Following the standard now synonymous with Canadian mining, Vancouver-based Continuum Resources has reactivated the historic “Natividad” mine site, an area of Oaxaca that’s been looted since before the 17th Century. Largely on Zapotec land, the site is reported to be Oaxaca’s richest gold and silver mine.

Historically, thousands of Zapotec have worked the mine, but today the consequences of development are too well understood. Over the course of 230 years, more than a million ounces of gold and 23 million ounces of silver have been extracted from the site, but the only real ‘benefit’ to the community has been the death of their soil, the drying of their rivers, and the toxification of their land.

Today, Continuum holds more than 54,000 hectares of concessions at the Natividad site, extending that legacy of destruction for generations to come.

On Friday, the Dominion published Canada’s Mining Continuum, which details what’s been happening:

“The whole territory of Capulálpam is communally owned,” explains Francisco Garcia López, a member of Capulálpam’s Commission of Communal Goods, standing on a rock above a river valley and indicating …

The International Indian Treaty Council will soon present the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination with a document that reveals America’s legacy of systemic racism, forced assimilation and apartheid of Indigenous Peoples.

The 87-page Consolidated Indigenous Shadow Report, which has been prepared with testimony from a number of individuals, covers issues such as: environmental racism, border injustices, the destruction of sacred places, violence against women, and most tellingly, the “overwhelming disparities in income, life expectancy, poverty and unemployment” in what can only be described as a system of Apartheid and forced assimilation “where Indigenous people are warehoused in poverty and neglect, their only option being to abandon their lands, families, languages and cultures to search for a better life.”

Among other matters, the report also examines the Plenary Powers Doctrine, the so-called ‘Trust’ Relationship, and the “current application of racist constitutional doctrine established by the United States Supreme Court” in the early 1800s.

As stated in the Conclusion,

The United States perpetuates a constitutional and legal system that legitimizes discriminatory practices towards Indigenous Peoples by failing to protect their rights …

There is yet another mine set to be developed on indigenous territory without the consent of the people—a mine that has been so poorly engineered that it threatens an environmental disaster.

According to a Press Release by the Little Salmon Carmacks First Nation, Western Copper’s proposed Carmacks mine, set to begin this coming spring, “includes a heap leach pile built on the side of a mountain that will cover at least 31.5 hectares (79 acres), and is 90m (300 feet) high.” The mountainside heap would be filled with sulphuric acid, copper, cadmium, lead and selenium, among other chemicals.

“If their cheap collection dam breaks,” says Chief Eddy Skookum, “we’ll see an environmental disaster unlike any we’ve seen in Canada before.” The heap and pond would drain into the nearby Yukon River which supplies Indigenous People throughout the Yukon with Salmon, and of course water. The threatened area is also considered to be a major tourist attraction.

Chief Skookum goes on to explain that “we are not against mining, but we will not accept a mine …

Updated to version published on Upside Down World

There’s a new law being debated in Brazil that threatens to undermine the rights and livelihoods of all Indigenous people in this South American nation.

Through twisting the letter and intent of International Labour Organisation convention 169, among other International agreements and National legislation, this law proposes that Brazil perform a state-wide intervention campaign to “save” indigenous children from bad treatment, neglect, abuse, exploitation, and infanticide.

While not as comprehensive as the 700 pages of legislation that embodies the “Australian Intervention” this Brazilian equivalent poses an even greater danger. If legislated, it would allow state forces to enter all indigenous communities on a regular basis; and it would force Indigenous people to police themselves by making them legally obligated to denounce any community member who is or who may be harming children.

If they do not denounce such a person, or if someone is suspected to know something but declined to report it, they would then be punished similarly to those who harmed or may have harmed a child. Punishment would range

…

January 4th of this year marked the 16th anniversary of the day more than 300,000 Ogonis participated in “a mass non-violent protest against the devastation of their environment by the heartless multinational, oppressive, genocidal, and apartheid-like policies of both the Nigerian authorities and Royal Dutch Shell towards them.”

Soldiers and mobile police responded to the protest by firing tear gas and live ammunition into the crowd, killing four youths. Over the next year, acts of genocidal violence were repeatedly committed against the Ogoni.

Three years prior to this, Ogoni Elders signed The Ogoni Bill of Rights, which put out the call for “political control of Ogoni affairs by Ogoni people, control and use of Ogoni economic resources for Ogoni development, adequate and direct representation as of right for Ogoni people in all Nigerian national institutions and the right to protect the Ogoni environment and ecology from further degradation”.

Continuing to move this vision forward, in a recent statement, the Ogoni Journalists Platform (OJP) urged the recently elected “President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Governor Chibuike Amaechi to implement the …

Last week, Environmental groups from the Philippines cautioned against the government sending in larger deployments of police and military to protect mining operations such as the one headed by the Australian mining giant Xstrata in Tampakan, Mindanao. The groups warn that doing so “would give rise to even more conflict and human rights violations against mining-affected communities.”

In a statement, Clemente Bautista Jr., National Coordinator of Kalikasan Peoples’ Network for the Environment (Kalikasan PNE), said “We’re disappointed that the Environment Secretary favors militarization over peace talks and community consent as a solution to the mining woes in Tampakan. Mining-affected communities, are increasingly vulnerable to human and civil rights violations by state and private armed security forces. Mr. Atienza should not make a practice of encouraging troops to protect mining firms that should not be there in the first place, especially those which lack the consent of the communities to be affected by their operations.”

Indigenous people in Tampakan have been protesting Xstrata’s mine because it will encroach on their Traditional Lands and devastate critical watershed areas. If the military …

A group of Algonquin warned on Friday they will ignore the court order issued last October and return to block the Uranium mine near Sharbot Lake unless the Province of Ontario calls a halt to the project.

“The destruction of the land, the consequence of a uranium mine being built, and the health effects will be devastating on our community,” said Chief Negotiator Robert Lovelace. “We have taken a stand that there will be no uranium mine in that area.”

Keith Leslie writes, “Lovelace [also] said he doesn’t expect any agreement between the two sides before a court-ordered consultation process ends Jan. 28, so First Nations protesters will attempt to return to the site on that date to prevent any further activities by the mining company.

“We feel that our backs are against the wall,” he said. “We do have legal rights, and a legal obligation under our own lands to protect our land and to protect our neighbours.”

But the Ardoch First Nation opted out of a larger negotiating process involving other Ontario Algonquins and has no standing …

On Jan. 7, about 100 campesinos successfully blocked the spraying of pesticides on soy fields in the Ybypé community of the department of San Pedro, Paraguay. Riot police were mobilized to protect the fumigation tractors, but in a rare and inspiring turn, the campesinos convinced the officers of their right to resist the spraying. The police then refused to break up the blockade.

The Campesinos have so far resisted every attempt to fumigate these fields since the land was sold to Brazilian soy growers, who removed the previous life with tractors and planted soy.

Reto Sonderegger writes on Upside Down World,

“In the department of San Pedro above all, a popular movement is asserting itself more and more forcefully against the application of pesticides to genetically modified soy monoculture crops. With appeals for legal protection backed by the Paraguayan Human Rights Committee [Coordinadora de Derechos Humanos del Paraguay (CODEHUPY)], movements are public attention to the soy growers’ lack of observance of means of protection, such as the installation of live barriers like tall bushes or other plants to block the drift …

Earlier this week, there were confrontations between police officers and indigenous People in Panama who are opposed to the development of a hydroelectric dam on the Cobre River. On Saturday, about 250 demonstrators closed the Pan-American highway, but were suppressed half an hour later and attacked with tear gas by the National Police.

This was to-be-expected, but as Larrissa Duarte, a spokesperson from the Movement in Defense of the Cobre River, said to La Prensa, they have been carrying out peaceful protests for the past five years, and a lack of response has now prompted them to take “more extreme measures”. Duarte also said the people will continue to defend Cobre River and will not allow the dam to be built in their waters.

This dam is far from the only one that is opposed. As the biodiversity activist website explains, right now there are more than 390 dams on table - all of which are a part of a massive hydropower development scheme that aims to industrialize Mesoamerica in the name of free trade.

As previously noted on …

Just days after a group of Penan came forward to report the disappearance of Kelesau Naan, a respected 79-year old activist and leader from the Penan settlement of Long Kerong in Malaysia, his body was found near Sungai Segita– about a two hours’ walk from Long Kerong.

According to Malaysiakini, the Penan found evidence that he was assaulted. “His hand was broken and looked as if it had been hit by a sharp object,” Matin Bujang told Malaysiakini while en route to lodge a police report.

“While shocked at the gruesome finding, Matin said the villagers were not completely surprised as tensions had escalated in recent months over the issue of logging in the Upper Baram region.

Last September, Matin pointed out, disturbances broke out near Ba’ Lai which led many to fear further troubles.

This is in addition to earlier reports that Penans from the nearby village of Long Benali had in April and August 2007 been subjected to intimidation by local security forces seeking to break up their logging blockade.” (NB: another blockade was set up by …