The Birth of the Environmental Justice Movement, Dine' CARE, Dilkon, Navajo Nation, 1990

A tribute to those who came together on the Navajo Nation in 1990 and created the solidarity movement to protect the water, air and land, today's environmental justice movement. They came from the fishing rights struggle in the northwest, and the Seminoles came from Florida. Hopi Thomas Banyacya was there, and Jim Main from Gros Ventre in Montana, they came from Mohawk lands, and the border, and it was a beginning. They came from near and far -- Havasupai, Zuni Pueblo and Pine Ridge, and gave birth to the movement that has spanned the past 35 years. (Photo Gros Ventre Jim Main, Chief Johnny Jackson from Columbia River, and Hopi Thomas Banyacya.)

Amnesty International: Site C Dam proposal endangers Indigenous Peoples

Site C Dam - Human Rights at Risk

Read our latest report on Site C: Place of No Return

“Our people have a deep connection with this land because our ancestors told the stories and legends that are connected to that valley.” -- Chief Liz Logan, Treaty 8 Tribal Association, testifying before the environmental impact assessment of the proposed Site C hydroelectric dam.

	NEW: Send a message to the Prime Minister  Watch this powerful video

The Peace River Valley in northeastern British Columbia is a unique ecosystem and one of the very few areas in the region that so far has been largely preserved from large-scale resource development. First Nations and Métis families and communities rely on the valley for hunting and fishing, gathering berries and sacred medicine, and holding ceremonies. Their ancestors are buried in this land.

The proposed $8 billion plus Site C hydroelectric dam would flood more than 80 km of the river valley, stretching west from Fort St. John. The severe impact on Indigenous peoples is beyond dispute. A joint federal-province environmental impact assessment concluded that the dam would “severely undermine” use of the land, would make fishing unsafe for at least a generation, and would submerge burial grounds and other crucial cultural and historical sites.

TransCanada and Peabody Coal spying with the feds

In this deceptive world of U.S. and corporate spying, land defenders and human rights activists are targeted, private corporations and U.S. agents are intertwined, young people are duped and go to prison, and federal agents use romance to spy on, and manipulate, peaceful protesters.

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News

TransCanada and Peabody Coal have been spying on activists in a toxic, dark world where private corporations and the U.S. government act in collusion, an attorney reveals in a news article on Earth First newswire.
In this deceptive world, private corporations and federal agents are intertwined, young people are duped and go to prison, and U.S. agents use romance to spy on, and manipulate their targets.
The article, Informants, Green Scare Snitches, and Surveillance: Interview with Lauren Regan, CLDC.
The real danger of these covert operations within the United States is that people are vulnerable. They get duped by these operators and schemes, and in the end they go to prison.
Now, by way of the Freedom of Information Act, the facts are being exposed of how corporations and the U.S. government target peaceful protesters, criminalize them, and send them to prison.
In the article, attorney Lauren Regan explains, "TransCanada was giving powerpoint presentations to FBI offices and local law enforcement agencies along the [Keystone] pipeline route. We actually got their whole powerpoint presentation, which included photos of lead organizers, and all of the federal terrorist crimes that they were encouraging local DA’s to use against activists, and things like that. Some of it we actually got through their own stupidity." 
Then there's Peabody Coal: "The way a lot of them work, say Peabody Coal for instance, they know they can’t have in-house spies. Because if that gets back to them, they get in trouble. So they set up and fund a separate private entity that is half-PR firm and half-security firm. In order for that entity to remain operational they have to produce information that Peabody Coal wants to hear, and they have to be validating their own job."
Facebook is referred to as 'facecrack,' and there is a caution. There's no need to create drama on facecrack when you know infiltrators are headed someone's way.
When a known infiltrator was headed to the Buffalo Field Campaign in Montana, here's what they did.
"We were able to call them, and I remember I faxed a black and white photo of the person to them, and said 'hey this person may be heading in your direction, keep your eyes out.' And they did, and they were able to shoo him on.'"

Earth First trial in Prescott exposed FBI entrapment

Meanwhile, in Arizona, it was the Earth First trial in Prescott that revealed how a federal agent romanced his target, entrapped environmentalists and sent them to prison in 1991.
The trial was an expose in federal misconduct in the early 1990s. 
Alongside Mike Lacey, founder of Phoenix New Times, I was among the reporters in the courtroom.
The trial was an introduction into FBI and U.S. misconduct in this dark world of spying, manipulation and entrapment, where the federal government is never prosecuted for entrapment.
Besides the romancing undercover FBI agent, the U.S. also sent an old boyfriend into a home as a babysitter to spy on one woman, planting a spy device in her bedroom. She had a new boyfriend at the time.
Without the romancing undercover FBI agent, there would have been no charges or trial. The U.S. attempted to turn every joke on the defendants tapped phone into a crime.
When the so-called "monkey wrenchers," named after Ed Abbey's book, didn't have a ride to do their monkeying around, the undercover FBI agent gave them a ride. He drove them out  there. Most of those on trial went to prison. Peg Millet out ran the agents at the scene, but later turned herself in.
At the time, I was a stringer for AP. When the trial was over, I question the prosecutor about planting an old boyfriend in someone's home as an undercover agent. "Wasn't he a sleaze?" I asked.
"All informants are sleazes," she said.
At New Times, Lacey had fun with the prosecutor Asst. US Attorney Roslyn Moore-Silver. In one article, Lacy wrote that she came into the courtroom, grabbed her balls and shot the judge a high five.
Lacey went a step further and sent the prosecutor flowers when she had an accidental fall after the trial. She sent them back.
While it was fun at times in that Prescott courtroom, it no doubt was not fun for those well-meaning activists who went to prison while attempting to make a difference in the world.

Corporate bottom-feeders laughing all the way to the bank

These days, the entrapment is more sophisticated and the spying permeates everyone's lives, from the street corner, to cell phones to Internet e-mails and chats.
With new laws now, those manipulated and entrapped are sent to prison for even longer terms.
Snitches are often those who are arrested and are trying to avoid jail time, or those in prison wanting early release. They are willing to send others to prison.
The private corporations found a way to turn all this into money.
Protecting disastrous mining means money to the corporations, and mega dollars roll into new spy corporations. The private prisons and security firms are making fortunes.
Since the media in the U.S. has collapsed -- with most reporters flopped in their easy chairs and plagiarizing from the web -- this dark world is now a vacuum for bottom-feeders.
The film industry too has been compromised. It is now a vehicle to promote bogus wars, U.S. targeted assassinations, and the fantasy world of U.S. news and policy.

Time has brought the gift of truth

The environmentalists who were once demonized in the backrooms of news rooms, who were once vilified by the sell-outs, are now beginning to be recognized as front runners protecting the land, water and air.
As water is vanishing, lands are poisoned, and the air is dark, the world is beginning to appreciate the struggles of the land defenders.
Indigenous Peoples continue to be assassinated by corporations around the world as they defend their lands from mining and destruction. In North America, Native Americans with few resources bear the burden of defending the land, water, and air.
Today they carry on.


Also see The Guardian: Undercover cop fathered children with activists
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/jan/20/undercover-police-children-activists

Native Americans arrive in Paris: Climate solutions and Nature Tribunal

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Kandi Mossett offeres prayers in Paris today.

Indigenous and women's delegations arrive in Paris for COP21, with solutions, prepared for their Rights of Nature Tribunal

By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
updated Nov. 30, 2015

Native Americans from the United States have joined Indigenous Peoples from around the world with their prayers, and message of peace, at COP21, the United Nations Climate Summit, in Paris.

They have brought another message: “Leave it in the ground.” Native Americans have had enough of being the victims of dirty coal-fired power plants, oil and gas drilling, fracking and mineral mining.

Kandi Mossett, Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara from North Dakota, was among the first Native Americans in the Indigenous Environmental Network delegation to arrive.

Mossett, shown above in photo, said, "On November 29th the Indigenous Environmental Network organized a healing ceremony in front of the Bataclan theater just before thousands gathered to participate in a human chain action in the streets of Paris.

"It was a beautiful ceremony featuring Indigenous youth speakers from North America, the Arctic, and the Pacific Islands. Our delegations always see it as a necessity to have prayer before any large action. We offered kind words, song, and calls for climate justice and peace."

While the words climate change, may be vague for many, for Native Americans who have been the victims of the United States policy of a slow and toxic genocide, climate change means dirty coal-fired power plants, oil and gas drilling, fracking, toxic dumping, uranium mining, deforestation, poison rivers and exploitation.

On the Navajo Nation, Dine’ live with the strewn radioactive rocks from Cold War uranium mines, which their children play on. They breathe the dirty coal of Peabody’s Coal on Black Mesa, where Dine’ continue to resist relocation. They breathe the gases from the coal-fired Navajo Generating Station, which lights up Phoenix and Tucson, and pollution from two other coal-fired power plants, while many Dine' live without running water and electricity. Now, Dine’ live with the US EPA’s toxic gold mine release poisoning the San Juan River. It means traditional farmers watch their crops die.

In the nearby Pueblos, there is the same legacy of death from uranium mining, which has left its scars on the land and the people.

In North Dakota, the lands have been devastated by oil and gas drilling and fracking. Mossett is in Paris at COP21 to tell the story of her people. She is there for the children and future generations.

"This is COP21, how many more are you going to have?” asks Mossett, referring to the failure of the world’s leaders to make any substantial difference in the poisoning of the planet. She is among the frontline grassroots activists in the delegation from the Indigenous Environmental Network.

In South Dakota, Lakotas fight uranium mining and the poisoning of their scarce water. Throughout Indian country, Native Americans battle new schemes to steal their water, with backdoor political schemes known as “Indian water rights settlements.” Further, they battle the machinations of Arizona Sen. John McCain, who recently sneaked a land exchange into the defense bill which would turn sacred Apache land into a massive copper mine.

Now, women have risen to the forefront in climate justice.

In Paris, the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN International) is hosting a dynamic panel of Indigenous women speaking on climate change solutions in Paris on Sept. 7.

The International Rights of Nature Tribunal will meet in Paris December 4 --5. Hosted by the Global Alliance for the Right of Nature, the Tribunal is a citizen-created initiative that gives people from all around the world the opportunity to testify publicly on destruction of the Earth and their communities.

Back home, Indigenous People face violence in their homelands, as oil and gas and other temporary mine workers destabilize Native communities with drugs, sex crimes and violence. Meanwhile, globally -- from Guatemala and Peru to Brazil and throughout the Amazon -- mining companies continue to carry out assassinations, rapes and disappearances of Indigenous Peoples who oppose mining. These mining companies are primarily owned by Canadian and US corporations.

While global leaders with their bank accounts and posturing in Paris make the headlines, Indigenous Peoples are in Paris to tell the truth of the people.

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Shannon Biggs said, "Movement Rights: So proud to announce the release of our new report for the Paris climate talks! Edited by Shannon Biggs and Tom BK Goldtooth, this report, "Rights of Nature & Mother Earth: Sowing seeds of resistance, love and change." is a collaboration between Movement Rights Indigenous Environmental Network and Global Exchange. Providing both a critique of the UNFCCC process and an alternative system of environmental protection, the report includes contributions by Dr. Vandana Shiva (India), Maude Barlow (Canada), Pablo Solon (Bolivia), Alberto Acosta (Ecuador), Cormac Cullinan (South Africa) and many other luminaries. Please share and download here:" http://www.movementrights.org/resourc…/RONME-SowingSeeds.pdf

Read more:

Indigenous women WECAN in Paris

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/11/cop21-paris-schedule-womens-earth.html

Indigenous Enviromental Network in Paris

http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2015/11/indigenous-environmental-network.html

‘Women Leading Solutions on the Frontlines of Climate Change – Paris’

December 7, 2015  - 13:00 to 18:30

Paris Marriott Opera Ambassador Hotel, 18 Boulevard Haussmann 75009 Paris 

Speakers to date include:

• Vandana Shiva - World renowned activist, Founder of Navdanya Institute, India
• Mary Robinson - President, Mary Robinson Foundation-Climate Justice and former President of Ireland
• Patricia Gualinga - Indigenous Kichwa leader from Sarayaku, Ecuador
• Josefina Skerk - Vice President of the Saami Parliament, Sweden
• Fleur Newman - Programme Officer and UNFCCC Gender Focal Point representing the UNFCCC Secretariat, Germany
• Gloria Ushigua - President of the Association of Sapara Women, Ecuador
• Neema Namadamu - Director of SAFECO & WECAN DR Congo Coordinator, Democratic Republic of Congo
• Casey Camp Horinek - Ponca Nation elder and representative of the Indigenous Environmental Network, USA
• Aleta Baun - Conservationist & anti-mining activist of West Timor, Indonesia
• Kandi Mossett - Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Climate & Energy Campaign Organizer with the Indigenous Environmental Network, USA
• Jacqueline Patterson - Director, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Environmental and Climate Justice Program, USA
• Geneviève Azam - Scientific Council Member, Attac France
• Eriel Deranger - Communications Manager of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Canada
• Angelina Galiteva – Founder, Renewables 100 Policy Institute, USA
• Natalie Isaacs – CEO and co-Founder, 1 Million Women, Australia
• Mary Louise Malig - Campaigns Coordinator and Research Associate with the Global Forest Coalition, Philippines
• Thilmeeza Hussain - Founder of Voice of Women, Maldives
• Naomi Ages - Climate Liability Project Lead, Greenpeace USA
• UNFCCC Women & Gender Constituency Representative
• Sally Ranney – co-Founder, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, USA
• Osprey Orielle Lake - co-Founder and Executive Director, Women’s Earth & Climate Action Network, USA