October 2023

News, Views, Actions, and Events

Dear Relatives,

October was a colorful month with as many Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebrations held throughout Turtle Island as there are vibrant Indigenous cultures and languages still thriving upon their lands and territories. It was an active month for IEN staff and board as well, with the threat of Climate Chaos ever-looming.

Near Bemidji, Minnesota where IEN maintains its home office headquarters, IEN staff Simone Senogles, Claire Charlo, Kaylee Carnahan, and Muriel Dudley were able to get outdoors for a day of hands-on, traditional tanning of bison and elk hides using brains and smoke.

The women got in a day’s physical workout, hand-scraping all the hair from each hide stretched and secured to a large wooden frame. To avoid the hides drying rough and stiff, they are stretched, scraped, then laid over a smoky fire to set the tan and keep them soft should they get wet. Smoking also adds a warm buckskin color to the hides. IEN Teaching Garden, with Arrowhead Regional Arts Council and Clean Water Land and Legacy, sponsored the four-day workshop at the home of Kaylee Carnahan and Joe Morales and instructed by respected community traditionalist Nate Johnson. We tanned one buffalo hide, got a start on a second and worked some on an elk hide,” Carnahan said. “We were so pleased to gift these hides to Sequoia Dreaming Elk and his Buffalo dancers.”

Staff shared that it was a great weekend with members of the local Red Lake and Leech Lake reservations attending, as did a class from nearby Bemidji State University.

All were treated to delicious, traditionally prepared meals of buffalo, venison, moose, Manoomin (wild rice) and Walleye, a fish native to most of Canada and the Northern US. On the last day, an impromptu honey harvesting demonstration was given by Kaylee and Simone who maintain the honeybee hives that reside in the IEN Teaching Garden at our headquarters office. IEN is considering making it an annual “Honey and Hides” event, gifting the tanned hides to a different group each year.

In Washington DC, IEN Divestment Organizer Marcello Federico joined with allies from a broad coalition of social justice and human rights organizations including Grassroots Global Justice Alliance and The Rising Majority for a mass mobilization and march calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, at the National Mall. Hundreds of marchers called upon President Biden and Congress to uphold the value of all human life by working to deescalate the increasing violence in Gaza by stopping the US funding of Israel’s war efforts. Some protestors called upon the public to learn about the history between Palestine and Israel, saying they believe calling for the bloodshed to end is what everyone should stand for.

In the Arctic North, IEN organizers Panganga Pungowiyi, Thomas Joseph Tsewenaldin, Niviaaluk Brandt and Aakaluk Blatchford traveled to Reykjavik, Iceland, and Nuuk, Greenland. The IEN delegation attended the 2023 Arctic Circle Assembly where heads of state, members of parliament, business and industry promoters, academics and others from countries of the Circumpolar North, as well as the US and Japan, meet annually to strategize plans for their interests in the Arctic. There, the Panganga and Thomas met with local organizers, Indigenous communities, and potential allies to share Hoodwinked in the Hothouse and challenged the narratives of participants pushing false solutions.

In Iceland they had the opportunity to observe up close, two geoengineering sites. Meanwhile, Aakaluk and Niviaaluk traveled to Greenland to connect with Indigenous organizations and communities, sharing their expertise and experience with false solutions to climate mitigation, like geoengineering and carbon markets. Together, the four hosted two community gatherings, where they presented to local leadership, organizers and Indigenous community members.

Looking ahead, November will see IEN staff taking everything they’ve observed and learned from their travels to Iceland and Greenland, Climate Week in New York, actions to stop Line 3 and 5, Mountain Valley, and Dakota Access Pipelines, along with our celebrations of life and solidarity with relatives across Turtle Island in preparation for the 28th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

This year's COP will take place from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12, 2023. More commonly referred to as COP28, IEN’s delegation (staff and representatives from frontline communities) will travel to the high-tech, oil -wealthy city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates where they will interact with climate activists from all around Mother Earth, demanding world leaders immediately increase efforts to slow the Climate Crisis.

At this, as in past COPs we confront extractive industry executives and government officials who peddle false solutions like carbon markets and pricing, geoengineering, genetic engineering, carbon capture storage and utilization, hydrogen in all of it’s colors, along with a whole host of unproven industrial expansion that will lock us into decades of exploitation that will move us even faster in the wrong direction.

November’s designation as American Indian Heritage Month and the Thanksgiving holiday will again provide everyone with an opportunity to examine the myths surrounding the pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving, a tale full of historical inaccuracies and lies intended to justify and rationalize the taking of land and life by “holy” people for a “holy” purpose. Then, putting all the unholiness to rest with a Thanksgiving feast.

In closing, let’s continue to reflect on the aftermath of that first Thanksgiving, on how pilgrims in pursuit of their own freedoms thought nothing of taking the freedoms of every Indigenous individual, family, society, clan, community, tribe and nation across the whole of Turtle Island. On how today, across the entirety of Mother Earth we see in real time the results of such holy entitlement to take whatever is desired, by whatever means necessary and the resulting threat of destruction of all of life. Ongoing wars annihilate life, land, and water, and are a driver of the climate crisis that each of us now faces and the impending climate chaos we will leave for our children and grandchildren. We must do more now.

Frontlines to Big Greens – Stand with us in calling for #Ceasefire now and Justice for Palestine

Our solidarity as environmental justice and human rights defenders globally is vital, as we are witnessing genocide before our eyes. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign assistance at $3.8 billion a year, totaling more than $260 billion to date. Five of the top six global defense corporations based in the United States are profiting from and enabling the ongoing bombardment against Palestinians in Gaza.

Over 2 million Palestinian people have suffered under a 16 year blockade on Gaza and now endure a complete siege, as Israel bombs, starves, and displaces them. Israel has cut off food, water, and electricity to Gaza and has engaged in bombing of residential buildings, markets, schools, health facilities, and mosques – all with the support of the United States and other governments. Palestinians are forced between two decisions, stay and try to survive, or try to flee into exile, but will never see their home again.

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Community Spotlight

Ponca Earth Lodge - First Established Since Befofe 1877

Caption - First Ponca Earth Lodge built since before 1877. Photo Credit: JoKay Dowell

On October 21, 2023, IEN Communications Special Projects Coordinator JoKay Dowell, with daughter Anna and granddaughter Kyah attended the dedication ceremony of the first Ponca Earth Lodge built since before 1877 when the Ponca were removed under military force with the Congressionally legalized theft of their original homelands of Ni’bthaksa (Nebraska) and what is now the state of South Dakota. It is the first Ponca Earth lodge ever built in Northern Oklahoma, near Ponca City, where activist Casey Camp-Horinek has worked for decades to draw attention to the area heavily polluted by the oil and gas industry. The event was attended by about a hundred community members, relatives, representatives from local tribes such as the Otoe, Osage, Quapaw, Pawnee, Tonkawa, Choctaw and many others, as well as the Northern Ponca, from Nebraska. Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) Founder and Executive Director Osprey Orielle Lake and Movement Rights Founder and Board Member Shannon Biggs were there as allies to also congratulate the community. After the dedication ceremony, a feast and a giveaway was held to thank and honor those in attendance. The Ponca Women’s PáTháTa Society are stewards of the newly built lodge.

Indigenous Just Transition Southwest Regional Gathering

The Indigenous Environmental Network is hosting an Indigenous Just Transition Southwest Regional Gathering, exchanging knowledge, practices, and solutions between local grassroots, Traditional Knowledge Holders, and spiritual leaders. This three-day convening will feature a variety of presentations, breakout sessions, site-visits, and discussions on regenerative economies, food sovereignty, renewable energy, Inherent Relationship Jurisprudence/Rights of Nature, community resistance against extractivism and more!

DAPL PUBLIC COMMENT Deadline Extended and Public Meeting Notice

We have an opportunity to come together and call on the Biden Administration to Shut Down the Dakota Access Pipeline through November 13, 2023. Sierra Club sent out an email alert here: sc.org/nodapl and is recruiting for the bus to the hearings on November 1st (bus departs from the Twin Cities).

RSVP here: DAPL Hearing Recruitment and MN350 bus from MSP RSVP link is here.

Elsewhere in the News…

Navigator CO2 Cancels US Corn Belt Carbon Pipeline Plan

A BlackRock Inc.-backed plan to build a pipeline that would capture carbon emissions from the US corn ethanol industry was scrapped in the face of regulatory obstacles and opposition from landowners.

Navigator CO2’s proposal to build more than 1,300 miles (2,092 kilometers) of pipeline across five Midwest states — known as the Heartland Greenway project — had been backed by investors including BlackRock, top ethanol maker Poet LLC and fuel producer Valero Energy Corp. The cancellation raises questions about the viability of similar projects supported by large agriculture and fuel companies.

Members of Congress ask Biden for clemency for Native American leader convicted of murder

Leonard Peltier was convicted of shooting and killing two FBI agents.

"Nearly half a century after he was wrongfully imprisoned, Mr. Peltier's continued incarceration is a grim reminder of this country's long history of stealing life and legacy from Indigenous communities," Grijalva wrote in a statement to ABC News. "I'm not alone in calling for his clemency -- global civil rights leaders like Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have all supported the call as well. And now we have congressional leaders across the political spectrum and across both chambers asking for the righting of this wrong."

‘We were not consulted’: Native Americans fight lithium mine on site of 1865 massacre

Indigenous groups say huge project in northern Nevada threatens environmental, cultural and historical destruction

The rugged and beautiful Thacker Pass in the desert mountains of northern Nevada has long been a sacred site for Native American tribes in the region.

It has witnessed bloody and terrible history. On 12 September 1865, US federal soldiers in the 1st Nevada cavalry committed a massacre of Native Americans, the Numu, across Thacker Pass, named Peehee Mu’huh – Rotten Moon, in the Numu language. Thirty to 50 Native Americans are believed to have been killed, including women and children.

The pass is also the site of the largest known lithium deposit in the US and one of the largest in the world, and Native people and their supporters say another tragedy is now unfolding there.

A mining project on the site by Lithium Americas, fast-tracked at the end of the Trump Administration, started construction earlier this year. For its proponents, the mine is an essential component for the US’s shift to a greener future. For its critics, the mine threatens irrevocable environmental and historical destruction to the area.

6 Years After Standing Rock, Native Tribes Still Fight Dakota Access Pipeline

The Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Sioux Tribes say the pipeline threatens to contaminate their primary water source.

Morgan Brings Plenty, now 29 and a digital organizing fellow at Indigenous Environmental Network, was in their early 20s when they first heard about Energy Transfer Partner’s Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in late 2015. A member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, they could feel the tension regarding the pipeline in their community — and they were always close to the action. Their late mom, Joye Braun, was the first to set up her tipi in what would become the Oceti Sakowin camp at Standing Rock on April 1, 2016, to protest the building of the oil pipeline through the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation and tribal sacred sites.

Tribe Will Harness Power of the Sun to Offset Key Facilities’ Energy Use by 92%

In this Tribal energy snapshot, learn more about the Karuk Tribe’s Community Scale Solar Energy Generating Systems project. The project was co-funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Indian Energy.

OK’s 18th Superfund site adjacent to Mvskoke Reservation in Muskogee

Radioactive site sits on the Arkansas River in Cherokee Nation

In March of 2023, the EPA proposed adding Fansteel Metals/FMRI to the National Priorities List. According to a statement from Regional Administrator Dr. Eartha Nance, those who live near the Superfund sites should not have to worry.

“The EPA remains committed to ensuring the safety and health of citizens who live near these Superfund sites,” Dr. Nance said. “By adding the Fansteel Metals site to the NPL, we are enforcing environmental justice and taking action to remove a threat that impacts the environment and public health.”

There's always more to read, view, and learn - follow us on social media and the web - ienearth.org

Established in 1990, the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) is an international alliance of Indigenous Peoples whose mission it is to protect the sacredness of Mother Earth from contamination and exploitation by strengthening, maintaining, and respecting Indigenous teachings and natural laws. IEN works with Indigenous grassroots community organizations, Tribal governments, Indigenous national organizations, multi-cultural alliances, Tribal universities and colleges, as well as Tribal Knowledge holders and spiritual leaders. We work to empower and build the capacities of Indigenous Peoples and front line communities to develop mechanisms to demand environmental justice, protect our sacred sites, land, air, water, the health of our people and all living things, and to build sustainable communities.

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