indigenous

• At this year’s U.N. climate conference, COP28, Indigenous delegates numbered more than 300, but were left generally disappointed with the outcomes of the event.
• The final agreement had little inclusion of Indigenous rights and excluded an Indigenous representative from sitting on the board of the newly launched loss and damage fund.
• Indigenous groups say two big climate mitigation strategies, the clean energy transition and carbon markets, should include robust protection of Indigenous rights and consent.
• Despite setbacks, Indigenous leaders say they’re working on increasing their presence and influence at the next climate conferences, including upping their numbers to 3,000 delegates, creating a large international Indigenous Commission, and taking part in the summit’s decision-making.

This year’s U.N. climate conference, COP28, featured much-improved Indigenous representation from last year’s event. Yet despite intensive lobbying by the more than 300 delegates, most Indigenous and civil society leaders were left disappointed at the end of the summit in Dubai.

“You see Indigenous leaders and Indigenous youth in every corner of the venue … Yet our rights and knowledge continue to be relegated to the sidelines in negotiations,” Sarah Hanson, a member of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change (IIPFCC), said at a press conference.

“We are not here simply for your photo opportunities. We are rights holders under the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and must be at the decision-making table,” she added, referring to the international human rights standard for Indigenous groups.

This year’s conference was especially important as countries conducted the Global Stocktake, a review of the world’s progress in reaching the 2015 Paris Agreement’s commitment to limit the global average temperature rise to 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

While nations agreed to a loss and damage fund to help the countries most impacted by climate change, as well as to transition away from fossil fuels and conserve biodiversity in line with the U.N. biodiversity framework, Indigenous delegates also see holes in the final agreement. Not only did COP28 not act with the urgency scientists say is required, they said, but Indigenous peoples and their rights were left unprotected.

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Tempers are running high in Klaaskreek, a village 50 miles south of Suriname’s capital, Paramaribo. Local officials and residents meet weekly to pool what they know about three groups of unwelcome new settlers in the area: Mennonite farmers.

Klaaskreek is located in Brokopondo, a hilly district predominantly settled by Saamaka Maroons, who fled from the plantations during the days of slavery. The area, newly popular with tourists, is known for its 1960s-era reservoir and hydroelectric plant, timber concessions, goldmines and fertile land. It is this last resource that is proving attractive to Mennonites.

The Mennonites are a Christian sect that originated in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany in the 16th century, following the teachings of the Anabaptist preacher and religious reformer Menno Simons. Seeking seclusion, religious freedom and agricultural land for their large families, Mennonite groups, who often speak a Dutch-German dialect, started settling in Latin America more than 100 years ago after migrating from western Europe to Russia and from there to the Americas.

In a country scarred by colonialism and the legacy of slavery, what bothers local people most is the lack of detailed information from the government about the new settlements. Suriname’s president, Chandrikapersad Santokhi, has said only that the government granted permission to settle to 50 Mennonite families, who will most likely come from Bolivia.

According to Santokhi, it will be a three-year pilot project. “The state will not provide land to the group. They will also not be eligible for land belonging to tribal communities,” the president assured parliament recently.

The company behind the arrival of the Mennonite settlers is Terra Invest, which is owned by Ruud Souverein, a Dutch businessman based in Suriname, and his Argentinian business partner, Adrián Barbero. Souverein says he has been working with Mennonites for three years and that Barbero has been doing the same in Latin American countries for 25 years.

Souverein confirmed to the Guardian that 50 Mennonite families from Bolivia, Belize and Mexico intend to settle in the country. On their behalf, Terra Invest is looking for a total of 50,000 hectares (125,000 acres) of land, to be divided between the three communities. “That’s the same as 0.4% of Suriname’s land,” he says, showing the official letter in which the president of Suriname confirms the settlements.

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Sunday’s referendum will be the second time in as many years that Chileans have voted for a revised constitution.

For more than a decade, architect Julio Ñanco Antilef has campaigned to rewrite Chile’s constitution, a relic from when General Augusto Pinochet ruled the country as a military dictator.

But now, as Chile prepares to vote on a new draft, Ñanco Antilef finds himself in a paradoxical position: hoping to keep the old version in place. “It’s not that we are defending Pinochet’s constitution. It’s just that this proposal is worse,” he told Al Jazeera in a recent interview.

A member of the Democratic Revolution party, Ñanco Antilef was one of the few left-wing representatives to participate in the Constitutional Council that drafted the new version, which is set to go before voters on Sunday. Rather, it was Chile’s far-right Republican Party that led the drafting process, holding 22 of the council’s 50 seats.

The result, critics say, is a draft that favours right-wing priorities at the expense of historically marginalised groups, including Chile’s Indigenous peoples. “It is tied to a business model and favours individual interests rather than collective ones,” said Ñanco Antilef, himself of Indigenous Mapuche descent.

Now, he and other Indigenous Chileans are pushing for voters to reject the draft constitution, even if that means the country will be stuck with the Pinochet-era version for the foreseeable future.

“We are 13 percent of the population,” said Alihuén Antileo Navarrete, a Mapuche lawyer elected to represent Chile’s Indigenous peoples on the council. He argues the draft constitution deliberately “excludes” Indigenous voices from government.

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• Brazil’s Congress has pushed through a new law that includes several anti-Indigenous measures that strip back land rights and open traditional territories to mining and agribusiness.
• It includes the controversial time frame thesis, requiring Indigenous populations to prove they physically occupied their land on Oct. 5 1988, the day of the promulgation of the Federal Constitution; failure to provide such evidence will nullify demarcated land. The decision provoked outrage among activists, who say the new law is the biggest setback for Indigenous rights in Brazil in decades.
• Both President Lula and the Supreme Court have previously called the measures in the bill unconstitutional and against public interests, and Indigenous organizations announced they will challenge the law.
• Brazil’s Congress has pushed through a new law containing a series of anti-Indigenous and anti-environmental clauses, overruling President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s previous veto of some of the bill’s most harmful passages. Activists have lambasted the decision, saying it drastically strips back Indigenous rights and poses a threat to the future of the Amazon Rainforest and other Brazilian biomes.

On Oct. 20, Lula partially vetoed some of the most contentious clauses in the bill known as PL 2903, which were considered a major setback to Indigenous rights. Among them was the controversial “time frame” proposition (known as marco temporal in Portuguese), which would bar Indigenous people from claiming the rights to land that they did not physically occupy on Oct. 5, 1988, the date Brazil’s current Constitution was promulgated.

Just a month earlier, the Supreme Court had also ruled the marco temporal was unconstitutional, in a 9-2 decision.

But on Dec. 14, Congress, dominated by the powerful ruralist caucus representing agribusiness and mining interests, overwhelmingly voted to reject Lula’s veto, bringing into law most of the vetoed propositions. An absolute majority ruling is required to reject a presidential veto, which means 257 votes in the lower House and 41 in the Senate. The vote surpassed this requirement, with the lower House voting 321-137 and the Senate voting 53-19.

In addition to the marco temporal, which prevents the demarcation of new Indigenous territories without proof of prior occupation, the new law also contains several other measures that activists have labeled anti-Indigenous. Among them: non-Indigenous occupants of traditional lands, including illegal loggers and ranchers, will be permitted to remain there until the territory is demarcated — a process that can take decades. Congress also overturned a veto that opened a loophole for mining, the installation of military equipment, and road construction without prior consultation of the Indigenous population or Funai, Brazil’s Indigenous affairs agency.

The new law also prohibits already demarcated land from being expanded and enforces the new rules to be applied to territories currently undergoing the demarcation process. Furthermore, any demarcated land that currently doesn’t comply with the new rules will be nullified.

In a statement, the Indigenous rights organization Survival International called these measures “the most serious and vicious attack on Indigenous rights in decades.”

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SAO PAULO (AP) — Brazil’s Congress on Thursday overturned a veto by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva so it can reinstate legislation that undoes protections of Indigenous peoples’ land rights. The decision sets a new battle between lawmakers and the country’s top court on the matter.

Both federal deputies and senators voted by a wide margin to support a bill that argues the date Brazil’s Constitution was promulgated — Oct. 5, 1988 — is the deadline by which Indigenous peoples had to be physically occupying or fighting legally to reoccupy territory in order to claim land allotments.

In September, Brazil’s Supreme Court decided on a 9-2 vote that such a theory was unconstitutional. Brazilian lawmakers reacted by using a fast-track process to pass a bill that addressed that part of the original legislation, and it will be valid until the court examines the issue again.

The override of Lula’s veto was a victory for congressional supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro — who joined several members of Lula’s coalition in voting to reverse the president’s action -- and his allies in agribusiness.

-On Nov. 12, the government of Papua New Guinea declared two large new marine protected areas totaling more than 16,000 square kilometers (6,200 square miles) that reportedly triple the country’s marine area under protection. -The announcement capped a six-year effort led by U.S.-based NGO Wildlife Conservation Society to consult with local communities about how to set up the MPAs to curtail the harvest of threatened species and restore the health of fisheries that people have depended on for generations. -The NGO called the announcement “one of the first and most ambitious community-led MPA wins” since countries agreed last year to protect 30% of land and sea area by 2030 under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity.

-However, some observers note the potential problems that could arise from foreign-led conservation in an area experiencing poverty, conflict, and minimal government support, and there is widespread agreement that the MPAs’ success will depend on securing financing for enforcement.

The government of Papua New Guinea has declared two large new marine protected areas, capping a six-year effort in consultation with local communities on how to curtail the harvest of threatened species and restore the health of fisheries that people have depended on for generations.

The MPAs, announced Nov. 12, surround the waters of the local-level government areas of Lovongai and Murat in the country’s northeastern island province of New Ireland. U.S.-based NGO Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), which led their establishment, said in a press release that together they cover more than 16,000 square kilometers (6,200 square miles), tripling the country’s marine area under protection. They comprise less than 1% of Papua New Guinea’s marine territory.

The process of establishing the MPAs involved consultation with more than 9,000 people in more than 100 Indigenous communities, the press release said.

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(Tatanka Yotanka; in English, Sitting Bull; Grand River., 1834 - Fort Yates, id., 1890) Hunkpapa Lakota leader. As a young man he was part of the akicita (secret society) Brave Hearts, and gained fame for his deeds, which made him one of the most important Lakota leaders, strong defender of the ancient customs during the struggle of his people against American colonialism.

Sitting Bull formed cross-tribal alliances in his efforts to resist the process of colonization. Sitting Bull also steadfastly refused to become dependent on aid from the U.S. government.

On June 25th, 1876, Colonel Custer and his forces were wiped out at the battle of Little Big Horn. Sitting Bull did not take part in the battle, but acted as a kind of spiritual leader to those who did, performing the Sun Dance, in which he fasted and sacrificed over 100 pieces of flesh from his arms, a week prior.

In response, the U.S. government sent thousands more soldiers to the area, forcing many of the Lakota to surrender over the next year. Sitting Bull refused to surrender, and in May 1877, he led his band north to Wood Mountain, North-West Territories (now Saskatchewan). He remained there until 1881, when he and most of his band returned to U.S. territory and surrendered to U.S. forces.

In 1890, due to fears that Sitting Bull would use his influence to support the Ghost Dance movement (a movement of indigenous resistance), Indian Service agent James McLaughlin ordered his arrest. Early in the morning of December 15th, 39 police officers and four volunteers approached Sitting Bull's house. The camp awakened and men began to converge at the scene.

When Sitting Bull refused to comply, the police used force on him, enraging members of the village. Catch-the-Bear, a Lakota, shouldered his rifle and shot one of the Indian agents, who reacted by firing his revolver into the chest of Sitting Bull, killing him.

In 1953, his Lakota family exhumed what were believed to be his remains, reburying them near Mobridge, South Dakota, near his birthplace.

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So building on the mutual aid initiatives of last year, this year the group was a lot more pro-active by trying to get enough wood (and other necessities) to families in one of the poorest communities in America (as household income goes). Just a $10 can go a long way. But also if you have time, try and check out some of the other work being done- it’s really exciting stuff from a wholesome bunch: https://linktr.ee/chunkalutanetwork

• A study led by an Indigenous organization has found inconsistencies in the planning and licensing processes of the Castanheira hydroelectric project that it warns could alter the course of the Arinos River, one of the last still flowing freely in the Juruena River Basin.
• An area the size of 9,500 soccer fields would be flooded for the dam’s reservoir, affecting a region that’s home to Indigenous territories, small and medium-sized family farms, and the ancestral territory of the Tapayuna Indigenous people.
• The federal government has still not released a statement defining a timeline for the dam’s construction, even though feasibility studies began in 2010; the project is currently awaiting its environmental licensing.

“They are going to flood the Tapayuna people’s history,” says Yaku Suya, a 43-year-old Indigenous leader from the village of Tyrykho, in Xingu Indigenous Park in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon. This is where most of Suya’s people were transferred to during the 1970s after experiencing poisonings and flu and measles epidemics when their original home, along the banks of the Arinos River further west in Mato Grosso state, became a target of prospectors seeking diamonds, tropical hardwoods, and rubber.

For many years, the Tapayuna were hosted by villages of other Indigenous groups who offered to protect them. The situation led to a broad loss of Tapayuna culture as their language and traditions were absorbed into those of other ethnicities. Finally, in 2016 the group appealed to Funai, Brazil’s federal agency for Indigenous affairs, to reclaim their ancestral territory. But this land, as in the past, remains at threat today, this time from a different type of prospector: developers who plan to build the largest hydroelectric dam in the Juruena River Basin. Proposed for construction near the mouth of the Arinos River, where it flows into the Juruena, the dam’s licensing process has raised concerns due to a number of social and environmental irregularities.

If the Castanheira hydropower project, currently awaiting environmental licensing, finally goes into construction, the effects would be manifold, critics say. They could include damage to part of the territory claimed by the Tapayuna, alteration of the course of the river itself, and impacts that may represent an irreversible outcome to a story that includes several attempts at what researchers consider ethnocide: the systematic destruction of a people’s ways of life and thought.

For seven years, the Tapayuna people have been waiting for a response from Funai, which is responsible for analyzing their territorial claim. Mongabay requested information about the process from the agency, but received no response. In the plant’s licensing documentation, Funai stated that the undertaking wouldn’t result in flooding of the currently established Indigenous territories in the region, where other ethnicities live today, but didn’t provide any details regarding claimed territories and Indigenous people living in voluntary isolation in the region.

Meanwhile, nearby communities fear a series of impacts. “[The dam] will flood the riverbank’s entire history,” Yaku Suya says. “We won’t let this dam happen because we want the river to be free when we take back our land, to keep our traditions. If they block the river, the entire history changes.”

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One such project in Black Mesa, Arizona, is awaiting initial permits and has sparked fears over water use in an area already grappling with accessibility to it

Navajo Nation environmentalists are opposing a “self-described jet setter” and French millionaire’s plans for a massive hydropower project they claim will adversely affect the land, water, wildlife, plants and cultural resources of the largest land area held by Indigenous American peoples in the US.

The hydropower project in Black Mesa, Arizona, is awaiting approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (Ferc) for preliminary permits and has incited fears over water use in an area already struggling with water accessibility issues.

“It’s really down to water, water, water. Water is the big thing,” said Adrian Herder of Tó Nizhóní Ání, a non-profit on the Navajo Reservation in north-east Arizona. “In their application, they mentioned Black Mesa groundwater and so that was already a concern for us, given that we already are struggling with water availability in our communities.”

The Navajo Nation sent a letter to Ferc opposing the application by Nature and People First in December 2022, though there has not yet been any approval or legislation to discuss it within the Navajo Nation Council.

Nature and People First is run and founded by Denis Payre, a French venture capitalist and entrepreneur. In 2006, the Washington Post reported Payre was one of several millionaires fleeing France to avoid its wealth tax, calling Payre a “self-described French jet-setter”.

The organization has secured support from one Navajo Nation chapter for the project, with Herder claiming the developer has used community meetings to portray its critics as opponents to progress and pit Navajos against one another.

Herder said the campaign in opposition to the Black Mesa Pumped Storage Project, #NoBMPSP, started in response to concerns over how many resources the project would use and the lack of consultation with local communities before the preliminary permit filings.

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The First Nations tongue is considered critically endangered by Unesco but it’s now the second-most spoken language in Cowra

In a newly constructed yarning circle, students from Holmwood public school are practising an acknowledgment of country in Wiradjuri. The relieving principal, Beatrice Murray, raises her voice to be heard above the noise.

“Yiradhu marang,” she says to get their attention. It means good day, or hello. Holding a laminated sheet of paper, Murray leads the primary school students through the acknowledgment. The aim is for the children to memorise the words and pronunciation so they can offer an acknowledgment with kindness, respect and strength – the Wiradjuri concept yindyamarra.

“We talk about the importance of having sensitivity, of making sure when you speak language it’s done in the right place and the right time,” Murray says. “This next generation of kids coming through is beautiful, they’re more accepting of different cultures. As a teacher I can say I’m hopeful that things will get better.”

Wiradjuri is the most commonly spoken language in Cowra other than English, according to the 2021 census. Thirty-five households reported that Wiradjuri was the main language spoken at home but Murray believes even more speak some Wiradjuri, woven in with English.

“If Wiradjuri people sit down and list the words they already know, they’d be surprised how many were words they use in everyday conversation,” she says. “It’s always been part of the way we talk.”

Murray grew up speaking scattered words of Wiradjuri, and joined a language course after hearing leaders including Uncle Stan Grant Sr and Letetia Harris speak confidently in Wiradjuri.

“I realised how important language is to build Wiradjuri people up, strengthen our identity, strengthen culture,” she says. “The more of us that learn our language, the better off we’ll be.

“What do we want for the future of our children, our grandchildren and great-grandchildren? Having knowledge of their language in their own culture and identity – that’s the end goal.”

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As part of the ongoing Chunka Luta Network organizing, we have launched a winter drive to keep families warm during the winter and help them out with food. Follow on other social media if you can and check out some of the amazing work being done.

Aho! Hello relatives, allies and comrades. We are the Chunka Luta Network, this is both our official channel launch video AND our 2024 Winter Fundraiser Drive. We already completed a winter drive for 2023 that somebody else ran, this one came about because our organizers in Oklahoma gather a uhauls worth of wood and winter supplies without us knowing; and suddenly were telling us they're ready to transport. You can learn more at our linktr.ee/chunkalutanetwork because YT won't let us post links directly until we are older or hand them a valid ID. So please take the time to copy and paste this, or donate to $ZitkatosTinCan on CA or @zitkato on ven.

In this video we introduce you to Vanessa and Alfred, aunt and uncle of our founder, but more importantly they are leaders in their community who help the people when no one else will. This has been the case for decades now with their family, and the list of accomplishments and great deeds they've done for the people are long and unrewarded. Our organization formed to support leaders like them across Reservations and weld the rural struggle to that of the urban working class. To us this potent combination of knowledge and forces, so long as they treat each other as equals, will help bring about the necessary conditions for liberation. If you enjoyed this be sure to check our podcast or appearances on our own stream and others. Wopila!

25 bison moved from Grasslands National Park after deal

Bison are once again roaming the lands around Batoche, Sask., after an agreement between the Métis Nation-Saskatchewan (MN-S) and Parks Canada.

Last year, MN-S signed a memorandum of understanding with the federal agency to transfer 25 bison from Grasslands National Park, in southwestern Saskatchewan, to establish a new herd on MN–S lands near Batoche National Historic Site north of Saskatoon.

The bison were successfully transferred this week.

Eventually, they will roam on a portion of 690 hectares of land transferred from Parks Canada to MN–S last July.

read more with pictures: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/bison-batoche-metis-nation-1.7053183?cmp=rss

For an Indigenous nation in northeastern Ontario, conservation means counting moose poop, growing traditional food and ‘being more in tune with our lands here, in addition to also doing some really good science’

On a sunny day in early October, three members of Nipissing First Nation paddled their way through stalks of manoomin, or wild rice, growing seven feet above the Veuve River off Lake Nipissing in northeastern Ontario. The group has been encouraging the aquatic native grass to spread as a way to tackle invasive plants and repopulate the land with a traditional source of food for birds, small mammals and humans.

Industry, poor land management and colonialism have wreaked environmental havoc on the Nipissing region. Waterways are contaminated with chemicals and being choked by algae, invasive plants are increasing fire risk while decreasing biodiversity and highway traffic is killing an unusually high number of moose. Curtis Avery, environment manager for Nipissing First Nation, believes his community can help nurse the land back to health by combining novel equipment and techniques with traditional understandings of stewardship.

For the last two years, Avery has been the nation’s first full-time environment manager, doing everything from fieldwork to preparing grant applications. Blackboards in his office are covered in maps and data detailing both the problems his region faces and the ways his small team is trying to remediate them.

“It’s all connected, right?” Avery said. “The fish in the stream to the moose on the banks — that whole system is in itself an environment and capturing that now allows us to understand what we need to do to protect it and make it more resilient in the face of more development, climate change, extreme weather events and forest management … we need the data in order for it to make sense.”

In June, Avery was finally able to hire an environmental technician, Sophie Tore, to help collect that data and then implement practical solutions. One project they’re now working on is an attempt to reduce the overgrowth of dangerous blue-green algae blooms, or cyanobacteria, in local waterways. Their hope is to gather enough information to be able to predict when and where the blooms will pop up next.

While blooms can occur naturally in late summer and early fall, overgrowth is becoming more common in Ontario’s lakes due to an excess of nutrients from agricultural and stormwater runoff, as well as leaching from septic systems. Blue-green algae overgrowth consumes oxygen in the water and blocks sunlight from underwater plants, making it impossible for aquatic life to survive. They can also be harmful to people and animals, releasing toxins that contaminate drinking water and cause illness.

But Avery would like to reduce blooms without adding clay or other substances to the water — although such methods have been used since the 1970’s, they can be quite inefficient, requiring “exorbitant amounts” to effectively clean the water. The nation received funding for a pilot project using Ottawa-based cleantech company E M Fluid’s EMF 1000, a machine about the size of a bedside table. Avery said the solar-panelled machine is “like a scientific research buoy,” which attempts to cut down on algae by aerating water to increase its oxygen content.

“It’s just allowing the system to do what it already does if it was receiving healthy amounts of oxygen,” Avery said, adding that nitrogen and phosphorus readings have gone down in some parts of the lake since the pilot began. Community members have noticed improvements, especially at Jocko Point in the nation’s east end, where no algal blooms have been reported in two years.

read more: https://thenarwhal.ca/nipissing-first-nation-wild-rice/

A battle is brewing in Maui over one of the most essential resources for human survival: water.

Four months after West Maui suffered the deadliest natural disaster in the state's history, residents are seeking existing water rights, which many characterize as "stolen" from the native population who have lived on the island for generations in favor of Westerners looking to deepen their pockets.

Water, land and the environment play a special role in Native Hawaiian culture and way of life. They are sacred elements of existence, requiring protection and careful stewardship, local Maui farmers told ABC News.

"As Hawaiians, we believe that everything matters: The air, the wind, the trees, the animals, the species, the humans, the ocean, the fish. Everything matters," Jerome Kekiwi Jr., a taro farmer in east Maui and president of a Maui-based nonprofit called Na Moku Aupuni o Ko'olau Hui that promotes the interests of Native Hawaiians in Maui, told ABC News. "With water, all of that is possible to have in abundance."

Hawaii allocates its water under a "rights" system, similar to other states in the western United States. Residents and companies can own the right to draw water from a source, which is usually located on their own land. But they can't own the water source itself, state law dictates.

Hawaiian law protects traditional and cultural use. But as the wildfire cleanup continues, rebuilding plans come to fruition and climate change threatens the island's future water supply, Native Hawaiians want less water to be diverted to corporations and developments and more to be allocated to residents and local farmers.

"This is like a reset button," Hokuao Pellegrino, a taro farmer in central Maui and a prominent advocate for indigenous water rights on the island, told ABC News.

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Broadcasting from COP28 in Dubai, we speak with Jacob Johns, a Hopi and Akimel O’odham environmental defender who is leading the Indigenous Wisdom Keepers delegation at COP28. This is his first interview after surviving being shot in the chest by a far-right agitator in September. Johns and other Indigenous activists were holding a vigil opposing plans to reinstall a statue honoring the 16th century Spanish conquistador Juan de Oñate in Española, New Mexico, when a 23-year-old shooter wearing a red MAGA hat fired on the crowd. Johns says he died in the airlift on the way to the hospital and is still dealing with medical issues from the shooting, but wanted to come to the climate summit to share Indigenous wisdom with the world. “We as Indigenous people understand that as the old world dies, that a new one is created and that we must focus on that creation process.”

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• Quinto Inuma was killed on November 29 while traveling to the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community in Peru’s Amazon following a meeting of environmental defenders. For years, the Indigenous Kichwa leader had been receiving threats for his work trying to stop invasions, land trafficking, drug trafficking and illegal logging in his community, forcing him to rely on protection measures from the Ministry of Justice.
• After Inuma’s death, a group of 128 Indigenous communities released a statement appealing for justice and holding the Peruvian state reponsible for its inaction and ineffectivtieness in protecting the lives of human rights defenders in Indigenous territories. Several other Indigenous leaders who receive threats have requested protection measures from the state but have not gotten a response.
• According to an official in the Ministry of Justice, providing the Kichwa leader with protection measures was very complex because he lived in a high-risk area. The only thing that could be done, they said, is to provide permanent police protection, which wasn’t possible for the local police.
• Kichwa leader Quinto Inuma Alvarado, president the Santa Rosillo de Yanayacu community, was murdered last Wednesday, November 29, in the San Martín region of the Peruvian Amazon. The crime took place around five p.m. when the activist was traveling with several relatives on the Yanayacu River. When his boat hit a tree and got stuck, a group of masked men ambushed him, shooting him several times.

Days before, in the city of Pucallpa, in the region of Ucayali, Inuma informed other environmental defenders and activists of what was happening in his community: invasions, land trafficking, drug trafficking and illegal logging. It wasn’t the first time that he’d spoken out. But no one in attendance knew it would be the last time he would.

“They murdered him for defending the community from loggers,” his nephew Víctor Inuma told Mongabay Latam. “My uncle had been demanding police intervention since the pandemic. No one listened to him…We ask that this be investigated. We’re unprotected without him now.”

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The family of Jared Lowndes has never stopped demanding justice

It has been more than two years since Jared (Jay) Lowndes was shot and killed by RCMP. And Jay’s family and friends are not alone in their wait for justice.

Many Indigenous communities across Canada are watching this case, explains Jay’s mother, Laura Holland. She spent the night before the latest update from B.C.’s Independent Investigations Office (IIO) on the phone with “mothers and sisters of Indigenous sons and daughters slain by law enforcement — from northern B.C. to Alberta to New Brunswick.”

Lowndes was Wet’suwet’en of the Laksilyu House and a 38 year-old father of two children. He was killed by Campbell River RCMP on July 8, 2021.

B.C.’s Independent Investigations Office (IIO), a civilian-led police oversight agency, investigates any incidents where police come in contact with the public and an injury or death occurs. It has been overseeing the case.

After he was killed, witnesses told friends and family that Jay was cornered in a Tim Hortons parking lot when a police service dog was released into his car, where Jay was with his puppy. Neither Jay nor the service dog made it out of the car alive. “The RCMP in Campbell River shot my son, after they started a pursuit that was not necessary,” Holland said at the time.

read more: https://ricochet.media/en/4012/two-and-a-half-years-after-killing-a-wetsuweten-man-rcmp-officers-may-finally-face-charges

Facing oil spills, evacuations and illness — nations downstream of the oil sands grieve their way of life, as the corporations polluting their water get richer

The rush of the wind and sprays of water add to the thrill as Jason Castor guides his riverboat through a stretch of Lake Athabasca near Fort Chipewyan, in Treaty 8 territories. If he slows down, his boat could get stuck in the mud or even flip over because the water levels in this spot are remarkably low. He steers around buoys, dodges logs and other debris while accelerating to the mouth of the channel, which he knows should be deep enough to navigate at an average speed.

While trawling his boat further down the river, Castor points to odd-looking clusters resembling dirty foam floating by.

“There’s just a slurry of a foam that looks like oil or some kind of chemical in there,” says Castor, a 42-year-old father, construction business owner and member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN).

He’s been a traditional hunter, trapper and fisherman for nearly 20 years and has documented strange changes in the water, the land and animals.

Something’s going on in the river, he says.

“They say that it's natural, well, I know that that's not natural because I've been on the river my whole life,” he explains as he points to brown and white foam, oil sheens and other discoloured formations floating on the river..

Nowadays, it’s risky to navigate these waterways because of industrial intakes like the W.A.C. Bennett Dam to the west in B.C.; the Alberta oil sands just up the river and impacts from climate change.

read more: https://ricochet.media/en/4016/for-indigenous-communities-in-alberta-the-oil-industry-has-left-an-ugly-stain

Growing up, Gertrude Smith (Yavapai-Apache) was shamed for trying to learn her language. Today, she is involved in the largest effort to revitalize it.

“We are doing it. Even though it can be a challenge for us at times, it can be done,” Smith, the Yavapai Culture Director at the Yavapai-Apache Cultural Resource Center, told Native News Online.

For the first time in nearly 30 years, efforts to save the Yavapai-Apache languages are being made with the launch of online dictionaries and picture books featuring Dilzhe’e (Apache) and Wipukpa-Tolkapaya (Yavapai) languages.

Smith spearheads the tribe’s language revitalization by providing culture, art and language classes through the Yavapai-Apache Cultural Resource Center.

The Yavapai-Apache Nation is located in the Verde Valley of Arizona and consists of two distinct peoples, the Yavapai and Apache. The Yavapai refer to themselves as Wipuhk’a’bah and speak the Yuman language, while the Apache refer to themselves as Dil’zhe’e and speak the Athabaskan language.

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Donna Augustine was in tears as she read the letter from Harvard University that winter morning in 2013. Looking around the room inside an elementary school on Indian Island, Maine, she saw other elders and leaders from the four Wabanaki tribes were also devastated as they read that the university was denying their request to repatriate ancestral remains to their tribes.

The Wabanaki tribal nations — an alliance of the Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, Maliseet and Mi’kmaq — wanted to rebury the ancestral remains. But Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology said, as it had in past years, that the tribes didn’t have enough evidence to show that they could be tied, through culture or lineage, to the ancestors whose remains the museum held.

The denial felt like a rejection of Wabanaki identity for Augustine, a Mi’kmaq grandmother, who had spent years urging Harvard to release Native American remains.

“Every one of us in that room was crying,” she recalled. “We jumped through every hoop.”

The group representing the only four tribal nations in present-day Maine had furnished a deeply researched report documenting their histories in the region, even sharing closely held stories passed down within their tribes from one generation to the next that told of their ancient ties to Maine’s lakes, islands and forests.

Now they could see it hadn’t been enough for Harvard, which especially prized the remains of 43 ancestors buried for thousands of years near Maine’s Blue Hill Bay.

Complicating matters for the tribes, another museum, the similarly named but smaller Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology, housed on the campus of the Phillips Academy, a Massachusetts preparatory school, held items from the same ancient burial site.

Instead of sending a letter as Harvard did, the Phillips Academy museum director, Ryan Wheeler, had asked to meet with the tribes. Seated at the table that morning, he was initially uncertain what he would do. He would later say that it became evident during the meeting that the tribes exhibited a strong connection to the ancestors they sought to claim, both from the report they had provided and their reaction to Harvard’s decision.

He recalled leaving the meeting certain he would repatriate. “There was really no question about it,” he later said.

What the Wabanaki committee and Wheeler didn’t know, however, was just how hard Harvard would push back. In the two years that followed, the director of the Harvard museum went to surprising lengths to pressure Wheeler to reverse his decision.

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Crazy Horse (Lakota: Tȟašúŋke Witkó, lit. 'His-Horse-Is-Crazy'; c. 1840 – September 5, 1877) was born as a member of the Oglala Lakota on Rapid Creek about 40 miles northeast of Thunderhead Mt. (now Crazy Horse Mountain) in c. 1840. He took up arms against the United States federal government to fight against encroachment by white American settlers on Native American territory and to preserve the traditional way of life of the Lakota people. His participation in several famous battles of the Black Hills War on the northern Great Plains, among them the Fetterman Fight in 1866, in which he acted as a decoy, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, in which he led a war party to victory, earned him great respect from both his enemies and his own people.He was killed at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, by a soldier around midnight on September 5, 1877.

The son of a medicine man, Crazy Horse spent the early years of his life raised by the women of his tiospaye or family. Once Crazy Horse was old enough he set out on one of the most important rites of passage to a Lakota warrior…the Vision Quest (Hanbleceya – "crying for a vision” or "to pray for a spiritual experience"). This rite of passage gave Crazy Horse guidance on his path in life. He went alone into the hills for four days without food or water and cried for a dream to the great spirits.

By the time Crazy Horse was in his mid-teens he was already a full-fledged warrior. His bravery and prowess in battle were well-known by the Lakota people. He rode into battle with a single hawk feather in his hair, a rock behind his ear, and a lightning symbol on his face. The symbols and rituals that went into preparing for war provided the warrior power and protection.

In 1876, Crazy Horse led a band of Lakota warriors against Custer’s Seventh U.S. Cavalry battalion. They called this the Battle of the Little Bighorn also known as Custer’s Last Stand and the Battle of the Greasy Grass. Custer, 9 officers, and 280 enlisted men, all lay dead after the fighting was over. According to tribes who participated in the battle, 32 Indians were killed. Without Crazy Horse and his followers the battle’s outcome would have been much different as he was integral in stopping reinforcements from arriving.

It was after the Battle of the Little Bighorn that the United States Government would send scouts to round up any Northern Plains tribes who resisted. This forced many Indian Nations to move across the country, always followed by soldiers, until starvation or exposure would force them to surrender. This is how Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce and Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa Lakota were forced into submission.

In 1877, under a flag of truce, Crazy Horse went to Fort Robinson. Negotiations with U.S. Military leaders stationed at the Fort broke down. Eyewitnesses blame the breakdown in negotiations on the translator who incorrectly translated what Crazy Horse said. Crazy Horse was quickly escorted toward the jail. Once he realized that the commanding officers were planning on imprisoning him, he struggled and drew his knife. Little Big Man, friend and fellow warrior of Crazy Horse, tried to restrain him. As Crazy Horse continued to free himself, an infantry guard made a successful lunge with a bayonet and mortally wounded the great warrior. Crazy Horse died shortly after the mortal wound was inflicted. There are different accounts putting the date of his death around midnight September 5, 1877.

It is a well-known fact that Crazy Horse refused to have his picture or likeness taken. Crazy Horse lived under the assumption that by taking a picture a part of his soul would be taken and his life would be shortened. The popular response to photograph requests would be, “Would you imprison my shadow too?”

Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski decided to create a monument that captured Crazy Horse’s likeness based on the descriptions provided to honor the principles and values for which Native Americans stood and to honor all the indigenous people of North America. With Crazy Horse riding his steed out of the granite of the sacred Black Hills with his left hand gesturing forward in response to the derisive question asked by a Cavalry man, “Where are your lands now?” Crazy Horse replied, “My lands are where my dead lie buried.”

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• The authors of a new study say they have found 24 previously unrecorded pre-Columbian earthworks in the Amazon, and they estimate there may be more than 10,000 such sites still hidden throughout the forest.
• Ancient earthwork structures represent one of the types of formations found in the Amazon that provide evidence of Indigenous occupation by pre-Columbian earth-building societies.
• An airborne sensor was used to scan data from areas of the Amazon in what the scientists say is “groundbreaking” research.
• This research demonstrates that the Amazon has long been home to Indigenous peoples and is also important for organizations and communities in their efforts to demarcate new Indigenous territories, the general coordinator of the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Brazilian Amazon (COIAB) says.

The Amazon has long been considered home to Indigenous peoples, dating back thousands of years. They worked the land in ways we are familiar with today. They built ditches, ponds, wells and other structures that show the rainforest was not “untouched” as often mistakenly thought. Centuries later, these populations, and the societies they formed, were violently disrupted with the arrival of the first European vessels in the Americas.

The true extent of Amazonian settlements and landscape transformation by these Indigenous populations, however, remains uncertain, despite the best efforts of researchers.

Now, newly published research in the journal Science unveils an unprecedented estimate of the number of pre-Columbian earthworks still hidden in the Amazon rainforest, which is based on both previously known archaeological sites and new findings reported in the study.

In total, researchers have uncovered more than 20 newly recognized earthworks beneath the Amazonian forest canopy, including a fortified village, defensive and ceremonial sites, crowned mountains, megalithic structures and riverine sites on floodplains, all thanks to an advanced remote sensing technology known as lidar, which stands for “Light Detection and Ranging.”

Capable of collecting information on the structure of the forest and on the terrain below the forest, the airborne sensor has revolutionized the way information is obtained about the Earth’s surface by enabling archaeological discoveries in densely forested areas such as the one in the recently published study.

The paper’s authors estimate there may be more than 10,000 earthworks still hidden in the forest, and further identified more than 50 species of domesticated trees that indicate the likelihood of earthwork occurrence, suggesting active Indigenous forest management practices by pre-Columbian societies.

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• Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank face economic devastation as a surge in violence by illegal Israeli settlers and the Israeli military prevents them from harvesting their olives. Around 100,000 Palestinian families are estimated to rely on these trees as a source of income.
• The start of the war in Gaza coincided with the autumn olive harvest, but the Israeli military has cut off West Bank farmers’ access to their orchards, while reportedly allowing illegal settlers in to steal the olives and destroy the trees.
• Yet despite the settler attacks and restrictions on the olive harvest, Palestinian farmers are determined to remain steadfast and help each other harvest as much as possible before the nearing end of the season. With its long history of rootedness in the land, the olive tree is often seen as one of the most evocative symbols of resilience, and representative of a generational bond with the land.
• According to a spokesperson for the Israeli military, the restrictions faced by farmers are part of “security operations” in the area aimed at capturing militant groups and protecting Israeli settlers who claim the land, in violation of international law.

The first rainfall of autumn after months of drought signals the start of the olive harvest, the most important time of year for many Palestinian farmers. Between October and November, Palestinians gather mats, ladders and buckets to pick olives and picnic in orchards that have been passed down through generations.

“Many farmers rely completely on their olive harvest,” says Ghassan Najjar, a 35-year-old organic farmer using agroecology techniques in Burin, a village near Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank. “It’s our livelihood, our source of life.”

Nearly half of all cultivated land in the occupied West Bank and Gaza is planted with more than 10 million olive trees of mostly native, drought-resilient varieties. Around 100,000 Palestinian families are estimated to rely on these trees as a source of income. Most of the olives are sent to presses to produce olive oil, a staple in Mediterranean cuisine, while some are cured for eating and are also used to make medicine and soap.

But what used to be a cherished time with extended family and friends coming together to pick olives, drink tea and share food under the trees has become increasingly dangerous and mournful in the West Bank. According to human rights organizations, Israeli settlers who claim the land, in violation of U.N. resolutions, regularly attack Palestinian farmers, prevent them from reaching their ancestral lands, steal their olives and agricultural equipment, and destroy their olive trees.

While global attention is focused on the war in Gaza, farmers across the West Bank are facing growing violence. Since the war began on Oct. 7, settler attacks against Palestinians have more than doubled, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. In the past month and a half, at least 230 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank, including 61 children. Settler violence and intimidation have forcibly displaced 16 Palestinian communities, and the Palestinian Authority reports that more than 3,000 olive trees have been destroyed by the illegal settlers.

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