White Earth Band enacts Rights of Nature

February 6, 2019

White Earth Band Enacts First-of-its-Kind Rights of Nature Law

First law securing the rights of a plant species to exist and flourish

CONTACT:

Nicolette Slagle                   

Honor the Earth

nicolette@honorearth.org

Mari Margil

Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

mmargil@celdf.org

The White Earth Band of Ojibwe - part of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe - adopted a Rights of Manoomin law.  The law protects legal rights of manoomin, or wild rice, securing on- and off-reservation protection of manoomin and the clean, fresh water resources and habitats on which it depends. The 1855 Treaty Authority adopted the Rights of Manoomin as well.  

The White Earth tribal resolution explains that Rights of Manoomin was adopted because "it has become necessary to provide a legal basis to protect wild rice and fresh water resources as part of our primary treaty foods for future generations."  This comes as wild rice, a traditional staple and sacred food for this Nation, faces significant impacts from habitat loss, climate change, development, genetic engineering, and other threats.  

The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) assisted Honor the Earth, an indigenous-led environmental advocacy group, in the development of the law.

"Manoomin is sacred to the Anishinaabeg, and it is time the law reflects this," explains Winona LaDuke, Honor the Earth's executive director.  

"This is a very important step forward in the Rights of Nature movement, as this is the very first law to recognize legal rights of a plant species," adds Mari Margil, head of CELDF's International Center for the Rights of Nature.

CELDF has pioneered the first world's first rights of nature laws, through its partnerships with communities and groups across the United States, with tribal nations, as well as with organizations in Nepal, India, Australia, and other countries.

***

Honor the Earth

607 Main Street, Callaway, MN 56521

honorearth.org

Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund

P.O. Box 360, Mercersburg, PA 17236    

celdf.org

--

Sue Lincoln

CELDF Communications Coordinator

"Corporations want to keep decision making at the levels of government they've carefully bought. Go home and empower the people to take back control." --Terry Lodge, CELDF

Zapatistas 25th Anniversary- - 'Make the Impossible Possible'

 On the 25th Anniversary, Zapatistas spoke of rising up to make the impossible possible, the current trickster in chief, and the autonomy and resistance that sprang from themselves -- as people of the land.

Read more--
.http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/2019/01/09/words-of-the-ezlns-ccri-cg-to-the-zapatista-peoples-on-the-25th-anniversary-of-the-beginning-of-the-war-against-oblivion/

Zapatistas in Sonora. Photo by Brenda Norrell

Mohawk Nation News 'Neo-Feudalism State Called Canada'

http://mohawknationnews.com/blog/2019/02/06/neo-feudalism-state-called-canada/

Longest Walk 2019 -- Join us at Alcatraz to Begin Again -- 'We Shall Continue'

The Longest Walk: We Shall Continue

Media Release

 February 6th, 2019

The Longest Walk: We Shall Continue has been initiated to address the major threats to American Indian and Indigenous Peoples and Nations.  This is a spiritual Walk for all Indigenous Peoples and our allies.  In 1978, The Longest Walk came about as a way to confront eleven (11) anti-Indian bills in Congress.  This included a bill that proposed abrogating all Indian treaties.  In 2019 we are facing a renewal of serious threats to our children, women, lands, waters, sovereignty, and even our Indigenous Knowledge.

On February 11^th we will begin with a Ceremony on Alcatraz Island, located in San Francisco Bay, to begin our spiritual Walk to the Washington Monument, in Washington, DC.  We have identified eleven (11) areas that we need to affirm, advocate, and educate about.  These are:

1)    Support and Protect Indian Children

2)    Honor Indigenous Women

3)    Strengthen Inherent and Indigenous Sovereignty

4)    Create an Environmental Covenant

5)    Repeal Public Law 280 and Overturn the Plenary Power Doctrine

6)    Land, Waters and Air Clean Up and Protection

7)    Treaties, Lands, and Customary Responsibilities

8)    Strengthen and Assert Spiritual Freedom and Protect Sacred Sites

9)    Protect Indigenous Knowledge

10) Support Just Transition

11) Confront Alcohol and Other Drugs Abuse

Along the way we want to hear about issues that can be placed within these eleven themes.  We also want to encourage those who have been on previous Walks to share their story, as well as hearing from communities along the way that also have their own stories to tell.

Upon arriving in Washington DC we will convene some discussion on these issues, with the intent of finding common ground among issues that the diversity of Indigenous Peoples Nations and organizations can agree upon.  It is our hope that these discussions will occur in many places at the same time, with distributed actions, and that we will network all of them together into an addition to The Longest Walk Manifesto.  Because of the significant threats to our Peoples, many of our actions are in reaction to what nation-states and corporations do to us.  These important defensive actions have played a major role in preserving what we still have.  Our hope in finding common ground on some of these issues is that we can collectively engage in strategic thinking and coordinating amongst ourselves.  No matter what is placed in our way, no matter what attacks happen, no matter how difficult things may be…We Shall Continue.

Route schedule
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2019/02/longest-walk-2019-route-schedule.html?m=1

Donate to the Longest Walk 2019. The walk's fiscal sponsor, Seventh Generation Fund, has set up this account below on link for walk donations.

https://7genfund.abilafundraisingonline.com/donatelongestwalk
.

For more information: longestwalk2019@gmail.com