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#indigenousrights — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #indigenousrights, aggregated by home.social.

  1. We all knew this could happen!!!

    #Uranium Ore Truck Collision Endangered #Navajos near #Shonto on #NavajoNation

    May 11, 2026, via @bsnorrell.blogspot.com

    "A uranium ore haul truck traveling from a uranium mine in the Havasupai's homeland in the Grand Canyon, to a mill site in the White Mesa Ute's community in Utah, was struck by a vehicle, which exposes the danger from the #radioactive haul trucks covered only with tarps. The trucks travel from #EnergyFuels #PinyonPlain #UraniumMine in the #GrandCanyon, from #Havasupai ancestral land, through #Flagstaff, and across #Navajo and #Hopi lands before reaching Energy Fuels mill site on Ute ancestral land in #Utah." -- Censored News

    Read more:
    bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2026/05

    #USPol #NativeAmericanNews #PinyonPlainUraniumMine #NoUraniumMining #UraniumMilling #NuclearColonialism #TheLongFight #WhiteMesa #Ute #WhiteMesaUte #UraniumMilling #ProtectWhiteMesa #BlandingUtah #BluffUtah #EnvironmentalActivism
    #PinyonPlain #IndigenousRights
    #NoUranium #ProtectTheSacred
    #WhiteMesaUte #WhiteMesaMill #WhiteMesaUraniumMill
    #WaterIsLife #DontNukeTheFuture
    #NoUraniumMining #NukingTheUte
    #UteNation #NoNukes #FourCornersToFukushima #MotherEarth #ProtectMotherEarth
    #DefendTheSacred #Environment
    #EnvironmentalRacism

  2. RSL Considers 'Welcome to Country' Policy Amid Anzac Day Incidents

    RSL Australia will review its rules for 'Welcome to Country' speeches after Indigenous speakers were booed at Anzac Day services.

    #RSLAustralia, #WelcomeToCountry, #AnzacDay, #IndigenousRights, #Community

    newsletter.tf/rsl-review-welco

  3. *The #Saugeen #FirstPeoples won their lawsuit 👏 Appeals court dismissed #Ontario government's appeal. Justice was finally served.*

    Ontario's top court has upheld a lower court's ruling that a strip of #SaubleBeach, a popular Ontario tourist spot, has always belonged to a local #FirstNation.

    In a 121-page decision on Monday, the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed appeals brought by the Municipality of South #BrucePeninsula, the Ontario government, and several local families to the April 2023 ruling by Superior Court Justice Susan Vella.

    "Justice was done today," said Saugeen First Nation Chief Conrad Ritchie in a statement, calling it a "powerful moment" for the Saugeen community.

    In her 2023 decision, Vella ruled that "Chi-Cmiinh," a roughly two-kilometre strip of beach at the northern end of Saugeen Reserve No. 29, had always belonged to Chippewas of Saugeen First Nation, and that the federal government breached its treaty rights.

    The Crown, Vella wrote, failed to protect and preserve the #treaty it signed in 1854, Treaty 72, in which the First Nation and neighbouring #Chippewas of Nawash surrendered Saugeen Peninsula, excluding five #Indigenous reserve territories. One would become #ReserveNo29.

    cbc.ca/amp/1.7405601

    #GoodNews #CDNpoli #ONpoli #FirstNationsJustice #JusticeServed #NativeCanada #IndigenousCanada #IndigenousRights #HumanRights #GovernmentOfCanada #HonourTheTreaties #FirstNations #Legal #CanadianLaw #TruthBeforeReconciliation #OntarioLaw #lawsuit #UNDRIP

  4. A Vancouver Island First Nation whose people were the first to greet European explorers in the region almost 250 years ago is taking British Columbia to court, seeking title to their traditional territories and financial compensation.

    Chief Mike Maquinna, a descendent of #ChiefMaquinna who met British explorer Capt. James Cook in 1776, says the claim in #BCSupremeCourt seeks to return decision-making, resource and ecological stewardship to the #Mowachaht / #Muchalalaht First Nation.

    He says the province has been acting as the sole decision-making authority in the #GoldRiver / #Tahsis areas of northern #VancouverIsland especially with regards to the forest resource, without the consent of his nation.

    Hereditary Chief Jerry Jack says the claim filed today seeks title to about 66,000 hectares of land from #FriendlyCove to Tahsis in the north and #ButtleLake in the east, and an undisclosed amount of financial compensation.

    cheknews.ca/vancouver-island-f

    #BCpoli #CDNpoli #IndigenousBC #BCFirstNations #NativeCanada #BCNDP #IndigenousCanada #IndigenousRights #HumanRights #GovernmentOfCanada #NoConsent #Landback #FirstNations #TruthBeforeReconciliation #Reparations #Decolonization #Colonialism #IndigenousJustice #UNDRIP #Legal #BCLaw #CanadianLaw #Lawsuit #Justice

  5. #RecommendedReading for #Decolonial #Education. #Free #OpenAccess report.

    About Murder by Decree

    Murder by Decree is an #uncensored #record of the planned #extermination of #IndigenousChildren in #Canada’s murderous Indian #ResidentialSchools. It is issued as a corrective #CounterReport to the miscarriage of #justice by Church and State known as the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” #TRC. Based on eyewitness #testimonies and #archival #documentation deliberately suppressed or ignored by the TRC, Murder by Decree proves that the #genocide of #IndigenousPeople began as a religion-led campaign and continues to be a deliberate governmental policy in Canada. This Counter Report reveals these startling facts: – Over half of Indian residential school children began dying the very first year these church-run facilities were opened – This huge mortality rate continued unabated for over a half century because of deliberate practices of germ warfare according to a prescribed monthly “death quota” – Evidence of these crimes and their intentional nature has been continually destroyed by the RCMP and the #Catholic, #Anglican and #UnitedChurch since at least 1960 – The same genocide continues today, is aimed at indigenous women and children, and is driven by foreign corporate interests hungry for #NativeLands and resources Murder by Decree is issued by The International Tribunal for the Disappeared of Canada (ITDC), an international #coalition of #jurists and #HumanRights groups. The ITDC was formed in December, 2015 to investigate the disappearance of people in Canada, prosecute those responsible and prevent a further #whitewash by Canada of its #CrimesAgainstHumanity. This report is an answer to these #crimes and an urgent summons to the world and to all #Canadians to live no longer under #genocidal #regimes.

    Published by the #ITDC Central Offices in #Brussels and #Toronto. For more information write to [email protected] .

    murderbydecree.com/

    #CDNpoli #IndigenousRights #ColonialViolence #CoverUp #KKKanada #FirstNations #NativeCanada #IndigenousCanada #Decolonization #DecolonizeYourMind #NativeRights #UNDRIP #Injustices #ColonialCrimes #TruthBeforeReconciliation

  6. I LOVE this so much. Maori MPs in the New Zealand parliament protest attempts by the centre-right government and far-right "ACT" coalition partners to pass legislation that water down treaty rights of Maori.

    New Zealand is one of the only places (the only?) in the British Empire where the Crown signed a treaty with all Indigenous peoples at the time of contact. It has shaped NZ Law and Society ever since!

    Thank you to @b9AcE for the video.
    #NZPoli #IndigenousRights #CanPoli

  7. via @arizonamirror

    If #Hobbs is serious about protecting #groundwater, she must work to close the #mining loophole

    by Russ McSpadden
    February 12, 2024

    "In her first State of the State address just over a year ago, Gov. #KatieHobbs was unequivocal about her commitment to tackling one of the state’s greatest challenges: our dwindling #water supply.

    “Our groundwater should be used to support #Arizonans, not foreign business interests,” she said in that speech, referring to the Saudi Arabian conglomerate #Fondomonte. Over the past few years, Fondomonte has been pumping unlimited amounts of groundwater in La Paz County for alfalfa crops that it ships to feed cows on the other side of the earth.

    "Though the Hobbs administration has already canceled one of Fondomonte’s four leases and says it won’t renew the others when they’re up this month, the problem doesn’t end with Saudi agriculture.

    "It’s also mining companies that take advantage of loopholes in the state’s water laws to maximize profit at the expense of Arizonans — including mining giants #RioTinto and# BHP.

    "Because of intense pressure from #lobbyists, when lawmakers adopted the much-heralded #ArizonaGroundwaterManagementAct in 1980 they exempted #mines from groundwater regulation, even when located in #ActiveManagement Areas — state-designated areas where groundwater pumping is controlled. That means that mines can pump unlimited amounts of water without paying the state a dime.

    "This exemption was controversial in 1980. Today it’s existentially dangerous.

    #ResolutionCopper, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto and BHP, is a perfect example. Their proposed mine at #OakFlat — about 70 miles east of #Phoenix in the #TontoNationalForest and within the Phoenix Active Management Area — would pump 250 billion gallons of desert groundwater over the life of the project.

    "That’s 17 million gallons of water every day for four decades.

    "Under current water prices, that equates to $404 million worth of groundwater that Resolution Copper will get for free. Arizona won’t see a cent for it. And it’s more than likely that the copper ore from Oak Flat will be exported to China for smelting, again depriving local communities of economic benefit.

    "This limitless pumping would happen even as the #megadrought that has plagued the #AmericanSouthwest for the past two decades is likely to worsen, straining the #ColoradoRiver and #Gila rivers even more and making us all more reliant on groundwater aquifers.

    "If left intact, the mining loophole will facilitate construction of Resolution’s massive mine. The extreme water pumping from the #EastSaltRiverValley will lead to groundwater depletion and subsidence, threatening to deplete wells and damage infrastructure.

    "The #CenterForBiologicalDiversity, where I work, has been fighting for decades to stop this mine, and Canadian mining company Hudbay’s disastrous plan to mine for copper in the #SantaRita Mountains south of #Tucson (in the Tucson Active Management Area).

    "Both projects would devastate surrounding fragile #ecosystems, pushing endangered species like the #MexicanSpottedOwl closer to the brink of #extinction. They would also destroy sacred #TribalLands and gulp down massive amounts of water when other users are being asked to conserve.

    "Handing mines unlimited access to Arizona’s precious desert groundwater would be an injustice to Arizona’s #Tribes and every resident of this state.

    "Fortunately, Hobbs has the vision and courage to fight for a secure water future for Arizona. It is time for her to work with legislators to close the mining loophole in Arizona water law and subject mines to the same groundwater pumping limits that apply to other entities within the state’s Active Management Areas.

    "We’re hopeful she will work to block #ResolutionCopperMine and other terrible mining projects like #Hudbay’s. At the very least, it’s time for mining giants to pay for the water they use just like the rest of us."

    azmirror.com/2024/02/12/if-hob

    #WaterIsLife #HumanRightsViolations #CulturalGenocide #CopperMining #Mining #CorporateColonialism #EnvironmentalRacism #IndigenousNews #SaveOakFlat #IndigenousRights #Apache

  8. #IndigenousActivists are risking their lives for #butterflies

    In #CentralMexico’s forests, armed community members defend an iconic butterfly from cartel-backed logging.

    By Anjan Sundaram Dec 20, 2023

    "Every winter, northwest of Mexico City, the branches of the Oyamel fir trees ignite in orange, colored by the wings of #MonarchButterflies that have made the epic journey south from Canada and the United States.

    "The forest is home to the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, created by presidential decree in 1986 and designated as a Unesco World Heritage site in 2008. The reserve shelters nearly 90 percent of the region’s over-wintering monarch butterfly population.

    "Despite the fact that the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve is internationally protected, decades of degradation of the forest have posed an existential threat to this fragile ecosystem. Over the past four decades, the number of winter roosting sites for the butterflies in the reserve has fallen by over 50 percent, driven in part by illegal logging.

    "After researchers found that 10 percent of total canopy cover had been lost between 2001 and 2012, the Mexican government ramped up enforcement of laws prohibiting logging. Government raids on illegal sawmills in the reserve sharply reduced logging. Yet according to an analysis by the World Wildlife Fund, the rate of forest degradation in the reserve tripled in 2022.

    "To protect these forests — one of the few remaining wintering refuges for migrating monarchs — the local #Mazahua Indigenous community in Crescencio Morales has established its own security force.

    "As these self-described forest defenders from Crescensio Morales fight to protect the monarch butterfly’s refuge, Indigenous leaders took the global stage at the United Nations annual climate change summit in Dubai to wage this battle on a second front: to convince world leaders to recognize the dangers environmental land defenders, particularly in Latin America, face and to build stronger mechanisms to support them.

    "Around the world, environmental activists face increasing violence

    "As their weapons indicate, the world’s environmental defenders need defending. Every day, the councils of Crescencio Morales’ guardia comunales work in shifts, patrolling their community as well as the boundary of the Monarch Biosphere Reserve. They say they are threatened by #sicarios, cartel #hitmen, who also benefit from the #IllegalTrade, and are allied with clandestine loggers who camp in the surrounding forests. The guardia comunales run well-armed patrols through their territories to prevent the sicarios from expanding their territories and cutting down the precious Oyamel fir trees.

    "These conflicts put environmental #activists at great risk. Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised to stop such violence, but the country remains among the world’s deadliest for those defending its pristine ecosystems. In January 2020, the body of the anti-logging activist and monarch butterfly defender #HomeroGómezGonzalez was found in a community near Crescencio. Activists suspect his death was connected to illegal logging disputes, the Guardian reported.

    "The pressures that Mexico’s Indigenous activists face are emblematic of similar conflicts arising globally. Communities like Crescencio Morales are on the front lines of a battle to protect their local environment from a mounting scramble for natural resources, amplified by corruption.

    "Members of Crescencio Morales’s community told me that in addition to fighting the illegal loggers, they also protect their forested mountains from #mining companies seeking to extract #gold, #silver, and #copper#minerals now in high demand as the world transitions to clean energy technologies.
    Land defenders around the world — in countries including Mexico, #Brazil, The Democratic Republic of the #Congo, and the #Philippines — face increasing violence as they defend their territories, according to #GlobalWitness, an accountability nonprofit that studies the link between #NaturalResources, #conflict, and #corruption. A 2023 investigation by the organization found that nearly 2,000 #activists have been killed over the last decade for their efforts to protect the planet, many of them from Indigenous communities trying to preserve their ecological heritage.

    "The majority of recorded killings of #LandDefenders in 2022 took place in #LatinAmerica, making the continent perhaps the most dangerous place for #EnvironmentalDefense.

    "#IndigenousLands include some of the planet’s most threatened landscapes

    "The Mexican constitution protects the right of Indigenous communities’ self-determination — which, among other forms of #sovereignty, allows them to govern their land communally. In 2023, more than 50 percent of Mexico’s land fell under these legal regimes, termed #TierraComunal or #TierraEjidal — which roughly translates to communal land. This, according to a study by the Rights and Resources Initiative, is the highest percentage of land collectively owned by Indigenous and local communities of any country in the #Americas.

    "This unique aspect of #MexicanIndigenous heritage means that broad swaths of land in Mexico remain protected. Yet mounting effects from climate change as well as political and economic pressures mean that some of Mexico’s Indigenous communities have been forced to block highways in protest and appeal for help to protect themselves, their communities, their ecosystems, and their way of life.

    "#Mexico’s unique legal regime is especially important for Crescencio Morales because it offers communities in the area, with deep historical and cultural ties to the monarch butterflies, the legal authority to protect the reserve. But the law can only do so much to protect the refuge and its migrating butterflies from illegal logging pressure.

    "To prevent destruction of the Monarch Biosphere Reserve, Indigenous activists have taken their security and that of the butterflies’ precious trees into their own hands. When I visited Crescencio Morales earlier this year, I walked with a community policeman named Aurelio during an armed patrol along his community’s border. (We are withholding his identity and using a pseudonym to protect him from being targeted by local violence.) At the summit of one of the hills surrounding the community, Aurelio told me Crescencio Morales had been forced to arm itself to protect its people, butterflies, and #Forests.

    "The security situation in towns such as #CrescencioMorales is complex. According to other community leaders I spoke with this year, who wished to remain anonymous due to security risks, the locals did not trust the army or the state police, which they often suspected of cutting business deals with the cartels. Armed security volunteers who protected the community from #taladores, the illegal loggers, patrolled their town in pickup trucks.

    "These hyperlocal battles — on highways and in open warfare by the #GuardiasComunales — have larger stakes: Mexican Indigenous environmental activists are defending landscapes that have implications for global #biodiversity. Without their efforts, environmentalists fear systemic #deforestation from illegal logging, which would not only destroy habitat for vulnerable species but also increase the #GreenhouseGas emissions that further drive #ClimateChange. And without the preservation of the Crescencio Morales Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, an important chain in a migration that connects ecosystems from Canada to Mexico would be severed."

    Full article:
    vox.com/climate/24006471/cop28

    #ForestDefenders #JusticeForHomero #DirectAction #CriminalizingDissent #DefendTheForest #IndigenousRights #Extinction #EnvironmentalActivists #ClimateActivists #ClimateJustice #Fascism #DirectAction #SilencingDissent #CorporateColonialism #EcoActivists

  9. Here’s what’s at stake for #Indigenous peoples at #COP28

    Negotiations happen behind closed doors, but for Indigenous peoples, “a lot of work happens in the hallways.”

    by Anita Hofschneider, Nov 29, 2023

    “Ozawa Bineshi Albert wants the world to stop relying on #FossilFuels. So last year, the co-executive director of #ClimateJusticeAlliance flew from the U.S. to Egypt to make her voice heard at COP27, the international conference on climate change where world leaders gather to negotiate new commitments to battle the #ClimateCrisis.

    ”But at COP27, Albert, who is Anishinaabe and Yuchi, noticed that Indigenous peoples like herself were outnumbered by fossil fuel #lobbyists. She was also struck by how many people touted #nuclear energy as an alternative to burning #oil and #gas

    '#Nuclear is one of the most dirty, damaging energy sources, particularly for #IndigenousPeople,' she thought. 'It touches Indigenous communities all along its lifecycle from where it gets #mined, to where it gets #processed, to where #NuclearPower plants are placed, to where #NuclearWaste gets stored.'

    “That observation was just one indication of how the perspectives, and experiences, of Indigenous peoples aren’t always reflected in the broader #EnvironmentalMovement. As COP28 kicks off in the United Arab Emirates this week, hundreds of Indigenous advocates are making their way to Dubai with the hope of ensuring that their communities aren’t overlooked by global leaders.

    “Though the conference doesn’t officially begin until Thursday, the work has already started. Jennifer Tauli Corpuz is Kankanaey-Igorot from the Philippines and is managing director of policy at Nia Tero. She spent eight hours Tuesday in an auditorium with about 350 fellow members of the #IndigenousPeoplesCaucus, a delegation representing Native peoples, working on the details of a two-minute opening statement that the Caucus will be allowed to give during COP28’s opening ceremony. Corpuz says it’s not easy to distill everyone’s perspectives and issues into such a short statement and the work required interpreters in five languages. 

    “Apart from ending fossil fuel reliance, Indigenous advocates at COP28 want to ensure that funding to offset the impacts of #ClimateChange reaches their communities; ensure Indigenous knowledge is seen as a solution to climate change; and prevent governments and private actors from violating their rights, especially as those actors pursue #GreenEnergy projects. 

    “Corpuz said the caucus plans to approve advocacy papers outlining their positions Wednesday. Then comes the work of convincing negotiators to listen. But it’s not easy. 

    “The estimated 350 Indigenous peoples at COP28 is an attendance record for Native advocates, but it’s still far fewer than the 600 fossil fuel lobbyists who attended COP27 last year. As well, the most important work at the conference, negotiating the exact language of international climate change treaties, gets done behind closed doors among designated representatives from United Nations member countries. 

    “Corpuz estimates that perhaps 20 of the 350 #IndigenousPeople at COP28 this week have government badges that allow them access to negotiations. But even then, because they aren’t credentialed delegates representing a negotiating party, they are only able to watch and listen, not speak, she said.

    “Still, it’s an improvement over past years when Indigenous peoples’ representatives were locked out from even more rooms, said Corpuz. At least now Indigenous representatives will be able to hear the details of the negotiations, the perspectives of international representatives, and carry the information back for advocates to lobby government delegates. 'A lot of the work of the Indigenous Caucus happens in the hallways,' Corpuz said.

    “A key question that’s expected to be decided this year is how much money wealthy nations like the U.S. should pay in order to cover the costs of climate disasters in the Global South, an initiative known as the loss and damage fund. One study estimates that nations in the Global North are responsible for 92% of excess carbon emissions each year, compared with 8% in the Global South.

    “‘What’s at stake is how these finance mechanisms are going to impact and be accessible to Indigenous communities and other impacted communities, how they will be funded, and to what levels will they be funded,' Albert said. 'And will those resources actually get to communities and not be taken up by agencies that will administer them?' 

    “Eriel Deranger of the #Athabasca #Chipewyan #FirstNation in #Canada and executive director of Indigenous Climate Action, thinks that it makes sense that wealthy countries would be paying for climate impacts, but Deranger also wants the money to be available to Indigenous people no matter what country they live in due to already extreme climate impacts, many of which are exacerbated by #colonization and #LandTheft .

    “‘If Canada, for example, or the U.S. is contributing to the loss and damage fund and we don’t have access to it as Indigenous people in North America or in the Global North, where are we going to see those kind of climate reparations and restitution for the damages that we are facing from the climate crisis?' Deranger asked. 

    “But money is only part of the equation, said Kandi White, a citizen of the #Mandan, #Hidatsa, and #Arikara Nations in the U.S. and program director at the Indigenous Environmental Network, which sent a 25-member delegation to Dubai. 'For Indigenous peoples, it’s not just about the money, but it’s also about the return of our #sovereignty over our lands,' said White.  

    “That sovereignty has been threatened by #landgrabs, including recent #landdeals between a #UnitedArabEmirates company and five #African nations for the #CarbonCredit trade, White said. The land deals were touted as a way to help conserve land and offset #pollution, but White is concerned about whether the Indigenous people living there truly #consented to the plan as well as how they’ll be affected. It’s part of a broader pattern of conservation deals that are creating conflict in Indigenous territories around the world.

    “Both Deranger and White, who are in Dubai this week, also hope to establish a grievance procedure through which Indigenous peoples whose rights are infringed upon could hold governments accountable. 'We need there to not just be lip service of, ‘We recognize Indigenous rights,’ but we need to see language that has teeth,' Deranger said. 

    “But securing that level of accountability may be an uphill battle. Even when world leaders make promises, they don’t always fulfill them: wealthy countries blew a 2020 deadline to spend $100 billion a year to help poorer nations cope with climate impacts and make progress toward #decarbonization. One study suggested that goal may have been met last year, two years late, even as the world hurtles toward 3 degrees of warming.

    “The combined challenges—a lack of access to negotiating tables and tepid commitments by global leaders—have fueled disillusionment. Moñeka De Oro, who is Chamorro from the Mariana Islands and co-executive director of the #Micronesia Climate Change Alliance, says that last year at COP some Indigenous Caucus members discussed boycotting the convention, 'no longer being a part of these processes that continuously degrade our input,' she said. 

    “De Oro recently helped draft a declaration for peace, unity and climate justice in the Pacific to be read at COP that called for a future free of #colonialism and #militarization. But as much as she believes in that message, she joined a boycott of this year’s convention with Grassroots Global Justice Alliance protesting the Israeli government’s war on Gaza, and questions whether to attend future meetings. 

    "'If you’re going to continue to continuously be ignored and continuously be just erased from the entire process, I don’t know how much longer we want to be complicit in attending these sorts of things,' she said.

    “The power imbalances can be discouraging but Ozawa Bineshi Albert still feels determined. 

    “‘#COP is not a place that we go to thinking we’re going to get everything we want,' she said. To her, the overarching question is: 'How can we make sure that we at least hold the line and make sure the least amount of damage and the least amount of harm is caused to frontline and Indigenous communities?’”

    grist.org/global-indigenous-af

    #IndigenousRights #ClimateJustice #IndigenousConsent #EnvironmentalRacism #BigOilAndGas