City, provincial and federal police and a 3 metre (10 foot) high fence will surround the Palais des Congrès in Montreal where the COP15 biodiversity summit will take place. Photo by Alison Northcott/CBC.

The Guardian reports: “In a series of dispatches ahead of the Cop15 UN biodiversity conference in Montreal in December, we will be hearing from a secret negotiator who is from a developing country involved in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework negotiations.”

That negotiator comments: “The rights of Indigenous peoples must be respected, or 30×30 could turn into one of the biggest corporate land grabs ever.”

Amnesty International has also cautioned “the [30×30 proposal] presents a grave risk to the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.”

This past July, Mongabay explained: “The first draft of [Global Biodiversity Framework] targets contained no effective safeguards to protect the lands, rights and livelihoods of [Indigenous peoples and local communities] in conservation programs or protected areas, say Indigenous leaders.”

The article further notes: “Many Indigenous leaders and human rights advocates say [the 30×30] goal may lead to the mass eviction of Indigenous and local communities for the creation of more protected areas.”

Many organizations have also highlighted: “Protected areas have led to displacement and eviction of Indigenous Peoples and other land-dependent communities and brought serious human rights abuses by conservation organizations and enforcement agencies.”

Indigenous-led protected areas

The Narwhal has reported: “Kris Statnyk, a lawyer and member of the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation who lives on Gitxsan territory, [says] non-Indigenous conservation often perpetuates colonialism by placing restrictions and restraints on how Indigenous people use the land and resources such as fish and wildlife and noted how protecting one area under federal or provincial laws can lead to ‘opening up the remainder of areas for continued extraction.’”

That article continues: “In early August, at a feast hall near the confluence of the Skeena and Bulkley Rivers in northwest B.C., Wilps Gwininitxw, a Gitxsan Nation house group, [unilaterally] declared the entirety of its 1,700 square kilometre laxyip (territory) protected.”

Significantly, “Wilps Gwininitxw is just upstream from the proposed routes of Enbridge’s Westcoast Connector Gas Transmission pipeline and TC Energy’s Prince Rupert Gas Transmission pipeline. …While both projects received approval through B.C.’s environmental assessment process, neither has started construction.” 

The COP15 summit starts on Wednesday December 7 at the Palais des Congrès in Montreal.

PBI-Canada will be in Montreal on December 10.

Wet’suwet’en land defender Eve Saint will be speaking at a Decolonial Solidarity mobilization in front of a Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) branch in Ottawa.

Saint will join the protest by telephone on Friday December 9.

The Facebook event page notes:

“Come out to the RBC in the Glebe and hear Wet’suwet’en Land Defender and Water Protector Eve Saint speak by telephone. Find out the latest about what’s happening on the land and about the Competition Bureau’s Inquiry into RBC’s greenwashing. Eve is one of the complainants. Enjoy a warm cup of coffee and a donut, and stand in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en as they continue to protect their lands and water from the RBC financed Coastal GasLink pipeline. Date: Friday December 9. Time: 12 noon to 1 PM. Location: 745 Bank St, Ottawa K1S 3V5 – Bank St and First Avenue. Please invite your friends.”

Criminalization of land defenders

To date, there have been 90 arrests of 80 different people in relation to opposition to the construction of the Coastal GasLink (CGL) pipeline.

Twenty people are currently facing charges.

Saint was arrested in February 2020 during the second militarized RCMP raid on Wet’suwet’en territory. As the RCMP approached her, Saint yelled: “This is Wet’suwet’en territory. We are unarmed. We are peaceful. You are invaders.”

Afterwards, she told the Huffington Post: “You have to take your stand, and that was the main focus — making sure they know I am on my own territory, that we are peaceful. We are not afraid of them or their guns. What we are doing in our hearts is way more powerful. We knew we were protected by our ancestors and our land.”

She added: “We are just trying to keep this last bit of Indigenous sovereignty. This is Indigenous genocide. If you take this away, you take away the last little bit of healing we can do.”

Competition Bureau complaint

On October 12, the Toronto Star reported: “The Competition Bureau has opened an inquiry into the marketing practices of the Royal Bank of Canada over allegations of “greenwashing” as the country’s biggest bank promotes its efforts to fight climate change.”

As noted above, Saint is one of the complainants.

That article adds: ““Investigations into false or misleading representations or deceptive marketing practices can lead to criminal charges or a civil lawsuit. The maximum penalty for corporations in civil cases is $10 million.”

RBC protest

On October 27, Saint also spoke at a protest outside the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Toronto as the London, Ontario-based Ivey Business School presented RBC CEO Dave McKay with their Ivey Business Leader award.

Saint said of McKay: “You are not a climate leader, you are a leader in genocide. You violate Indigenous rights, you permit modern day genocide against Indigenous people.”

The call for RBC to divest

Wet’suwet’en land defenders are calling on RBC to divest from the CGL pipeline.

Stand.earth has documented: “RBC is among top commercial banks providing the CGL project with working capital, including CAD $275 million in project finance, a co-financed $6.5 billion loan, a $40 million corporate loan, and $200 million in co-financed working capital – while acting as financial advisor for the pipeline.”

PBI-Canada will be present at the Decolonial Solidarity-Ottawa Hub mobilization on Friday December 9 starting at 12 noon.

In December 2021, we interviewed Saint and her sister Jocey Alec for Rabble Radio. To listen to that interview, click here.

Photo: The grave site of Indigenous land defender Dudley George.

Deutsche Welle reports: “Businesses, criminal groups and governments have long violently displaced communities from their ancestral lands — and Indigenous people are seemingly more likely to be killed than other defenders.”

That article further notes: “At least 613 Indigenous activists have been murdered over the last decade, according to data published by environmental and human rights watchdog Global Witness. …More than 35% of [the more than 1,700 land environmental defenders killed] identified as Indigenous. Over the last three years, the reported rate at which Indigenous activists were killed [41%] was even higher than over previous years.”

In Canada, an Indigenous land defender was killed by police during a land re-occupation. There have been numerous other instances where the risk to life was high.

Some incidents include:

Dudley George – 1995

Aazhoodena land defender Dudley George was killed on September 6, 1995, by an Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) sniper during a re-occupation of ancestral land expropriated for a military base and provincial park.

Photo: An OPP officer rushes toward Tina George at Ipperwash Provincial Park the day after her cousin Dudley George was killed by the OPP.

Oka – 1990

Mohawk land defenders faced Quebec provincial police and later the Canadian Army during a standoff to protect a burial ground from the expansion of a golf course.

Photo: Canadian soldiers deployed during the “Oka crisis”.

Ts’Peten (Gustafsen Lake) – 1995

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) fired 77,000 rounds and exploded an improvised explosive device (IED) under a truck driven by Indigenous land defenders during a land dispute between the Secwepemc in ceremony and a local rancher.

Photos: Still from RCMP surveillance video of truck with defenders at Gustafsen Lake moments before and after an explosive device is detonated.

Tyendinaga – 2008

The OPP were deployed against Mohawk land defenders opposed to a permit to a local developer for a quarry and another property developer who had announced plans for 200 housing units in Deseronto, both within a Mohawk land claims area.

Photo: The OPP at Tyendinaga, April 2008.

Elsipogtog – 2013

The RCMP deployed heavily armed officers against Mi’kmaq land defenders opposed to seismic testing for fracking in Elsipogtog, New Brunswick.

Photo: The RCMP at Elsipogtog.

1492 Land Back Lane – 2020

The OPP shot at and tasered Mohawk land defenders re-occupying lands (granted through the Haldimand Proclamation) in opposition to a housing development in Ontario.

Photo: An OPP officer at 1492 Land Back Lane, October 2020.

Wet’suwet’en – 2019

The RCMP were deployed in response to Wet’suwet’en land defenders blocking the construction of the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline being built on their sovereign territory in northern British Columbia without free, prior and informed consent. The Guardian reported RCMP commanders said “lethal overwatch is req’d” (a term used for deploying an officer prepared to use lethal force) and instructed officers to “use as much violence toward the gate as you want” and that arrests would be necessary for “sterilizing [the] site”.

Video: The RCMP on Wet’suwet’en territory, January 2019.

Wet’suwet’en – 2020

Heavily armed RCMP officers were once again deployed in response to a Wet’suwet’en blockade of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Video: An RCMP officer points his assault rifle at a Wet’suwet’en land defender.

Wet’suwet’en – 2021

RCMP officers used a chainsaw and axe to tear down the door of a cabin and then pointed guns at land defenders and journalists.

Video: The RCMP on Wet’suwet’en territory, November 2021.

Gitxsan – 2021

Video: RCMP tactical officers were deployed against a Gitxsan rail blockade in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en resistance to the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Both Calgary-based Enbridge and TC Energy also have permits from British Columbia to build pipelines across Gitxsan land, adjacent to Wet’suwet’en territory.

Wilps Gwininitxw member Ankhla Jennifer Zyp says: “We’re worried, for sure, that we’re going to be met with the same violence [as seen against the Wet’suwet’en], with the same push from the government. We’re concerned about how these pipelines crossing all these rivers are going to affect the salmon returning back to our territory.”

There are likely other instances of where the RCMP, OPP and other state security forces have deployed heavily armed officers against Indigenous land defence struggles that have put the lives of land defenders at risk.

We note the absence of measures, policies, protocols and laws on the part of the state and police to ensure a safe and enabling space for land defenders upholding their rights to free, prior and informed consent and to prevent, resolve, and negotiate land disputes to avoid confrontations that risk injury and death.

We continue to follow this with concern.

José Bo (Guatemala), Diana Barrios (Colombia) and Reynaldo Domínguez (Honduras). Photo by Selena Pizarro.

Translation of El Salto article:

“And even if they kill us, we will continue with the dignity of people who defend life”

We spoke with Diana Luz Barrios, Reynaldo Domínguez and José Bo, members of different platforms for the defense of territory and natural resources against the exploitation of multinationals in Colombia, Honduras and Guatemala

A delegation of human rights and environmental defenders from Guatemala, Honduras and Colombia visited Madrid in November 2022.

Diana Luz Barrios, Reynaldo Domínguez and José Bo have been part of this advocacy and awareness tour around Europe , organized by International Development Cooperation Initiatives (ICID) and Peace Brigades International (PBI).

Diana Barrios is a member of the Collective of Women to Law, in Colombia, defenders of human rights, gender equality and the environment against the industrial and mining agroeconomic model. This year they have achieved a historic ruling with the women of the Asmuproca collective in terms of collective restitution of communal lands for peasant women.

“The son of Luz Estela Romero was kidnapped, tortured and violently abused by the police and only thanks to quick action by the community did we manage to stop this attempted forced disappearance from happening”

Reynaldo Domínguez is a member of the Municipal Committee in Defense of Common and Public Goods of Tocoa (Honduras). Defender of the Guapinol and San Pedro rivers in the face of the threat posed by open-pit mining in the area, developed by two wealthy families financed by US lobbies and protected by the Honduran government.

“For us, the one who messes with the water, he messes with our mother. We cannot allow a businessman who, for the sake of doing business and brilliant capital, to destroy an area such as the national park”

José Bo, a member of the Peaceful Resistance of Cahabón (Guatemala). Defender of the Cahabón river and its tributaries Oxec, Canlich and Chiacté on which seven hydroelectric complexes built by companies in the hands of Florentino Pérez have been implemented.

According to a Global Witness report, in 2021, 200 environmental defenders were assassinated, 68% of them from Latin American countries.

The original El Salto article can be read at “Y aunque nos asesinen, seguiremos con la dignidad de personas que defendemos la vida”

This video of Wet’suwet’en land defender Molly Wickham (Sleydo’) message to investors in the Coastal GasLink pipeline was projected by Decolonial Solidarity on the side of an RBC branch in downtown Ottawa on November 5, 2022.

The Calgary-based company building the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory without consent says it is facing cost overruns.

CBC reports: “TC Energy did not put a dollar value on the cost overruns, though it said it expects to provide an updated capital cost estimate early next year that will incorporate the recent developments.”

“It is the second time in a handful of months that TC Energy has flagged the rising costs of Coastal GasLink. In July, the company said it expected the cost of the project had risen to $11.2 billion compared with an earlier estimate of $6.6 billion.”

The article continues: “The company still expects Coastal GasLink to be completed by the end of 2023.”

Wet’suwet’en land defenders are calling on the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) to divest from the pipeline.

Stand.earth has documented: “RBC is among top commercial banks providing the CGL project with working capital, including CAD $275 million in project finance, a co-financed $6.5 billion loan, a $40 million corporate loan, and $200 million in co-financed working capital – while acting as financial advisor for the pipeline.”

Export Development Canada, an export credit agency wholly owned by the Government of Canada, has also provided up to $500 million for the construction of the pipeline.

There have been 90 arrests made involving 80 different people in relation to opposition to the construction of the pipeline, with 20 people currently facing charges.

The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has repeatedly called on Canada to halt the construction of the pipeline and withdraw the RCMP from Wet’suwet’en territory. This was conveyed in this resolution dated December 13, 2019, and in follow-up letters sent to Leslie E. Norton, Canada’s Ambassador at the United Nations in Geneva, on November 24, 2020, and April 29, 2022.

On September 28, 2022, Kim-Mai Vu of Peace Brigades International presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva during the Interactive Dialogue with the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

She stated: “The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has called on Canada to stop construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory. Canada ratified this International Convention in 1970 and said in 2016 that it supported the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, however, the construction of this gas pipeline without consent continues as does the criminalization of land defenders.”

We continue to follow this situation.

Photo by Innu Council of Pessamit.

The Montreal Gazette reports: “Two Innu communities on Quebec’s North Shore say they are ‘exasperated’ by the province’s ‘inaction’ when it comes to protecting the woodland caribou, a species threatened by logging.”

“They say the Quebec government is not taking seriously ‘the irreversible damage the loss of biodiversity’ has on the Innu.”

The article adds: “Councils representing the Pessamit and Essipit communities on Tuesday accused the province of dragging its feet on a proposal to create a 2,700-square-kilometre biodiversity reserve, about 150 kilometres north of Saguenay.”

Marielle Vachon, head of the Innu Council of Pessamit, says: “[The loss of biodiversity] caused in large part by logging on Innu ancestral lands — without regard to our needs, our values, our rights and interests — generates inestimable cultural losses for our communities. It alters our way of life, upsets our way of being, threatens our food security and our cultural identity.”

Earlier this month, Erika Guevara-Rosas, the Americas director at Amnesty International, and France-Isabelle Langlois, the executive director at Amnesty International Canada Francophone, highlighted these concerns in their article Innu-aitun culture and identity at risk.

This comes just days before the United Nations COP15 biodiversity summit is set to begin in Montreal on December 7.

For more on COP15, please also see COP15 biodiversity summit to be fenced off amid concerns its 30×30 initiative promotes militarized conservationism.

Other threats to Innu lands

Innu territory includes the northeastern portion of the present-day province of Labrador and some portions of Quebec. Their traditional homeland is Nitassinan.

Muskrat Falls hydroelectric dams

The Muskrat Falls hydroelectric generating facility is comprised of the 32-metre high North Dam, the 29-metre high South Dam and the reinforced North Spur landmass on the lower Churchill River on traditional Innu territory in Labrador. About 2,000 Inuit and settlers live downstream of Muskrat Falls.

In October 2016, Innu and Inuit land defenders, along with settler allies, occupied the project site to protect their traditional foods and way of life.

Photo by Justin Brake; October 19, 2016.

The RCMP arrested 28 people in relation to that occupation with a variety of charges including disobeying a court order, mischief and mischief over $5000.

Despite this, the Trudeau government increased its loan guarantee for the Muskrat Falls project by an additional $2.9 billion in November 2016.

In June 2017, Inuk land defender Beatrice Hunter was jailed for 10 days in a men’s prison for refusing to stay a kilometre away from the construction site, a violation of the undertaking she had signed when she was arrested at the occupation in October 2016.

Militarization

Innu Elder Tshuakuesh Elizabeth Penashue has stated: “Canada sees our land as uninhabited land. It is inhabited by the Innu, and it is inhabited by wildlife.”

The “5 Wing Goose Bay” air base was established after World War II.

Photo: A protest at the Goose Bay air force base in 1988 in opposition to NATO low level flight training over Nitassinan.

Penashue says: “In the years that the military has been in Goose Bay, the Innu’s culture has collapsed. The use of our lands by others, without our being consulted, has caused stress in our family relationships and links to our family violence. The Innu did not welcome foreign domination. It happened against their will.”

Elders outside a prison when Innu land defenders were being arrested for opposing fighter jets flying over their lands. Photo by Bob Bartel. 

Hydroelectric dams

In an April 1993 PBI-Canada newsletter, Steve Molnar wrote: “Rivers play an important role in the Innu lifestyle by providing salmon, a staple of the Innu diet. Hydro-Quebec, a government owned corporation of the province, has already built 19 dams in Nitassinan and plans to build one more on the Sainte-Marguerite River.”

On December 7, 1992, the Coalition for Nitassinan, that opposed dams and supported traditional governance, asked Peace Brigades International to provide observers for a barricade it was setting up in Maliotenam. It also asked PBI to escort Coalition spokesperson Gilbert Pilot when he spoke at the United Nations in New York and upon his return to the community of Maliotenam.

The article notes: “Shots fired at Pilot’s house a few weeks earlier caused some concern that he might be in some danger on his return to the reserve.”

Two PBI volunteers maintained a 24 hour a day presence at the barricade that was set up between December 12 and December 16, 1992.

Photo: Innu Elder Tshuakuesh Elizabeth Penashue and Peace Brigades International-North America Project activist Anne Harrison in 1995.

The San Silvestre wetland provides drinking water to more than 190,000 people in the city of Barrancabermeja, Colombia.

It also provides a livelihood to artisanal fishers.

But the water is being polluted by the nearby Ecopetrol refinery, encroaching agribusiness (notably livestock that produce nitrogen, phosphorus and pathogens), and landfills that can release toxins into the water.

Being a vocal advocate of these waters can be risky.

The visit by Amnesty International Secretary General Agnès Callamard to the San Silvestre wetlands this past weekend helped highlight these dangers.

Artisanal fisher Yuli Velasquez was shot at on July 5 (just days after she took PBI-Canada out on the wetlands on June 30).

It was the third armed attacked against Yuli since January 2021. She says: “Every time we report a new pollution problem, it happens.”

You can hear directly from her and two other water protectors as they talk about this struggle on Wednesday December 7 at 3 pm ET.

To register, click here.

To help us cover the costs of this forum – the Zoom platform and translation costs – a donation of any amount here or by sending a cheque (our mailing address is 211 Bronson Avenue, Suite 220, Ottawa, Ontario, K1R 6H5) would be welcome.

Recent accompaniments

PBI-Colombia accompanies CREDHOS as Amnesty International Secretary General visits the San Silvestre wetlands

PBI-Guatemala accompanies Human Rights Law Firm at hearing for criminalized Indigenous journalist and fishermen’s union president

PBI-Honduras accompanies ARCAH as it files complaint with the Public Ministry in the framework of the ZEDEs

PBI-Mexico accompanies Indigenous community as it blockades highway to airport to demand recognition of their ancestral rights

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