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SumOfUs has changed its name to Ekō. Help us avoid ending up in spam and mark this email as safe. 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. 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:
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.  Thanks for all that you do, More information: Alaska gold, copper mine blocked over environmental worries Associated Press. 31 January, 2023 |
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