW / #MMIP). Riders are revitalizing cultural identity, languages and lifeways in #Indigenous communities."

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/03/prayer-horse-ride-to-peehee-muhuh.html

#ProtectThackerPass #IndigenousActivism #IndigenousPeoples #PeeheeMuhuh #NoLithiumMining #EnvironmentalRacism #RecycleElectronics #RecycleLithium #LandBack #TraditionalLands #LithiumNevada #LithiumAmerica #RioTinto #CorporateColonialism

Advocates demand halt to #uranium #mine near the #GrandCanyon

#EnergyFuels says #nuclear power is necessary to fight #ClimateChange, but #Indigenous tribes fear losing their homes

By Matthew Rozsa
January 31, 2024

"The Grand Canyon truly lives up to its name, being the largest canyon on Earth and one of the most popular national parks in America. But due to #UraniumMining in the area, some advocates are warning it could become the site of a future #EnvironmentalDisaster, which threatens to make one Indigenous village 'extinct.'

"More than 80 groups signed onto a statement on Monday — representing Indigenous communities, scientists and environmental nonprofits such as the #SierraClub and the #CenterForBiologicalDiversity — directed at President #JoeBiden and #Arizona Gov. #KatieHobbs, demanding they close the #PinyonPlain uranium mine, which is located near the Grand Canyon.

"'We have a choice in front of us. Allowing the Pinyon Plain mine to proceed is subjecting this landscape and its interconnected waters to a legacy of devastation and disregarding the rights of the #IndigenousPeoples on the land,' Sanober Mirza, Arizona program manager for the National Parks Conservation Association, said in the statement. 'Or we can choose a different path — one that holds a promise of protecting the Grand Canyon’s cultural sanctity, its people and natural resources.'

"To understand why the mine's opponents feel so strongly, one can turn to #AmberReimondo, who work as energy director at a conservationist non-profit called the #GrandCanyonTrust. Reimondo explained to Salon by email that, on the one hand, #Biden permanently banned mining operations on nearly 1 million acres of federal managed lands by creating the #BaajNwaavjo I'tah Kukveni - Ancestral Footprints of the Grand Canyon National Monument in August 2023. Yet the Pinyon Plain mine was #exempt from this prohibition, and Reimondo argues that the impact on the region has been 'several fold.'

"'What they've created here is a long-term, slow motion #EnvironmentalDisaster."

"'The Grand Canyon region as a whole and especially the location of the mine, is deeply significant to Indigenous cultures and is a place where tribal members have conducted #ceremonies, collected medicine, hunted, and more, for centuries,' Reimondo said. 'The mine also overlies critical and complex [and] not well understood groundwater systems. One #aquifer in particular — the #RedWallMuavAquifer — is the sole source of water for the remote #HavasupaiVillage of #Supai inside the Grand Canyon. The mine poses a #contamination threat to these #groundwater resources not just today, but importantly, after the mine's mere 28-month operational lifespan has concluded and the mining operator 'cleans up' and moves on.'

"Supai is so remote, it's only accessible only by helicopter or an 8-mile mule ride or hike, Reimondo explained, noting that if the newly-oxygenated groundwater comes into contact with nearby rocks, minerals like #arsenic and #uranium will be dissolved by the groundwater and enter aquifers used by the local community and essential to local ecology, including #HavasuFalls. Taylor McKinnon, Southwest Director for the Center for Biological Diversity, expressed similar concerns.

"'Ultimately, this mine is going to require political leadership,' McKinnon told Salon in an interview, referring to both the Biden and #Hobbs administrations. 'Those administration's agencies have the authority to fix this problem if they so choose, and that's what they should do.'

"We have detailed strenuously for years that neither regulators nor industry can ensure against the permanent and irretrievable damage to Grand Canyon's aquifers and springs," McKinnon added. "This mine was approved originally in 1986, under a record of decision from the US Forest Service under a presumption that it was highly unlikely that the mine would encounter groundwater, and further unlikely that if it did, it had the potential to contaminate deeper aquifers in the springs that they feed. Subsequent state permitting from the #ArizonaDepartment OfEnvironmentalQuality has basically parroted those same assumptions.'

"Yet McKinnon alleges that in 2016 the mine punctured a perched aquifer, causing roughly 10 million gallons of water per year to drain into the mine workings. From there he asserts that a surface pond formed with water that has concentrations of uranium and arsenic far in excess of the Environmental Protection Agency (#EPA)'s water quality standards. Not only does this threaten the local endangered and endemic species, but it also impacts the nearby Havasupai tribe.

"Havasupai means 'people of the blue-green water,' McKinnon said. "It's their longstanding cultural identity, and it is the water they drink, they farm with and that provides for all of their tourism economy because it is this just a beautiful series of massive verdant waterfalls that flow through the village and down into a series of waterfalls and pools where people camp and they derive tourism dollars.'

"In a 2022 letter of opposition, the Havasupai Tribal Council, laid out what is at stake in the uranium mining controversy.

"'Our identity as a people is intrinsically intertwined with the health of #HavasuCreek and the environment to which it gives life,' the tribe’s letter explained. 'We use this water for drinking, #gardening and irrigating, municipal uses, and #cultural and #religious uses. If the water source becomes contaminated like we have seen in other areas of Arizona due to uranium mining, we will no longer be able to live in our homes and Supai Village will become extinct.'

"These fears are based on precedent. The nearby #NavajoNation is scattered with old uranium mines — over 500, in fact — awaiting cleanup, exposing locals to risk of '#LungCancer from inhalation of #radioactive particles, as well as #BoneCancer and impaired kidney function from exposure to #radionuclides in drinking water,' according to the EPA. Likewise, members of the #UteMountain #Ute tribe in #WhiteMesa, Utah have protested against uranium mines they say have contaminated local groundwater, air and even wildlife."

https://www.salon.com/2024/01/31/advocates-demand-halt-to-uranium-mine-near-the-grand-canyon/

#NoNukes #WaterIsLife #AirIsLife #CulturalGenocide #EnvironmentalRacism #CorporateColonialism #NoMining #UraniumMining #NuclearPowerNoThanks #IndigenousActivism

13 Reasons To Boycott Gold for Yanomami

Hunger for Gold in the Global North is fueling a living hell in the Global South. Here are 13 reasons to #BoycottGold4Yanomami. Take action every time you shop! Say no to gold and #BoycottGold!

Hunger for #gold in the Global North is fueling a living hell for #Indigenous people in the Global South. Here’s reasons why you should #BoycottGold4Yanomami #Yanomami #SayNoToGold @barbaranavarro 🥇🧐🔥☠️🚫@palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2021/12/07/here-are-13-reasons-why-you-should-boycottgold4yanomami/

Behind the insatiable appetite for #gold is a dark secret of money laundering, illegal #mining, environmental #ecocide and human misery. Make sure you #BoycottGold4Yanomami when you shop! 🥇☠️🔥🚜🧐❌#Boycott4Wildlife @BarbaraNavarro @palmoildetect https://palmoildetectives.com/2021/12/07/here-are-13-reasons-why-you-should-boycottgold4yanomami/

1. Gold mining = greenwashing of crime and corruption

2. Even the world’s biggest gold-importing nations don’t properly monitor the origins of their gold

3. Laundering crimes using gold is easy

4. Gold is a legal version of cocaine

5. Gold mining causes massive deforestation

6. Indigenous people have no rights

7. Brazil’s racist President, Bolsonaro allows land-grabbing to continue

8. Indigenous women and children are forced into sex slavery

9. Violence and murder in gold mining is common

10. Mercury kills ecosystems, people and animals

11. Ecosystems rarely recover from the damage – they are dead

12. Jewellery and electronics companies and criminals are the only ones who benefit from gold

13. Over a million children are forced to work in gold mines

How can I help?

1. Gold mining = greenwashing of crime and corruption

Image: Shutterstock

Back to top ↑

Just like in every other extractive industry in the developing world, palm oil, fossil fuels, gold mining goes hand-in-hand with greenwashing

https://twitter.com/Dragofix/status/1442168669891670017?s=20

https://twitter.com/BarbaraNavarro/status/1465648549371289602?s=20

https://twitter.com/GOLDCOUNCIL/status/1465719200333373448?s=20

https://twitter.com/jobeckerhrw/status/976929269346656257?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E976929269346656257%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpalmoildetectivez.wordpress.com%2F%3Fp%3D12558preview%3Dtrue

2. Even the world’s biggest gold-importing nations don’t properly monitor the origins of their gold

Image: ‘llegal gold that undermines forests and lives in the Amazon’ by Igarapé Institute

Back to top ↑

Switzerland, one of the world’s biggest gold-buying nations has weak and pathetic policies for monitoring the origin of gold

The message is loud and clear: the current system to prevent the importation and refining in Switzerland of illegal gold has been found lacking. The country’s financial watchdog reports that Customs data is not sufficiently transparent to differentiate between mined gold, bank gold and recycled gold, all of which are imported under the same code (HS 710812). This absence of identification means bars of dubious origin can easily slip through the net. The report also pinpoints inadequate legislation, compounded by underwhelming penalties: at worst, a CHF 2,000 fine.

‘Switzerland bottom of the class for gold due diligence’, Christophe Roulet, FHH Journal

3. Laundering crimes using gold is easy

Image: ‘llegal gold that undermines forests and lives in the Amazon’ by Igarapé Institute

Back to top ↑

Corruption and laundering gold is simple and easy

Since there is no way to measure whether any given land could feasibly produce the reported amount of gold, illegal miners can co-opt owners of illegal permits to ‘wash’ gold for a fee – estimated by the public prosecutor’s office at 10% of the value of the gold transaction

‘Procedural Limitations of Monitoring and Tracking the Illegal Mining Process in the Brazilian Amazon’ (2021)

In 2020, banks flagged $514.9bn suspicious transactions involving gold companies.

FinCEN Files investigations into the gold trade from around the world. Kyra Guerny, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 2020.

If there’s a crackdown in Peru, you just smuggle the gold across the border to Chile. Or if there’s a crackdown all across Latin America, then you can simply sell your gold through the Emirates, where there are very few controls. It’s a very difficult industry to completely eliminate the opportunities for money laundering, because it’s so global and you can just keep shifting your business.

‘‘Dirty Gold’ chases ‘three amigos’ from Miami to Peru and beyond’:
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

Image: ‘llegal gold that undermines forests and lives in the Amazon’ by Igarapé Institute

4. Gold is a legal version of cocaine

Image: ‘llegal gold that undermines forests and lives in the Amazon’ by Igarapé Institute

Back to top ↑

For drug cartels in South America: Gold is just like a legitimate, legal version of cocaine

“Criminal groups make so much more money from gold than from cocaine, and it’s so much easier

Ivan Díaz Corzo, a former member of Colombia’s anti-criminal-mining task force. ‘How drug lords make billions smuggling gold to Miami for your jewelry and phones‘. Miami Herald, 2018.

Drug-cartel associates posing as precious-metals traders buy and mine gold in Latin America. Cocaine profits are their seed money. They sell the metal through front companies — hiding its criminal taint — to refineries in the United States and other major gold-buying nations like Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates.

Once the deal is made, the cocaine kingpins have successfully turned their dirty gold into clean cash. To the outside world, they’re not drug dealers anymore; they’re gold traders. That’s money laundering.

‘How drug lords make billions smuggling gold to Miami for your jewelry and phones‘. Miami Herald, 2018.

5. Gold mining causes massive deforestation

Back to top ↑

Mining in Indigenous territories of the Amazon is responsible for 23% of deforestation, up from 4% in 2017

“Over the past decade, illegal mining incursions — mostly small-scale gold extraction operations — have increased fivefold on Indigenous lands and threefold in other protected areas of Brazil”

‘Illegal mining in the Amazon hits record high amid Indigenous protests’, Jeff Tollerson, Nature 2021.

“The Amazon Rainforest does not burn by itself. Behind every fire that is lit is corporate greed, like agribusiness. And behind them are the largest banks and corporations in the world. They are the ones who profit from this destruction. They profit from every centimeter of land invaded, from every tree cut and burned. In the flames, they see money.”

Sônia Guajajara, executive director of the Association of Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples (APIB).

6. Indigenous Yanomami have no rights to their land

Image: ‘llegal gold that undermines forests and lives in the Amazon’ by Igarapé Institute

Back to top ↑

Venezuela’s illegitimate Maduro regime has rolled back Indigenous rights to stop Yanomami from protesting against gold mining

Venezuela’s constitution recognises its indigenous populations, yet their rights are trampled by the illegitimate Maduro criminal regime. The land is also occupied by armed Colombian groups and others working for the Maduro regime, which seeks to profit from selling the illegally mined minerals.

‘Under Maduro regime, indigenous people suffer’, Noelani Kirschner, Share America, 2020.

7. Brazil’s racist President, Bolsonaro allows land-grabbing from indigenous people

Image: Transparency International

Back to top ↑

Far Right president Jair Bolsonaro’s racist policies in Brazil call for an increase in gold mining, palm oil and cattle grazing and the ‘integration’ of Indigenous people

More than 15% of the national territory is demarcated as indigenous land and quilombolas. Less than a million people live in these truly isolated places in Brazil, exploited and manipulated by NGOs. Let’s together integrate these citizens and value all Brazilians.

Jair Bolsonaro

https://twitter.com/jairbolsonaro/status/1080468589298229253?s=20

“We are experiencing an emergency to defend indigenous lives and our territories. We need the world to know this, and to do its part. Indigenous land: not an inch less. Indigenous blood: not a single drop more.”

Sônia Guajajara, executive director of the Association of Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples (APIB).

8. Indigenous women and children are forced into sex slavery

Back to top ↑

Sex trafficking is common by women and children, as indigenous people’s traditional means of survival on the land is taken from them

The scale of sex trafficking and paedophilia around illegal gold mines in parts of Latin America is staggering. Thousands of people working there fall prey to labor exploitation by organised crime groups, simply because they have to survive. Girls as young as 12 working in the brothels and bars around illegal gold mines.

‘Sex trafficking ‘staggering’ in illegal Latin American gold mines: researchers’ By Anastasia Moloney, Thomson Reuters Foundation, 2016.

Mining regions in the rainforest have become epicenters of human trafficking, disease and environmental destruction, according to government officials and human rights investigators. Miners are forced into slavery. Prostitutes set up camps near the miners, fueling the spread of sexually transmitted infections. One human rights group found that 2,000 sex workers, 60 percent of them children, were employed in a single mining area in Peru. Meanwhile, strip mining and the indiscriminate use of mercury to ferret out gold are turning swaths of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems into a nightmarish moonscape. In 2016, Peru declared a temporary state of emergency over widespread mercury poisoning in Madre de Dios, a jungle province rife with illegal mining. Nearly four in five adults in the area’s capital city tested positive for dangerous levels of mercury…”

Barbara Navarro

9. Violence and murder in gold mining is common

Back to top ↑

Gold miners are controlled by fear of having their fingers cut off or of being executed

The illegitimate Maduro regime both controls the illegal gold mining and turns a blind eye to environmental and human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch report collected testimonials from Venezuelan gold miners. The report revealed that miners are kept under tight control by syndicates of armed criminals, such as the guerilla organisation FARC, also known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and the ELN, also known as the National Liberation Army. If miners or other members of the public are caught stealing they have their fingers publicly cut off or are killed.

‘Venezuela: Violent Abuses in Illegal Gold Mines’, Human Rights Watch, 2020.

10. Mercury used in gold mining kills ecosystems, people and animals

Back to top ↑

Deadly mercury is used to extract gold out of the sludge. This poisons and kills everything in its path

Firstly, water cannons blast away river banks. After this, toxic mercury is used by miners to extract gold from the sediment. After the process, the dumping of mercury contaminates the soil and seeps into the air and water. This permanently destroys the water table, dispersing mercury 100’s of miles away, contaminating fishing stocks, animals and humans. Both people and animals in gold mining regions have high levels of mercury present in their bodies, leading to chronic illnesses and problems with brain function.

‘The New Gold Rush’, Wake Forest University, 2018.

Infographic: Illegal Gold Mining Chain Peru by Insight Crime

11. Ecosystems rarely recover from the damage – they are dead

Back to top ↑

“Gold mining significantly limits the regrowth of Amazonian forests, and greatly reduces their ability to accumulate carbon. Recovery rates on abandoned mining pits and tailing ponds were among the lowest ever recorded for tropical forests, compared to recovery from agriculture and pasture.”

‘Gold mining leaves deforested Amazon land barren for years, find scientists’ The Conversation, July 1, 2020.

12. Jewellery and electronics companies and criminals are the only ones who benefit from gold

Image: ‘lllegal gold that undermines forests and lives in the Amazon’ by Igarapé Institute

Back to top ↑

Venezuelan gold from Yanomami territories is laundered and ends up in global brands of jewellery and electronics

An investigation of mercury trafficking networks in the Amazon reveals how Venezuelan gold is laundered into legitimate supply chains and could end up in products made by the world’s biggest corporations.

Image: ‘lllegal gold that undermines forests and lives in the Amazon’ by Igarapé Institute

The tainted gold leaves the refineries in glittering bars stamped with their logos, and is sold to international corporations that incorporate the precious metal in our phones, computers, cars, and other technologies.

Mercury: Chasing the Quicksilver by InfoAmazonia

13. More than a million children work in gold mining around the world

Image: Survival

Back to top ↑

There are more than 1 million children working in goldmines around the world. Some of this gold ends up in our mobile telephones. This is the conclusion of the study conducted by SOMO Centre for Research in recent months, which was commissioned by Stop Child Labour.

Every year, the electronics industry uses 279,000 kg of gold with a value of more than 10 billion euros. Making it the third largest buyer of gold after the jewellery industry and the financial sector. Even though nearly all electronics companies state that they do not accept child labour, they are almost doing nothing to actively eradicate child labour in goldmines.

Gold, Child Labour and Electronics

How can I help?

Image: ‘lllegal gold that undermines forests and lives in the Amazon’ by Igarapé Institute

Back to top ↑

Here’s some actions you can take every day to stop the corruption, destruction and human rights abuses associated with gold mining.

1. Raise your voice online for the Yanomami using the hashtag #BoycottGold4Yanomami

Share this article along with many articles by Indigenous Activist Barbara Crane Navarro about this issue on social media using the hashtag #BoycottGold4Yanomami

Image: Barbara Crane Navarro

2. Stop buying gold jewellery and investing in gold

Put your money where your mouth is and don’t support this corrupt and evil industry.

3. Buy vintage second-hand gold jewellery – don’t buy new gold

This makes a unique and special gift for the one you love. It also does not require more mining to get the gold jewellery. This is the ONLY form of sustainable gold jewellery.

Image: ‘lllegal gold that undermines forests and lives in the Amazon’ by Igarapé Institute

4. Don’t fall for the luxury advertising of jewellery brands like Chopard, Tiffany&Co, Cartier, Bvlgari etc.

Don’t be a sucker for luxury. Remember the reality of what gold and diamond mining is doing to the natural world and to Indigenous people.

Image: ‘lllegal gold that undermines forests and lives in the Amazon’ by Igarapé Institute

5. Fix and repair old mobile phones and laptops rather than buying new ones containing gold

This can be hard with the planned obsolescence of a lot of technology (in other words the short lifespan). However all we can do is do our best. Also you can pressure tech brands to make their goods more long-lasting and repairable and cite this as a critical reason why their industry is corrupt, greedy and needs to change.

Image: ‘lllegal gold that undermines forests and lives in the Amazon’ by Igarapé Institute

6. Support Indigenous Rights NGOs that actually stop landgrabbing in the Amazon, Africa and elsewhere like Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB)

APIB recently successfully took the Brazilian government and Bolsonaro to court for ecocide and deforestation. Avoid supporting NGO’s that do very little other than virtue-signalling, like Survival.

6. Follow Barbara Crane Navarro on Twitter and WordPress

She has spent decades fighting for the Yanomami people.

• WordPress
• Facebook
• Twitter

Images: Barbara Crane Navarro

Back to top ↑