Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) is a small, remote, First Nation in Northern Ontario that was sued early last year by Platinex, a Toronto-based junior mining exploration company, for $10 Billion dollars. Platinex also sought out an injunction against KI so they could drill for platinum on their Traditional Territory without the community’s permission. In turn, KI submitted a counter-injunction…

In what was widely regarded a landmark decision, a few months later an Ontario Superior Court Judge ruled in favour of KI, ordering a moratorium on mining while the …

The Dominion has recently published it’s special issue on the Alberta tar sands; and has since last Monday , been publishing roughly one article a day about this massive, barely understood human rights and environmental disaster.

Four of the articles published so far have focused on the impact of tar sands development on indigenous people. In light of the seriousness of this issue and in respect to the effort of the Dominion to raise peoples awareness, I thought I’d briefly outline them…

The first article, “Oil Versus …

Earlier this month, the Latin American Water Tribunal (LAWT) gathered in Guadalajara, Mexico to hold a public hearing against the Government of Honduras and Minerales Entre Mares de Honduras, S.A, a subsidiary of Canada’s Goldcorp Inc.

The Siria Valley Regional Environmental Committee submitted a petition to the tribunal charging the government acted illegally to favour of Goldcorp’s open-pit cyanide-leeching mine in the Siria Valley, and that the company itself is responsible for water usurpation and the irrational exploitation and contamination of water which adversely effected the ecosystem as well …

Asserting jurisdiction within the Haldimand Tract, last month Traditional Chiefs at Six Nations announced a plan where they would set up an organization and begin to charge fees and require permits for construction to occur within the Haldimand Tract; a region that is by all legitimate means Six Nations Territory.

Well, this past Wednesday the Province of Ontario’s negotiator, Murray Coolican, told Confederacy Representatives that they do not have the right (therefore jurisdiction) to collect payments or issue permits.

As quoted by the Globe and mail, Mr. …

Following the Ontario government’s agreement to 12 weeks of mediation with the Sharbot Obaadjiwan and Ardoch Algonquins, the blockade at Frontenac Ventures’ uranium mining site has been lifted, allowing the company onto the land for the first time in months.

Yesterday, an agreement was signed in which the Ontario government pledged to consult the two Peoples on the future of the mine; and that an independent observer would be appointed to oversea the company’s work during the mediation process.

Robert Lovelace, a spokesman for those at …

Indigenous representatives attending the recent intercontinental encuentro in Vicam, Sonora Mexico, have called for a boycott of the 2010 Olympics Games in Vancouver, Canada; ratifying the position in the Vicam declaration, which was produced at the end of the 4 day gathering.

Hundreds, if not thousands of indigenous people now plan to attend the Olympic games “not in celebration, but in resistance to the danger the Olympics poses to Indigenous lands, identity, culture, health, livelihoods, and to future generations.”

Intercontinental Anti- 2010 Olympics Movement Launched In Mexico
For Immediate Release, …

This past June, José Aviles and Rubén Naichap, two Ecuadorian men who claim to be leaders of indigenous organizations in Ecuador, accused Ottawa-based Mining Watch Canada of supporting ‘the Economic, Cultural and Social Genocide of the Shuar people’; and of helping to keep ‘the Indigenous People of the Amazon in Poverty.’

In one of two letters written to Mining Watch, Mr. Naichap also says they “endorsed, promoted, and supported a small group of individuals who marched on the EcuaCorriente camp (December 3, 2006)”, allegedly …

Following the recent decision by a Canadian Joint Panel that rejected Northgate Minerals’ Kemess North Project, the Carrier Sekani Tribal Council (CSTC) has discovered several racist and highly offensive comments made towards First Nations people from three different sources: on a Northgate investor website, from a recent editorial in the Northern Miner magazine, and in comments by Northgate Minerals CEO Ken Stowe at a Mining forum in Denver, Colorado.

The CSTC sent out a Press Release (pdf) today, providing the details:

1) On a forum within the Business Section of Yahoo, Northgate investors are quoted using hateful comments, …

On January 22, 2006, twenty two Mayan indigenous Community Leaders had charges laid against them by GoldCorp, with arrest warrants being issued for seven of them.

Incidentally, the charges were layed the very same day Goldcorp promised to establish a dialogue with the local Indigenous Population–upon the condition that they lifted the 10-day-old blockade they had set up. The Mayans agreed, and took down the blockade; but then on January 24 Goldcorp shamefully reneged on its commitment; and them on February 13, two of the seven were violently detained. The …

Earlier this week, the Ecuadorian government held a press conference where it announced that Canada’s Ascendant Copper must suspend all its activities at the controversial Junin project, an open pit copper mine located in the Tropical Andes of Ecuador, for violating the country’s mining laws. This is the fourth stop work order since last December.

Immediately after the conference, Ascendant issued a statement emphatically denying it has violated any laws, and even says the Minister of Oil and Mines just doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Should …