indigenous rights

DC Joins Eight States, 100+ Cities in Swapping Columbus Day for Indigenous Peoples’ Day

DC Joins Eight States, 100+ Cities in Swapping Columbus Day for Indigenous Peoples’ Day

This second Monday in October, the nation’s capital won’t celebrate Columbus Day. Instead, it will join at least eight states and more than 100 other cities in celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day, ABC News reported. The change was passed by the DC Council Tuesday after a supermajority voted in support of Councilmember David Grosso’s “Indigenous Peoples’ […]

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    7 Amazon Rainforest Countries Sign Pact to Come Together in Response to Wildfires

    7 Amazon Rainforest Countries Sign Pact to Come Together in Response to Wildfires

    Seven Amazon countries signed a pact Friday to protect the world’s largest tropical rainforest in response to the record-breaking number of wildfires that have blazed through the Amazon rainforest this summer, Reuters reported. Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru and Suriname agreed to create a network to coordinate their responses to disasters like this summer’s […]

    Why Mauna Kea Needs Your Protection

    Why Mauna Kea Needs Your Protection

    By Kaitlin Grable I was born on the island of O’ahu, 98 years after the U.S. supported an illegal coup in my hometown of Honolulu to overthrow Queen Liliuokalani and steal Hawaiian land. I was born in a Hawai’i that is radically and tragically different from the Hawai’i of my ancestors. The Hawaiian word for […]

    3 Activists Killed Per Week in 2018, New Report Shows

    3 Activists Killed Per Week in 2018, New Report Shows

    Taking a stand for environmental justice and protecting natural resources is a dangerous pursuit. A new report from the UK-based NGO Global Witness showed that 164 environmentalists worldwide were killed for their activism in 2018. That averages to just over three murders per week. And that’s an underestimation. Global Witness said the true number was […]

    Gold Miners Murder Indigenous Leader, Force Villagers in Brazil’s Amazon to Flee

    Gold Miners Murder Indigenous Leader, Force Villagers in Brazil’s Amazon to Flee

    Gold miners invaded indigenous territory in Brazil‘s Amazon, killing one leader and prompting villagers to flee for safety, The New York Times reported Saturday. The violence confirms fears that right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro‘s promises to open protected lands to mining and other extractive industries will have devastating consequences for indigenous communities. “The president is responsible […]

    Native Hawaiians Continue to Protest Plan to Build Telescope on Sacred Land

    Native Hawaiians Continue to Protest Plan to Build Telescope on Sacred Land

    By Jessica Corbett A week after construction was scheduled to resume on a long-delayed $1.4 billion telescope at the summit of Mauna Kea — a dormant volcano on Hawaii’s Big Island — thousands of Native Hawaiians who consider the mountain sacred continued to protest the planned observatory. Explaining that the 13,796-foot mountain is considered home […]

    33 Native Hawaiians Arrested Protecting Sacred Mountain From Giant Telescope

    33 Native Hawaiians Arrested Protecting Sacred Mountain From Giant Telescope

    A decade-long fight over the proposed construction of a giant telescope on a mountain considered sacred by some Native Hawaiians came to a head Wednesday when 33 elders were arrested for blocking the road to the summit, HuffPost Reported. The most recent protests kicked off Monday, when construction on the $1.4 billion Thirty Meter Telescope […]

    Trudeau Government Approves Trans Mountain Expansion a Day After Canada Declares Climate Emergency

    Trudeau Government Approves Trans Mountain Expansion a Day After Canada Declares Climate Emergency

    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Tuesday that his government would once again approve the expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline, which would triple the amount of oil transported from Alberta’s tar sands to the coast of British Columbia (BC). The decision comes a day after Canada’s House of Commons passed a non-binding resolution declaring […]