Indigenous Women Upholding Indigenous Rights and Leading Climate Solutions

Dr. Michelle Cook, Dine', human rights lawyer and founder of Divest Invest Protect, speaks during today's panels, held during the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York.

Recorded live Wednesday evening, watch the video:
https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl/videos/1397554700910117

https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl

Indigenous Women Upholding Indigenous Rights and Leading Climate Solutions

By Women's Earth and Climate Action Network International
Censored News
April 17, 2024

Indigenous women leaders fighting for healthy and thriving ecosystems and communities for all generations are a solution to interlocking crises! Please join us for this powerful upcoming WECAN event at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), “Indigenous Women Upholding Indigenous Rights and Leading Climate Solutions”!

Indigenous women and youth leaders from around the globe will converge to discuss and uplift the urgent issues facing their communities and our planet. Speakers will discuss and share the impacts of fossil fuels, deforestation, and the climate crisis in their communities and how they are implementing climate solutions, practicing traditional knowledge systems, upholding Indigenous rights, promoting the right to self-determination, and advancing policies and practices of care and climate justice.

Casey Camp Horinek, Ponca, spoke on the abuse her relatives endured in boarding schools. Today, she said, "Ponca know who they are."

The panels begin with solidarity with Palestine. Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN executive director, opened the session calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, an end to the oppression, and return of the hostages.

Indigenous women speak on the struggles, the battle to halt the Transmountain pipeline and protect their burial places and water in Appalachia, to the need of Indigenous in Colombia for food and water. 

https://www.facebook.com/WECAN.Intl/videos/1397554700910117

Warriors for a New Generation: Indigenous Youths at the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

Morgan Brings Plenty, Cheyenne River Lakota. Screenshot by Censored News.

Warriors for a New Generation: Indigenous Youths at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, April 17, 2024

NEW YORK -- Indigenous youths from around the world challenged corporations and institutions -- rising as warriors, defenders and changemakers that are honoring Mother Earth and protecting future generations, at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on Tuesday, the second day of the two week forum.

Energy Transfer's lawsuit against Greenpeace is an attempt to silence the voices for Mother Earth, and Indigenous who are battling the Dakota Access Pipeline, said Morgan Brings Plenty, Cheyenne River Lakota, speaking at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Federal Judge Denies Restraining Order Filed Against Interior Sec. Deb Haaland by Tohono O'odham and San Carlos Apache Nations

Construction equipment at the site of work in the San Pedro Valley for the SunZia Southwest Transmission Project is shown on Oct. 29. Alex Binford-Walsh of Archaeology Southwest

Breaking News: Federal Judge Denies Restraining Order Filed Against Interior Sec. Deb Haaland

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, April 17, 2024

TUCSON -- A federal judge in Tucson denied a restraining order sought against Interior Sec. Deb Haaland by the Tohono O'odham and San Carlos Apache Nations. Haaland is pushing another fake "green energy" project, and bulldozers are ripping through ancient sites, ceremonial places, and medicine gathering places, for transmission lines to take wind energy from New Mexico to California.

Federal Judge Jennifer Zipps denied an injunction to stop work on the SunZia transmission line. Zipps ruled on Tuesday that the tribes and others filing the lawsuit waited too long to file, and the Interior and BLM had fulfilled their obligations to prepare inventory and identify cultural resources.

The Tohono O'odham Nation said in a statement:

"The Tohono O’odham Nation is disappointed by Tuesday’s federal court order denying our request for a preliminary injunction to stop construction of the SunZia Transmission Line through the San Pedro River Valley but remains steadfastly focused on pursuing all legal and other strategies to protect our sacred land.

“Our goal is not only to protect our ancestorial cultural history and the San Pedro River Valley’s pristine environment, but to also ensure the federal government is held accountable for its actions in violation of laws designed specifically to protect sacred lands,” Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Verlon Jose said.

"The Nation, along with the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Center for Biological Diversity and Archeology Southwest, filed the lawsuit seeking a preliminary injunction on Jan. 30, 2024. In her ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer G. Zipps clearly states what’s at stake:

“San Pedro Valley is one of the most culturally intact landscapes in Southern Arizona. People have been living and traveling along the San Pedro River for the last 12,000 years and evidence of this past human activity remains to this day. Because of its human history, the San Pedro Valley is of great cultural significance to several Native American Tribes, including the Tohono O’odham Nation, San Carlos Apache Tribe, the Hopi Tribe, and the Pueblo of Zuni.”

“This is far too important of an issue to be deterred by this ruling,” Chairman Jose said. “The United States’ renewable energy policy that includes destroying sacred and undeveloped landscapes is fundamentally wrong and must stop.”

Indigenous Youths Lead at U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York

Global Indigenous Youth Caucus at UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues on Monday. The session is underway, April 15 -- 26, 2024. Screenshot by Censored News. 

Oglala Lakota Youth and the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus Lead at United Nations

By Brenda Norrell, Censored News, April 15, 2024

NEW YORK -- "We are witnessing the genocide and displacement of Palestinian people. We demand the right of return to their ancestral homeland," the Global Indigenous Youth Caucus told the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues as it opened its session on Monday.

Representing the seven regions of the world, the youths expressed gratitude to their elders for their defense of ancestral homelands, and recognized the role of forced removal of Indigenous children from their families, in disregard for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Apache Stronghold: Rare Request Gives Federal Court One More Chance to Protect Sacred Site

Protect Oak Flat photo by Steve Pavey

Rare request gives Ninth Circuit one more chance to protect sacred site before Supreme Court appeal

By Becket Law, Apache Stronghold, Censored News, April 15, 2024

WASHINGTON – A coalition of Western Apaches and allies today asked all 29 judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to protect their sacred site at Oak Flat from destruction by a mining project. In Apache Stronghold v. United States, a special “en banc” panel of eleven judges split 6-5 earlier this year, refusing to stop the federal government from transferring Oak Flat to Resolution Copper, a foreign-owned mining company that plans to turn Oak Flat into a massive mining crater, ending Apache religious practices forever. (Watch this short video to learn more).