Indigenous women speak out against Tar Sands, Vancouver Fri Sept 21

She Speaks: Indigenous Women Speak Out Against Tar Sands When: Friday September 21 Doors at 5:30 pm. Program ends at 8:30 pm Where: Aboriginal Friendship Center - 1607 East Hastings St (corner Commercial) - Vancouver, Unceded Coast Salish Territories Download/Print Posters and Handbills Here Dinner will be served and childcare on-site. This is a free event. Indigenous communities are taking the lead to stop the largest industrial project, the Tar Sands Gigaproject. Northern Alberta is ground zero with over 20 corporations operating in the tar sands sacrifice zone, with expanded developments being planned. The cultural heritage, land, ecosystems and human health of Indigenous communities including the Mikisew Cree First Nation, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Fort McMurray First Nation, Fort McKay Cree Nation, Beaver Lake Cree First Nation Chipewyan Prairie First Nation, and the Metis, are being sacrificed for oil money in what has been termed a “slow industrial genocide”. Infrastructure projects linked to the tar sands expansion such as the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, Kinder Morgan pipeline, Ontario Line 9 reversal, and the Keystone XL pipeline threaten Indigenous communities across Turtle Island. Join us to hear from Indigenous women at the front line of defending the land and communities from tar sands development and expansion. Dinner will be served and childcare on-site. Feast is sponsored and provided by the International Woman's Caucus on Climate This is a free event. Featured Speakers: Ta'Kaiya Blaney is a Sliammon Nation youth who made headlines when she wrote a song to speak up against the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline. Since then, she has been a strong Indigenous youth voice locally and internationally advocating to protect the coast and the land against big oil. Eriel Tchekwie Deranger is a Dene from the Athbasca Chipewyan First Nation of Northern Alberta, Canada. She is currently the Communications Coordinator for Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, who have recently filed a suit against oil giant Shell Oil Canada for their open-pit mining projects. Suzanne Dhaliwal is the co-founder of the UK Tar Sands Network, which works in solidarity with the Indigenous Environmental network to campaign against UK corporations and financial institutions invested in the Alberta Tar Sands. Melina Laboucan-Massimo is Lubicon Cree from Northern Alberta. She has been working as an advocate for Indigenous rights for the past 10 years. She has worked with organizations like Redwire Native Media Society and Indigenous Media Arts Society. She has joined greenpeace as a tar sands climate & energy campaigner. This event is organized by the Indigenous Environmental Network. IEN is an alliance of grassroots Indigenous Peoples whose mission is to protect the sacredness of Mother Earth from contamination and exploitation by strengthening, maintaining, and respecting traditional teachings and natural laws. This event is supported by Aboriginal Front Door, Alliance for Peoples Health, Council of Canadians, Indigenous Action Movement, International Woman's Caucus on Climate, Mining Justice Alliance, No One Is Illegal - Vancouver Unceded Coast Salish Territories, Occupy Vancouver Environmental Justice Working Group, Pipe Up Network, Purple Thistle Center, Streams of Justice, Tanker Free BC, Western Wilderness Committee. For more information: Clayton Thomas Muller: monsterredlight@gmail.com 613 297 7515 Sheila Muxlow: sheila.muxlow@gmail.com Harsha Walia: hwalia8@gmail.com or 778 885 0040 Maryam Adrangi: madrangi@canadians.org Stay in Touch! KXL Pipeline Blockade - 4 Arrested! 4 Blockaders Have Locked Themselves to a Pipe-carrying Truck In Livingston, TX, bringing construction on the Keystone XL pipeline to a stop!! Blockaders from the Red River valley to the Gulf Coast are uniting to realize their collective vision of a world without toxic tar sands pipelines being forced through the homes of families who don’t want them. Today’s message is clear: the people are rising up to defend their homes. This act of peaceful civil disobedience comes in the wake of a recent court decision condoning TransCanada’s use of eminent domain for private gain. Last week Lamar County Judge Bill Harris ruled in a shockingly abbreviated fifteen-word summary judgment that Texas farmer Julia Trigg Crawford cannot challenge TransCanada’s claim that it is entitled to a piece of her home. The underwhelming ruling was emailed to Ms. Crawford’s attorney late in the evening of August 15 from the Judge’s iPhone. Read more on the live blog. First Nation preparing for Shell’s Jackpine Mine Expansion Environmental Hearings August 27, 2012 Fort McMurray, AB – For over a year the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) has been preparing for the Joint Review Panel hearings to challenge Shell Oil Canada’s proposed Jackpine Mine expansion and the Pierre River open pit mine tar sands projects. Last week, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency announced the first hearing dates for the Jackpine Mine Expansion project starting October 29th in Fort McMurray, Alberta. Chief and Council of the ACFN made clear commitments to protect the treaty rights of their people and the first nation feels the proposed Shell Oil projects are in breach of Treaty 8 rights leading to degradation of critical hunting, trapping, fishing lands and waterways in the region.  Read more

The Indigenous Environmental Network • PO Box 485 • Bemidji, MN 56619

http://www.ienearth.org/