Women of the Land Speak: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Tar Sands to Renewables: New Age Of Activism top 12 and beyond. Winona LaDuke

February 17, 2013 7pm – 10 pm  (speakers from 7 to 9pm, networking from 9 to 10pm) Busboys and Poets 1025 5th Street NW, Washington D.C. This event is part of  the Women's Earth and Climate Caucus (WECC) Delegation to Washington D.C. Indigenous communities and women of the land are taking the lead to stop the largest industrial project on Earth. From Northern Alberta, which is ground zero with over 20 corporations operating in the tar sands sacrifice zone, to Texas where the XL Keystone pipeline is under construction, the tar sands and related infrastructure are threatening communities across North America. The cultural heritage, land, ecosystems and health of land-based communities are being sacrificed for oil money in what has been termed a “slow industrial genocide.”  Women are joining in solidarity to speak out against the tar sands that not only threaten their communities but the very future of all life, as we know it. NASA scientist, Dr. James Hansen states that if the tar sands project goes forward it will be “essentially game over for the climate.” But, we can take a stand to accelerate the transition to a clean, safe and sustainable energy economy by stopping the expansion of the tar sands. We can stand up for the rights of our communities and nature. Solutions exist -- now we need the collective and political will to implement them.  Join us for an extraordinary evening with women leaders speaking out against the tar sands and its violation of their lands and communities, and hear about implemental, clean-energy solutions.   With special closing comments after the panel from:  Winona LaDuke, Executive Director of Honor the Earth (Anishinaabe) and an internationally acclaimed author, orator and activist. A graduate of Harvard and Antioch Universities with advanced degrees in rural economic development, LaDuke has devoted her life to protecting the lands and life ways of Native communities. Panelists include:  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 and works with the Indigenous Environmental Network.  Crystal Lameman is a Beaver Lake Cree Nation activist and Sierra Club and Indigenous Environmental Network Alberta Tar Sands Campaigner. Crystal is committed to restore Indigenous Treaty rights and stopping the exploitation of the tar sands.  Eleanor Fairchild is a 78-year-old farmer from eastern Texas who is working to defend her land against the Keystone XL pipeline. Eleanor is a great-grandmother who was arrested for "trespassing" on her own farm.  Julia Trigg Crawford is the Farm Manager of her family's 650 acre working farm in far northeast Texas that stands directly in the path of TransCanada's controversial Gulf Coast Pipeline Project. She and her family stand steadfast and united in the protection of their property rights, the preservation of the environment, and are currently in courts challenging TransCanada's condemnation of their land. Angelina M. Galiteva is Founder of the Renewables 100 Policy Institute and was appointed in 2011 by Governor Jerry Brown to the California Independent Systems Operator Board (CAISO). She also serves as a Chairperson of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE) and as Chair of the Renewable Energy Working Group at the Business for Environment (B4E) summits.   Osprey Orielle Lake (moderator) is Founder and President of the Women's Earth and Climate Caucus where she is working with grassroots leaders, policy-makers, business people, and scientists to promote resilient communities and foster a post-carbon energy future by addressing systemic change. She is also Co-Chair of International Advocacy for the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature.  Direct inquiries for the Feb. 17th event to Wyolah Garden wgarden@ix.netcom.com Women's Earth and Climate Caucus Delegation EPA Meeting  The WECC Women of the Land Delegates will meet with EPA February 19, 2013. Please direct inquiries to Janet MacGillivray Wallace, Esq. 415 990 3806 who is heading up the meeting.  The WECC Delegation includes the speakers listed above and the following leaders:  Janet MacGillivray Wallace, J.D., LL.M., is an environmental attorney and social change activist. Formerly with EPA and noted environmental and environmental health organizations, Janet, of Creek heritage, works in burdened communities where Mother Earth’s fossil fuel resources are extracted and consumed globally by industrial corporations as raw materials for energy. Janet has dedicated her work to stopping the tar sands based Keystone XL Pipeline, first with Texas landowners and now as Founder/Director of the Fossil Fuel Resistance and Clean Energy Project affiliated with the Women’s Earth and Climate Caucus. She blogs on issues of corporate imperialism, subsidized fossil fuel industry, Indigenous Rights and the Rights of Nature.  Kandi Mossett (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara) is Native Energy & Climate Campaign Organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network.. She works primarily at the grassroots level bridging generational gaps in tribal communities while connecting the local to the national and the national to the international in an effort to raise awareness about sustainability and continue the fight towards just climate and energy solutions for all. Claire Greensfelder is a peace and safe energy activist, educator, political campaigner, and occasional journalist focusing on climate change since 2006. She is currently a Consultant to the International Women's Earth and Climate Initiative (IWECI) for their September 2013 Global 100 Women Summit and to the multi-media exhibit: Conversations with the Earth: Indigenous Voices on Climate Change - most recently seen at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. Presented by: Women's Earth and Climate Caucus (WECC) in partnership withIndigenous Environmental Network and 350.org   Forward this message to a friend

New Age Of Activism Top 12 and Beyond: Winona LaDuke

Thank you that was lovely.

Indigenous Women Take the Lead in Idle No More share by New Age Of Activism Top 12 and beyond: Winona LaDuke

Motivated by ancient traditions of female leadership as well as their need for improved legal rights, First Nations women are stepping to the forefront of the Idle No More movement.

Late last year, amid the the rallies, dances, blockades, and furious tweeting that accompanied the burgeoning Idle No More movement, a young native woman was kidnapped by two Caucasian men in Thunder Bay, Ontario. It was two days after Christmas. They drove her out to a remote wooded area where they raped and strangled her. According to one report, the men told her that they’d done this before, and intended to do it again. They allegedly said, “You Indians deserve to lose your treaty rights.”

Idle No More: Indigenous Uprising Sweeps North America
Idle No More has organized the largest mass mobilizations of indigenous people in recent history. What sparked it off and what’s coming next?

The story was not widely reported in the press, maybe because the woman, publicly known as “Angela Smith,” is indigenous, or maybe because violence against indigenous women happens so frequently that it’s rarely considered news.

Which is what makes the very fact of Idle No More’s female leadership so significant. Across Canada, indigenous women are continuing a tradition of leadership that existed before colonization, and in spite of a political system which, over the last 150 years, has made every attempt to prevent them from having power. While the stated goal of Idle No More is “education and the revitalization of indigenous peoples through awareness and empowerment,” according to a press release issued by the group on January 10, the rights of indigenous women appear to be an inherent part of that revitalization.

The movement—which has swept North America and inspired solidarity actions all over the world—was initiated by four women: Jessica Gordon, Sylvia McAdams, Sheelah McLean, and Nina Wilson. It gained early momentum around the hunger strike maintained by another woman, Chief of the Attawapiskat, Theresa Spence.

In many communities across the country, it was—and, in some hopeful instances, still is—the grandmothers who called the shots.

“It’s not coincidental that women are initiating this movement,” says Kiera-Dawn Kolson, 26, a Dene activist from Northwest Territories who has spoken at and helped organize Idle No More events since the movement began. She’s Greenpeace’s Arctic Campaigner, a motivational speaker, facilitator, singer/songwriter, and performer.

On a recent day of action, Kolson watched excitedly from her hometown of Yellowknife as image after image of rallies streamed in from all over Canada. She noticed a pattern: From Ontario to Nunavut, from Saskatchewan to the Yukon, the images showed young women in the roles of organizers and spokespeople.

She’s energized, but not surprised. “So many of our communities were and are still matriarchal societies,” she says. In many communities across the country, it was—and, in some hopeful instances, still is—the grandmothers who called the shots. And while each society is different, they all shared the same fate under Canada’s Indian Act, an all-encompassing piece of legislation that had devastating ramifications for women; created by white men with Victorian values, the Act explicitly excluded women from most forms of power and even made their identity as “Indians” contingent on their husbands.

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Nearly a hundred and forty years later, in Canada and all over the world, young indigenous women (as well as transgendered youth) are some of the most heavily brutalized segments of the population. In some provinces, native women are seven times more likely to be murdered than their non-indigenous counterparts. According to the Native Women’s Association of Canada (NWAC), 582 women were murdered or disappeared between 2000 and 2010—and many more cases are unreported. No one knows how much the number has risen since then; the project apparently stalled after the Harper government cut NWAC’s research funding.

Idle No More's female leadership is a testament to the ability of women to reclaim power in the face of oppression.

Kolson has been active in NWAC’s Sisters in Spirit project, which compiles data on missing and murdered women and works to spread awareness about the issue. Building on NWAC’s research, Human Rights Watch has recently taken up the cause, and is mounting an investigation of its own. Meanwhile, Kolson lives with the knowledge that her identity puts her in danger. In college, she was careful to choose only classes that took place during the day so she wouldn’t have to walk alone at night.

“Angela Smith” was left alone in the frozen woods after her attack, and the two men drove away. They never believed she’d live. They were wrong: not only did she survive, she walked the four hours back to her town, and her story has come to symbolize strength in the face of unimaginable violence. We hope she is healing.

As Idle No More continues to gain traction, its women leaders work to make visible the systems—of political power, racism, and economic injustice—that oppress all native people. For them, these are not abstract issues; each of these pieces contributes to a society where their bodies, and those of their sisters and daughters, are targets.

The name “Idle No More” is new, but the struggle is as old as Canada. It stands firmly in the tradition of human rights movements led by those most oppressed: the Civil Rights movement in the U.S., the Independence movement in India, and the struggle to end apartheid in South Africa. Its female leadership is a testament to the ability of women to reclaim power in the face of oppression, and to the resilience, over centuries, of a people for whom assimilation is not an option.
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New Age Of Activism Top 12 and Beyond: Winona LaDuke Clayton - Thomas-Muller and Heather Milton Lightening at #J28

Powerful speeches by Clayton Thomas-Muller @CreeClayton and Heather Milton Lightening @inktomilady at yesterday's Idle No More Global Day of Action rally on Parliament Hill, Ottawa

Video recorded by Lana Brite of Toronto Rising Tide!