Multimedia
Someone Else’s Treasure – Guatemala
This multimedia piece focuses on communities in San Marcos, Guatemala, living next to the Canadian-owned Marlin Mine. The first two songs are by Grupo Kotzic, who are from San Marcos, singing about the peoples’ resistance to the mine. The third song is a live recording from inside the Church of San Miguel Ixtahuacan, San Marcos, where community members were singing a song they wrote about their experiences with the mine.
Reclaim Power – Copenhagen
The sights and sounds from the streets of Copenhagen during the COP15 Climate Conference. As broad frustration grew with the direction of the COP15 negotiations, international networks of people’s movements, civil society groups, indigenous peoples organizations and grassroots activists united to expose the COP process as undemocratic, unjust, and inadequate to deal with the scale of the problem.
RBC: Fossil Fool of the Year 2010
April 1st, 2010, Rainforest Action Network Toronto naming Royal Bank of Canada the Fossil Fool of the Year 2010, for being the leading financier of the Tar Sands oil projects.
Music: Kevin MacLeod
Grassy Narrows River Run
April 7, 2010, Toronto – On World Health Day, members of Grassy Narrows First Nation lead a march of over 250 people to the seat of the Provincial Government at Queen’s Park. The Grassy Narrows People have travelled 1,800 km to deliver their demands for restitution for mercury poisoning whose health effects in the community are worse now than when Ontario first banned fishing in their river 40 years ago, according to a newly translated study by Japanese mercury expert Dr. Harada. The Provincial government has compounded the impacts of mercury on the community’s health, culture, and economy by permitting decades of unwanted clear-cut logging, and mining activity on their territory.
More info: freegrassy.org
Athabasca to Copenhagen
Tar Sands protest outside Canadian Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark, during the COP15 Climate Conference.
The protest was led by the Indigenous Environmental Network.
Speakers: Mother & daughter Susan and Eriel Deranger from the Athabasca Chipewan First Nation, just downriver from the Tar Sands oil projects in Alberta, Canada.
Someone Else’s Treasure – Indigenous Resistance
Indigenous leaders from Chile, Papua New Guinea, and Australia, traveled great distances to speak at the annual shareholders’ meeting of Barrick Gold — the world’s largest gold mining corporation — and voice their complaints about Barrick’s operations on their ancestral lands.
Complaints include the killing, rape, and arbitrary detention of villagers in Papua New Guinea, the destruction of spiritual sites in Australia, and the theft of indigenous lands in Chile.
Affected communities are calling on all Canadians to reject the harms done by Canadian mining companies and become active in pressuring Canadian companies to respect international human rights and environmental standards.
Speakers:
Sergio Campusano is the President of the Diaguita Huascoaltinos Indigenous and Agricultural Community. Since he assumed the role of president, Sergio has been fighting against the greed of the mining corporations and the local agriculture companies in order to mantain the rights of his people.
Native to the rocky highlands of Papua New Guinea (PNG), Jethro Tulin is a popular organiser and founder of the Akali Tange Association (ATA), a human rights organization documenting abuses at the Porgera mine, owned by Torontos Barrick Gold.
Neville “Chappy” Williams, Wiradjuri elder and spokesperson for Mooka and Kalara United Families, the traditional owners of the Lake Cowal area in NSW Australia.
