Indigenous Peoples at United Nations: Voices from the Earth for a Fractured World

San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler speaking at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York today/Image by Censored News

Article and images by Brenda Norrell
Censored News

NEW YORK -- Indigenous Peoples from around the world spoke out on climate change, devastating development, murders of Indigenous Peoples, and the impact of false climate solutions like carbon credits, at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues today.

San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler said Sacred Oak Flat is a place for the ceremonies of Apache. Resolution Copper's planned copper mine would result in an enormous crater, leaving an environmental disaster.

"Oak Flat is a holy site," Chairman Rambler told the UN Forum. "It is an area filled with power." 

“Oak Flat is a holy site, an area of irreplaceable beauty akin to a church, no different than the Wailing Wall, Temple Mount, Australia’s Juukan Gorge, or Mecca’s Kaaba,” Chairman Rambler said. “Apache people have lived, prayed, and died at Oak Flat from time immemorial.”

Chairman Rambler said the United States is failing to comply with international standards and Treaties. (At this point he was cut off for time.)

 

The Sami youth delegate said 'green energy' is just more 'green colonialism' at the expense of Sami. The green transition is being used to promote industrialism. Sami's response to those who say, "Everyone has to sacrifice something," is this: 'Colonizers have already taken everything we have, there is nothing left to sacrifice.' She received a roar of applause at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York.