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John,

We won! We just helped the Native Tribes in Bristol Bay, Alaska save the
world’s largest sockeye salmon run and 15,000 much needed Alaskan jobs
from a massive open-pit copper and gold mine.

If built, the Pebble Mine would have polluted pristine streams and
wetlands, endangered the 60 million sockeye salmon who come to the bay
each year, and threatened the livelihoods of local fishermen and
indigenous people.

But Ekō (*formerly SumOfUs), was there to deal Pebble Mine its first loss.
Our members chipped in to fly Alaskan Native leaders to a massive annual
shareholder meeting in London to call on the second biggest mining company
in the world, Rio Tinto, to divest from Pebble Mine. As a result, Rio
Tinto announced the day before the leaders' arrival that it would sell all
of its Pebble Mine shares.

Rio Tinto’s divestment from Pebble Mine was just the first step. Over the
last 9 years, hundreds of thousands of Ekō members like you have
repeatedly spoken out against this dangerous mine.

And you were there for the final action leading to victory, too. Late last
year, Ekō submitted the names of over 160,000 people opposing the Pebble
Mine project during the U.S. Environmental Agency’s (EPA) comment period.

And the EPA listened. Last week, the Agency used one of its rarely used
regulations to protect Bristol Bay and stop the mining project once and
for all.

This is an amazing victory and a testament to how if we work together, we
can protect our water from corporate greed. And this is why Ekō is
starting a Global Water Team – a dedicated task force of water activists
who are willing to fight back against corporations that threaten our most
precious natural resource at every turn.  

[ [link removed] ]Will you sign up to be a member of Ekō’s new Global Water Team?

The victory against the Pebble Mine project is the latest in a long line
of victories against corporations that have misused and polluted the
people’s water.

Ekō members like you helped save a Michigan town from bankruptcy when
Nestlé Waters tried to drown it in legal bills during a fight against an
expansion of the bottled water giant’s pumping operations. And after a
decade of massive public outrage from Ekō members and local communities,
Nestlé was forced out of North America two years ago.

Unfortunately, Nestlé is still pumping water out of Vittel in France. But
Ekō members have supported the town’s resistance by helping to pay for the
legal fees of Didier Thouvenin, a local farmer and whistleblower. We also
supported the town in successfully convincing local officials to cancel
plans to pipe in water from a neighboring village to replace what Nestlé
pumps out.

When the water corporation NZ Pure Blue tried to drain a drought-stricken
plain in New Zealand, SumOfUs supported 60 concerned Kiwis to deliver our
message for the local council to oppose the corporate buyout of water in
the Canterbury Plains, and won! And when NZ Pure Blue tried to drain a
UNESCO World Heritage Site, 70,000 SumOfUs members spoke out, and the
company stopped its plan to build the largest production bottling plant in
the southern hemisphere.

Your ongoing action has also helped fight other destructive mining
companies before. Because of your support, we helped Maxima Acuna stop
Newmont Mining's mine development in Peru. Her heroic efforts protecting
her community's farm land and drinking water from the mining operation won
her the Green Nobel Prize. And because of your work, OceanaGold’s lawsuit
against El Salvador has been dismissed -- a lawsuit that threatened the
country’s last source of drinkable water.

It's clear that when Ekō’s global community of members work together, you
do amazing things. Our vision is to bring together Ekō members from all
over the world to pool your diverse knowledge, skills, and experience in
support of the fight against corporate water pollution, extraction, and
privatization. Together we will:

* Identify campaign opportunities,
* Discuss strategy,
* Amplify the voices of impacted communities, and
* Plan digital and on-the-ground actions.

[ [link removed] ]Will you join this exciting new Global Water Team?

*Members like you voted for Ekō as our new name to represent this
community and our power that echoes all around the world. We’ve grown from
a small corporate accountability group campaigning mostly in the US to a
20 million strong movement working in 7 languages.

Together we look forward to fighting back, and winning, against
corporations that chose profit over water and people.  



[ [link removed] ] Join the Global Water Team 



Thanks for all that you do,
Angus, Lacey, and the team at Ekō


More information:

[ [link removed] ]EPA blocks mining project proposal that threatened Alaskan salmon
CNN. 01 February 2023

[ [link removed] ]Alaska gold, copper mine blocked over environmental worries
Associated Press. 31 January, 2023

 

 

Ekō is a worldwide movement of people like you, working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions and forge a new, sustainable path for our global economy.

Please help keep Ekō strong by chipping in $3. [link removed]