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September 1, 2012 Leave a comment
The Black Hills were stolen from the Sioux in 1877. Now, Indians are in a desperate quest to buy back their sacred sites
Story – Video Here ==> http://bit.ly/The-Sioux-campaign-to-buy-back-the-Black-Hills-that-belong-to-them-VIDEO
August 5, 2012 Leave a comment
August 02, 2012 2:19 pm (Sioux City Journal)
WINNEBAGO, Neb. | The Winnebago Tribal Council has entered into an agreement with a company to build and operate a 10-megawatt wind farm in Thurston County.
The contract is with Bluestem Energy Solutions, of Omaha. The project is expected to include four to six turbine projects on tribal land five miles south of Emerson, Neb.
Groundbreaking is scheduled in 2013.
Winnebago Tribe officials have been planning the towers for several years. Tribe Chair John Blackhawk in a statement said, “The Tribe realized during its study of wind energy that it would need a significant partner with the resources to complete the multimillion dollar project.”
Bluestem also built towers for a Nebraska Public Power District project in Keya Paha County.
Company spokeswoman Nicole McDermott said they’re not disclosing the cost of the Winnebago contract. Construction will finish next year, she said.
The project will create enough energy to power 3,500 average-sized Nebraska homes, officials said.
August 5, 2012 1 Comment
IQUITOS, Peru—The world that PlusPetrol has built in Peru’s Amazon over the last 16 years seems to be crumbling under the weight of the company’s alleged crimes.
The Argentinian oil company – notorious for allegedly spilling oil, dumping toxic petro-chemicals and production waters into streams used by indigenous communities – is finally getting the attention it deserves.
On the pleading of indigenous leaders whose people have suffered four decades under the oil regime in the region of Loreto, a congressional investigation finally led to the arrival of four members of Congress who, in late June, had to see for themselves the contamination that officials at all levels of government have ignored for years.
In one visit, a congresswoman slipped into an oil-filled pond that the company allegedly denied even existed. In another, legislators arrived on the scene as PlusPetrol workers were bulldozing dirt and trees on top an oil-filled lake to hide potential contamination.
“This is how it is. This is what we live with out there,” said Adolfo Rengifo Hualinga, vice president of the Federation of Native Communities of the Corrientes (FECONACO).
In recent testimony before Peru’s Congress, PlusPetrol officials blamed indigenous “vandalism” for a majority of their spills, claiming that the Natives were responsible for poisoning themselves.
Rashes and fevers are common among villagers on the Pastaza and other nearby rivers where oil spills are frequent. (Courtesy Debbie Rivet, Alianza Arkana)
After Quechua communities on the Pastaza River rose up to protest PlusPetrol in June, threatening to add to Peruvian President Ollanta Humala’s many woes, a cabinet-level commission was mobilized and dispatched to the community of Alianza Topal…
Read more:http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/07/30/oil-company-under-fire-in-amazon-new-inquiries-exposes-and-penalties-fuel-indigenous-movement-125976 http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/07/30/oil-company-under-fire-in-amazon-new-inquiries-exposes-and-penalties-fuel-indigenous-movement-125976#ixzz22giJ8iD4
August 5, 2012 Leave a comment
The Kalispel Tribe has signed an agreement that will provide $39.5 million from the federal government to fund a 10-year program to help restore bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout populations.
For centuries the Kalispel people relied on bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout for a significant part of their diet. That changed in the 1950s, when Albeni Falls Dam was built on the Pend Oreille River in Idaho, a couple of miles from the Washington line. No fish ladders were installed, and fish could no longer move between Pend Oreille Lake, where they grew to huge sizes, or to downriver streams below the dam, where they had traditionally spawned near the Kalispel Reservation.
“The single largest issue facing the Kalispel Tribe is the presence of non-native species that tend to crowd out, consume or interbreed with native species,” said Dean Osterman, executive director for the tribe’s Natural Resources Department. “We want our people to be able harvest these fish again.”
Brook trout, northern pike and lake trout are the three species targeted for suppression…
Read more:http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/08/01/kalispel-tribe-signs-39-5-million-deal-to-bolster-native-trout-125525 http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2012/08/01/kalispel-tribe-signs-39-5-million-deal-to-bolster-native-trout-125525#ixzz22ggou4Oj
July 6, 2012 Leave a comment
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| Illustration by Mr. Fish |
By Chris Hedges
Native Americans’ resistance to the westward expansion of Europeans took two forms. One was violence. The other was accommodation. Neither worked. Their land was stolen, their communities were decimated, their women and children were gunned down and the environment was ravaged. There was no legal recourse. There was no justice. There never is for the oppressed. And as we face similar forces of predatory, unchecked corporate power intent on ruthless exploitation and stripping us of legal and physical protection, we must confront how we will respond.
The ideologues of rapacious capitalism, like members of a primitive cult, chant the false mantra that natural resources and expansion are infinite. They dismiss calls for equitable distribution as unnecessary. They say that all will soon share in the “expanding” wealth, which in fact is swiftly diminishing. And as the whole demented project unravels, the elites flee like…read more at http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/time_to_get_crazy_20120702/
May 28, 2012 Leave a comment
By: Native News Network Staff in Native Currents
YREKA, CALIFORNIA – On Thursday, Klamath Riverkeeper filed an Endangered Species Act citizen suit over a dam and series of water diversions operated by Montague Water Conservation District on the Shasta River in Siskiyou County. The Karuk Tribe also decided today to file its own 60-day notice of intent to litigate on the same grounds.
Water Diversions Removal
The legal filing by Klamath Riverkeeper follows a 60-day notice period during which KRK offered Montague Water Conservation District an opportunity to negotiate a settlement outside the courtroom. The action effectively calls on the irrigation district to remedy its impacts to salmon runs verging on extinction there.
“ We simply have to better manage limited water resources to benefit everyone in the watershed. We hope to resolve this issue in a way that will restore endangered coho salmon while preserving a viable agricultural economy in Siskiyou County,”
said KRK Executive Director Erica Terence.
Klamath Riverkeeper ‘s complaint, filed in federal court in Sacramento, outlines how…For more go to this link.
http://www.nativenewsnetwork.com/karuk-tribe-joins-lawsuit-to-protect-endangered-salmon.html
May 28, 2012 Leave a comment
By: Darrin Mortenson
After threatening to seize several of the company’s Amazon oil wells unless officials sat down to talks, Achuar indigenous communities on the Corrientes River won major concessions from Argentinian driller PlusPetrol recently, including a commitment to finally clean up the oil-sodden lake and tributary of Atiliano near the communities of Pucacuro and Pavayacu.
The company may also have to pay for extensive damages to health, the environment…
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