Tag Archives: indigenous rights

As Insurers Cut Coverage Due to Climate Disasters, Senators Probe Continued Backing of Fossil Fuels

“By underwriting and investing in new and expanded fossil fuel projects, U.S. insurers are helping Big Oil bring us closer to the worst runaway climate scenarios,” said Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse.

By Kenny Stancil. Published 6-9-2023 by Common Dreams

Storm damage from Hurricane Ian. Photo: Florida Fish and Wildlife/flickr/CC

As insurance giants limit coverage in hundreds of disaster-prone areas across the United States, a Senate panel on Friday launched an investigation into seven major carriers’ continued backing of planet-heating fossil fuel projects that are driving increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather.

Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) sent letters to the executives of seven companies—American Insurance Group (AIG), Berkshire Hathaway, Chubb, Liberty Mutual Group, Starr Wright USA, State Farm, and Travelers Insurance—demanding that each firm disclose how it underwrites, invests in, and profits from coal, oil, and gas.

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Ecuador’s Right-Wing President Dissolves Congress to ‘Stave Off Impeachment’

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The head of the Andean nation’s largest Indigenous rights group accused President Guillermo Lasso of launching a “cowardly self-coup” and pushing the country toward an “imminent dictatorship.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 5-17-2023 by Common Dreams

Guillermo Lasso’s inauguration in 2021 Photo: Asamblea Nacional del Ecuador/flickr/CC

Days before Ecuadorian lawmakers were expected to vote on removing him from office, Guillermo Lasso, Ecuador’s deeply unpopular right-wing president, dissolved the country’s National Assembly, a move progressive critics called a bid to avoid impeachment.

For the first time ever, Lasso invoked Article 148 of the Ecuadorian Constitution, which gives presidents the power to dissolve the legislature under certain circumstances, including legislative overreach and a “severe political crisis and domestic unrest.”

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50 Years On, Legacy of Wounded Knee Uprising Lives in Indigenous Resistance

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“We’re not the subjugated and disenfranchised people that we were,” said one Ponca elder who took part in the 1973 revolt. “Wounded Knee was an important beginning of that.”

By Brett Wilkins. Published 2-27-2023 by Common Dreams

Photo: Comrade Stu/Twitter

As many Native Americans on Monday marked the 50th anniversary of the militant occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, participants in the 1973 uprising and other activists linked the deadly revolt to modern-day Indigenous resistance, from Standing Rock to the #LandBack movement.

On February 27, 1973 around 300 Oglala Lakota and members of the American Indian Movement (AIM), seething from centuries of injustices ranging from genocide to leniency for whites who committed crimes against Indians, occupied the hamlet of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation for more than two months. The uprising occurred during a period of increased Native American militancy and the rise of AIM, which first drew international attention in 1969 with the 19-month occupation of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. Continue reading →

Brazil’s Indigenous peoples survived Bolsonaro. Now Lula has won, what next?

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Bolsonaro’s genocidal policies devastated Indigenous communities. After four years of trauma, they can breathe again

By Sarah Shenker. Published 2-3-2023 by openDemocracy.

Indigenous women in Brazil have led protests during Bolsonaro’s rule.. Photo: Survival International

The news broke on 28 October 2018. Through the crackle and hiss of the radio, we made out one sentence: “Jair Bolsonaro has been elected president of Brazil.”

It was a long way from Brasília to Maçaranduba, an Indigenous community in the Amazon rainforest, but the significance of the news was clear. Some of our Awá and Tenetehar friends paced up and down, others held their heads in their hands. One let out a visceral scream, before reaching for a bottle of sugarcane spirit. Continue reading →

Advocates Cheer Revival of Bill to ‘Restore Critical Protections’ to Arctic Refuge

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“We need a law on the books that will affirm these lands are not for sale, preserve the wilderness of the Coastal Plain, and uphold the sovereignty of Arctic Indigenous peoples,” said Sen. Ed Markey, one of the bill’s lead sponsors.

By Brett Wilkins. Published 2-1-2023 by Common Dreams

A polar bear rests on a barrier island in the Beaufort Sea in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. (Photo: YangTS/flickr/cc)

Indigenous, climate, and conservation advocates on Wednesday welcomed the reintroduction of congressional legislation to restore protections and prevent fossil fuel development in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Sens. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), along with Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), reintroduced the Arctic Refuge Protection Act, the continuation of legislative efforts dating back to the 1980s to protect the critical wilderness and its inhabitants. Continue reading →

‘Huge News’: Alaska Native Group Secures Protections for Land Eyed by Pebble Mine Developers

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An Alaska Native village corporation drove the effort to conserve 44,000 acres of land in the Bristol Bay region, home to the world’s largest salmon fishery.

By Julia Conley Published 12-22-2022 by Common Dreams

The proposed site for Pebble Mine Photo: Jason Sear/KDLG

In partnership with a national conservation group, an Alaska Native village corporation owned by people of Dena’ina descent announced Thursday that it’s secured protections for 44,000 acres of land and waters that have been targeted by developers of the proposed Pebble Mine—creating the latest roadblock for a project that tribal leaders and conservationists warn would threaten the world’s largest wild salmon fishery.

The Conservation Fund, a nonprofit, announced that following an 18-month fundraising campaign, it has purchased three conservation easements for the land near Bristol Bay, surrounding Knutson Creek, Iliamna River, and Pile River. The easements cover part of the land on which developers have sought to build a mining road to transport ore from the proposed copper and gold mine. Continue reading →

Native American children’s protection against adoption by non-Indian families is before the Supreme Court

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*Tehassi Hill, tribal chairman of the Oneida Nation, stands outside a U.S. appeals court in 2019 after arguments in case that has made its way to the Supreme Court.*
*AP Photo/Kevin McGill*

Kirsten Matoy Carlson, Wayne State University

The Supreme Court is about to hear arguments about the constitutionality of a 1978 law enacted to protect Native American children in the U.S. and strengthen their families.

That law, the Indian Child Welfare Act, was originally passed by Congress in response to requests from tribal leaders and other advocates for Native Americans to stop states from removing Indian children from their families. Continue reading →

‘A Brazil of Hope’ as Leftist Lula Defeats Far-Right Bolsonaro in Presidential Runoff

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The Workers’ Party candidate, who completed a remarkable political comeback less than three years removed from a prison cell, tweeted one word following his win: “Democracy.”

By Brett Wilkins Published 10-30-2022 by Common Dreams

Brazilian President-Elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Photo: Daya Laxmi Shrestha/Twitter

“A huge blow against fascistic politics and a huge victory for decency and sanity.”

That’s how RootsAction director Norman Solomon described Brazilian President-Elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s Sunday presidential runoff victory against far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro, the culmination of a most remarkable political comeback for a man who was languishing behind bars just three years ago.

With 99% of votes counted via an electronic system that tallies final results in a matter of hours—and which was repeatedly aspersed by Bolsonaro in an effort to cast doubt on the election’s veracity—da Silva led the incumbent by more than two million ballots, or nearly two percentage points. Continue reading →

‘David Beat Goliath’ as Line 3 Water Defenders Win Protective Ruling

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“Today’s ruling shows that Hubbard County cannot repress Native people for the benefit of Enbridge by circumventing the law,” said Indigenous water protector Winona LaDuke.

By Brett Wilkins Published 9-13-2022 by Common Dreams

Police in Hubbard County, Minnesota blockade a driveway to an Indigenous camp of water protectors protesting the Line 3 pipeline. (Photo: Giniw Collective)

Indigenous water defenders and their allies on Tuesday celebrated a Minnesota court ruling protecting a Line 3 protest camp from illegal government repression.

Hubbard County District Judge Jana Austad issued a ruling shielding the Indigenous-led Giniw Collective’s Camp Namewag—where opponents organize resistance to Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands pipeline—from local law enforcement’s unlawful blockades and harassment. Continue reading →

‘Big Win’ for Public Lands and Climate as US Judge Reinstates Coal Lease Ban

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“It’s past time that this misguided action by the Trump administration is overturned,” said one environmental campaigner.

By Brett Wilkins Published 8-12-2022 by Common Dreams

Surface coal mine in Gillette, Wyoming. Photo: Greg Goebel/Wikimedia Commons/CC

Climate and Indigenous activists on Friday applauded the reinstatement of an Obama-era moratorium prohibiting new coal leases on all public lands until after the completion of a thorough environmental review.

Brian Morris, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Montana, issued an order reinstating the 2016 moratorium, which Ryan Zinke, former President Donald Trump’s disgraced interior secretary, reversed the following year. Continue reading →

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The Movement Continues – Globally

Tag Archives: indigenous rights

Ecuador’s Right-Wing President Dissolves Congress to ‘Stave Off Impeachment’

The head of the Andean nation’s largest Indigenous rights group accused President Guillermo Lasso of launching a “cowardly self-coup” and pushing the country toward an “imminent dictatorship.”