On September 29, 2011 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it will clean up approximately 1.4 million tons of radium and uranium contaminated soil at the Northeast Church Rock Mine, the largest uranium mine on the Navajo Nation in New Mexico.
The Indigenous Environmental Network and other partners in the Tar Sands Action coalition issued a new action plan for protests against the Keystone XL pipeline. They reported that at a meeting on the Rosebud Sioux reservation last week, “Native tribal leaders from both sides of the border and private land owners from South Dakota and Nebraska signed a ‘Mother Earth Accord’ opposing Keystone XL and the tar sands.
Internal State Department emails obtained through the Access to Information Act reveal that the Obama administration has been promoting the Keystone XL pipeline project even while the project is officially under review by the department.
In an effort to teach the Lakota language to its children, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and the Lakota Language Consortium, have produced a 20-episode Berenstain Bears Lakota-language series, Matȟó Waúŋšila Thiwáhe, or “The Compassionate Bear Family.”
Elouise Cobell (Blackfeet) has been nominated for the Congressional Gold Medal after taking the U.S. government to court for mismanaging more than a century of American Indian land trust royalties. The lawsuit resulted in a $3.4 billion settlement for an estimated 500,000 Native Americans.
American Indian and Canadian Native leaders were among the 1,009 people arrested on September 2, 2011 in front of the White House while protesting the construction of a controversial 1,700 mile Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast. The protesters were warning about the environmental and health risks and were asking President Obama not to issue a permit for the construction of the pipeline.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), the branch of the World Bank Group that loans money to private corporations, announced a new policy that will require clients to obtain the free, prior, and informed consent of Indigenous communities that could be affected by their projects. Approved as part of an updated Sustainability Framework by IFC’s board of directors on May 12, 2011, the policy will take effect on January 1, 2012.
The Sustainability Framework’s Performance Standard 7 concerns Indigenous Peoples. The introduction states:
August 6th, 2011- For the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, a coalition of Indigenous groups from the United States, Mexico, and Australia issued a proclamation on the state of Indigenous rights. To read that proclamation on the International Indian Treaty Council website, click here.
In late May, Cultural Survival attended the 10th annual conference of International Funders for Indigenous Peoples. It was a great success: major foundations, including the
Land Acknowledgement
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on Massachusett land, in Cambridge, MA, and we thank the past, current, and future Indigenous stewards of this territory.
