Lindsey Lou On The Move: Standing Rock and Beyond

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Urgent Updates and Call for Help From the Women on the Frontlines

I’ve learned for myself this week that while we are all in this ‘together’, Covid has created the perfect storm of conditions in which there are entire populations fighting for survival.  

These communities are experiencing real time genocide through the systematic absence of support infrastructure (literally no government protocol or acknowledgement of gaps to address) and the systematic prioritization of energy developement during Covid to maximize the advantage of shelter-in-place orders for opposition, of which these extraction industries are exempt as declared ‘essential’, and also increased exposure (from no access to masks, sanitizer, etc) to opposition. The opposition has largely been and continues to be the indigenous peoples of the world. 

  • In Ecuador, where the government has sanctioned and completed forest clearing at national headwaters, entire communities within remote villages of the Amazon have been drowned in this Covid time (right now, in this very March and April) by historically unprecedented flooding, one after another after another.  Their houses are under water. Their food crops are under water. They’ve been cut off from receiving aid from the cities, nor is government action prioritizing to resolve. 
  • In another part of Ecuador, a major oil pipeline is gushing into a river that is the water source for many other remote communities. Therefore their drinking water is not potable and though it is where they obtain food, they can no longer fish there. 
    • The government has shut access from the main cities to these remote areas and is taking no measures to provide these communities with emergency relief – food, water and basic Covid protection supplies and healthcare. 
    • Instead, the government has opened their protected lands to oil and mining which has increased in activity 30% since the beginning of March and which community protectors are being killed at the human blockades at the borders of their protected lands. Since they have declared these activities as essential, they alone are exempt from shelter-in-place. 
  • In Brazil, the president has likewise increased and prioritized oil and mining extraction is not even keeping accurate indigenous demographics being lost to Covid.  
  • In the United States the governors of the Dakotas and neighboring states will not issue shelter-in-place orders at all, as they too are ushering increased oil development activities all along the Keystone pipeline.  

All of this despite the fact the fossil fuels are being traded at the lowest value in history, well below profitability. 

…a dying industry and yet all over the Americas, our governments are using the circumstances of Covid to isolate opponents and to pass laws providing relief and support to oil corporations while laying off civil workers, education workers and others and while letting entire remote communities go without food, clean water, and Covid PPE. 

What We Learned at Standing Rock

We Cannot:

  • Flock to these communities unless asked, and unless we come with our own resources, to add value, and leave-no-trace habits,

We can:

  • Choose to be aware and hear their needs on the frontlines and
  • Do everything possible where we are

Because the danger of big Oil, selfish, exploiting Capitalism, Political Corruption… these issues connect us directly, threaten all life urgently. A win there is a win here.

I’ve included the webinars in which Indigenous Women of North and South Americas have reported in from the Front Lines this week. 

  • They have said that they need money in order to buy food, water and PPE. 
  • They need our huge actions of Solidarity to tell everyone that they need this direct help on the frontlines.  

The people on the frontlines need our direct support, they are living this struggle for life while we are privileged enough to lighten our days with memes about toilet paper; while we are able to stand frustrated in lines outside of Costco in order to fill our homes with food, water and basic ‘necessities’. 

Please help them.

  • if you have some money, give;
  • if you have followers, share;
  • if you have some time, tell your representatives that fossil fuels are a dead industry and you Will NOT support them,
  • if your money is still in the corporate banks that fund these projects, divest (simply move it to a local credit union),
  • if you buy things, buy things mindfully. 

Give and Share

Urgent Help for the South American Frontlines

Help for North American Frontlines here and here

Watch the Webinars or read my key takeaways below

Indigenous Women on the Frontlines: COVID-19 & Defending the Amazon

Sônia Bone Guajajara, Indigenous leader from Brazil, Executive Coordinator for the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) with translation by Maria Paula, Founder of the NGO “A Drop in the Ocean”

Need to address

  1. Secretary of Indigenous Policy/ Health of Brazil
  • Is not counting the Indigenous contaminated in urban areas
  • The indigenous orgs know that 5 have died, but the official number is 3
  • There is no testing available
  • The president (bolsonaro), of the country is using Covid to underplay and push oil/mining; [a real trumper]
  • The health minister who was addressing the real issues of Covid and everything was JUST fired, moments ago (as this was live)
  • The deforestation and illegal mining is increasing:
    • 30% higher since beginning of March, Covid 
  • The minister of energy just made a new law 135, that says mining is now priority, ‘essential’ and except from shutdown ‘in order to help with pandemic’
    • Allowing into protected ind. Land and increasing virus exp. To them without acknowledging or addressing urgent lack of health infrastructure to the indigenous and remote communities
  1. Therefore facing a new Genocide
  • “Coronavirus for us represents the danger of a new genocide”
  • “And we need to learn a lesson from this moment, a lesson that we need to urgently break with this economic model that is so destructive”
  • “It’s a moment of self-reflection, for people to think about what kind of society we want in the future.” “It is a moment to exercise our solidarity”
  • We know what is important now, our families, closeness, hugs is what we cannot do in social distancing and yet we now know the importance of
  • It has never been so easy to understand that money does not buy everything
  • Everyone is truly the same facing this challenge
  • Only a collective movement is going to change the worlds order
  • They have faced violence already and so they will face another one
  • Quotes from @SoniaGuajajara:
    • “The coronavirus represents a new of genocide for Indigenous peoples.”
    • “The economic model that we are living under is predatory and must change.”
    • “All around the world everybody has been running around, nobody had time to stop and look at themselves, look within and to their families. Now is the time to feel how important it is to hug each other” 
    • “It is time for us to come back to ourselves, and realize it’s time to strengthen our collective fight for a new society, for a new planet, where we all respect each other and have empathy toward each other” 
    • “I believe Indigenous nations are ancient people that share an ancient memory of the world…As Indigenous peoples we are just fighting to have peace, and this is something we can cultivate in our actions” 
    • “What we are facing is the possibility of ending the culture of exploitation, capitalism, and selfishness.”

Daiara Tukano, Indigenous activist from Brazil, independent communicator and coordinator of Radio Yandê

  • The anti-indigenous Speech of the president of brazil has been unbelievable
    • Many warriors are being killed right now with this hate speech
    • One of the deaths, a young boy of 15, is to try to stop the invasion of illegal mining in indigenous Territories
  • It’s not new for them. This time the whole world is experiencing it
  • Entire communities endangered due to healthcare insecurity 
  • Very concerned for the ones that have hidden for hundreds of years
    • From the miners
    • From missionaries who say they are helping
  • The world is now looking for the indigenous to have a solution, now that the world is ending, and the best solution that they’ve found and have said is:
    • Balance with nature, not consumption, culture of exploitation, capitalism And selfishness
      • These have brought such violence and oppression
    • The ind. Have learned to live in diversity, they have the knowledge of how to protect how to live in balance
  • It’s now to time to reoccupy our lands with our values, this is our opportunity
    • To have dignity and self respect between each other – an economy that follows that, a culture that follows that
  • How is it that with Agrobusiness came with all these promises to feed the world and only afterward,  now there is not enough food for people
    • Entire deserts of soybeans and cows
      • Soybeans are not Food, we need food, we need food
  • In April is Indigenous Month, the 19th Indian day
    • Big gathering postponed, but 
    • Ind. media Radio Yande: https://www.facebook.com/radioyande/ 
    • Media india Midia India: https://www.facebook.com/VozDosPovos/
    • We are not just in the amazon in Brazil but in each direction and facing deadly violence in each
    • Each day more and more women at the frontline
    • Working on having more ind. Candidates to represent all of the spaces
      • Pushing for more women indigenous Candidates

Patricia Gualinga, Kichwa leader from Sarayaku, Ecuador, Spokeswoman for Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva (Amazon Women in Defense of the Jungle)

  • Before Covid, they were in Quito demanding rights
    • To raise awareness of ind. Women, about our human rights
    • Went home to the worst flooding in lifetime, homes gone, and is getting ready to happen again
  • So ind. Are facing 2 or 3x the difficulties, lacking support that others receive automatically
  • Ind have been blocked and cannot go back in to their communities
  • It’s very clear to everyone that these are consequences of decisions we have made in the past
  • The fires, the floods are a clear message from mother earth that she needs to rest
    • Sadly this lesson is hitting hardest for the indenous who have protected the land
      • Entire communities may be lost to trying to fight on the frontlines of climate change and the pandemic at the same time
  • Many years ago an elder said if we keep destroying the earth, we will get sick, there will be pandemics
  • Currently trapped in city but now she knows it was to help the indigenous locked out of their communities
  • Everything is happening in Ecuador… floods, pipeline leaks, fires, 
  • Now is the time for women to stand up stronger, we need to do more, get more active
    • We are awake, there is hope because women know and we are strong
  • We are all connected and we can see this now

Helena Siren Gualinga is a 17 year old social activist, of Kichwa-indigenous and Swedish origin from Sarayaku, Ecuador.

  • Of the Sarahaku, who are well known for their fight and win, as a small remote village  against Big Oil even though they had the govt. 
  • She grew up in this struggle
  • 25 mins in a plane and then 5 hours in canoe, very limited access
  • Floods
    • Grandma used to say they happen every 15 to 20 years
      • Now 3 in less than 3 weeks and bigger than ever
        • Homes covered up to rooves, 
        • Fields gone, no food for the next 6ms to 1 year
        • Access is now even more limited, can’t send them help
  • The gov. In ecuador has no protocol for how to help ind. In pandemic
    •  There is nothing, nothing in place to deal with this
    • The doctor in the community has no medicine left
  • The oil spill
    • Happened just recently in another province, another river
      • So they cannot drink their water, cannot fish anymore
      • No access to the city because of covid
    • The oil is traveling to peru, because they are doing nothing to stop the leak
    • The people knew this was going to happen, warned them
  • So yes, 2X crisis for our people during Covid… And gov bringing no help, no solutions the people have never been taken into account and the huge cracks are all the more evident now
  • But we as people and nations
    • Can make a difference, the only thing we need is to Want it. 
    • Supporting the people on the frontlines, holding the gov. Accountable
    • We need to do everything in our power to be aware and to do what we can to hold our reps accountable
    • It’s time to wake up to the reality. As a youth we need to understand this is something that could be happening every week

On What We Can Do at a Distance

Sonia

  • Fundraise – really need money for basic needs
  • Interviews, social media
  • Needs to put lots of pressure
    • Divest and defund campaigns
  • Gain Awareness from Amazon Watch
  • International pressure against illegal miners 
  • Autonomy, strike
    • Food sovereignty: Start planting food on roof top

Diara

  • Support all the ind all over the world
    • Support the people on the front lines
  • Wisdom from the people
    • We are talking too much about the ending of the world
      • There are still populations that have survived because they have respected the need for isolation and in the moment awareness and respect
    • We cannot forget our part of the responsibility of this crisis
    • It is nice to see how in our absence nature is still present
      • So it is easy to see, its not too late, we can do
    • And to put this in place of all the other crisis we have gone through – black plague, colonization and exploitation – building an illusion of indepence, now we have the opportunity to build our autonomy 
      • Time to have imagination to think of a new economy a new world outside of the ‘borders’ that are just illusion… we can nurture health and dignity and peace within ourselves; to celebrate the best in human kind and in nature

Ospre: (Chinese graffiti in height of covid there : we cannot go back to where we were, because where we were is the problem)

Patty and Helena

Patty

  • We are in our houses, but the companies keep working – know, be aware of that
  • Short term
    • We see the govs are not helping, not even providing soap, medicine, sanitizer
    • The villages only have traditional medicine but need access
    • They are only attending to the  biggest cities, and are of no thought regarding the impact of the villages or the consequences of this
      • Need to pressure the govt 
  • Important to keep dreaming, praying, for the people, we are still here
    • They are heroes, they have the knowledge to keep protecting ,but need support, need basic needs 
  • the forest has rights, as we have human rights, it has forests rights – they are beings
    • If we recognize and acknowledge this, then we can restore balance
    • Learn more about the Kawsak Sacha declaration: https://kawsaksacha.org/ 

Helena

  • So important to understand the Kawsak Sacha declaration
    • Taught by the elders – the rights of the silent nations,
    • We are part of whats surrounding us, is a lesson of childhood
    • Everything that surrounds us is living and has power
    • By viewing the world in this way, has allowed them to protect their land despite the threats and persecution
      • Because they know how important it is, we are nothing without the world around us

WECAN

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SumakHelena

Indigenous Women on the Frontlines: COVID-19 & Defending the Amazon

During this webinar, Indigenous women leaders of the Ecuadorian and Brazilian Amazon will unite to discuss how the devastating coronavirus pandemic is impacting their communities, while they face ongoing deforestation, oil extraction, and Indigenous rights violations in their territories. Indigenous peoples are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19 due to a lack of resources and health disparities brought on by centuries of colonial policies and environmental racism.

Indigenous women leaders from the Amazon will share their stories, analysis, wisdom, and advocacy for Indigenous rights, protection of forests, water, communities, and the global climate. They will also address the ongoing political and economic struggles affecting their Amazonian territories.

Scientists have stated that destroyed and diminishing natural habitats create the conditions for animal/human virus crossovers, such as COVID-19, and that further pandemics will emerge if we continue to exploit biodiverse regions, making it even more vital for us to stand with land defenders in the Amazon. We need to protect the Amazon because first and foremost, Indigenous peoples have the right to live their traditional ways in their own lands, and we must also understand that there is no protecting forests for climate mitigation and healthy global communities without standing in solidarity to defend the defenders of the land.

We have much to learn from the women’s calls to action, their immediate needs, and their vision for living in respect and well-being with Mother Earth.

This is a critical time to stand with courageous Indigenous women leaders and to learn from their resistance efforts as well as their essential healing knowledge, and how to make our way through these challenging times.

Speakers include:

Patricia Gualinga, Kichwa leader from Sarayaku, Ecuador, Spokeswoman for Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva (Amazon Women in Defense of the Jungle)

Sônia Bone Guajajara, Indigenous leader from Brazil, Executive Coordinator for the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB) with translation by Maria Paula, Founder of the NGO “A Drop in the Ocean”

Daiara Tukano, Indigenous activist from Brazil, independent communicator and coordinator of Radio Yandê

Helena Siren Gualinga is a 17 year old social activist, of Kichwa-indigenous and Swedish origin from Sarayaku, Ecuador.

Moderation and comments by Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN).

Links to donate and other resources are available here: https://bit.ly/3bk0hHp

4/14 Indigenous Women of North American, Turtle Island on the Frontlines: COVID and Fossil Fuel Resistance

  • Mother earth is saying ‘localize’ – start growing food
  • The first and worst impacted are amplifying the cracks, the injustice, in the system – 
  • ‘We’re in this together’ but not being impacted equally. 
  • Classic shock doctrine of powerful to take advantage during crisis
  • Big corporate getting bailouts funding, buying up land, pushing through pipelines etc

Faith Spotted Eagle (Tunkan Inajin Win), Dakota and Nakota Nations within the Oceti Sakowinan, Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines Resistance Leader

  • Fighting keystone pipeline for 12 years now
  • Grew up in this struggle since the Missouri was dammed when she was 1 years old
  • Finally an alliance with the Farmers and ranchers!
  • Message from the elders in a dream 6 months ago
    • People needed to go home and pray in their homes
      • Set up your alters in your homes, clean your homes for prayer
  • Prayer is the most powerful tool of resistance that there will ever be
    • Braveheart society: told our role was to retrieve the dead from the battlefield
      • And they’re doing this for those who have lost their spirits due to oppression
  • From SR we learned a lot, decided to do what they couldn’t at SR
    • Bioregion work, a template
      • The EIS is bs, it’s a waste of time, it’s nothing, a distraction
      • Went to work with mapping, gps everything to co-manage  a 250 miles stretch of the Missouri; co-management and then full management is the only way we’re going to get back
      • Water talks and stakeholders: a plan to manage the ms river watershed. Proactive, MMIW (missing and murdered) study in cooperation, police study – now the groundwork set for native sovereignty – survey the area, gather data, knowledge of plants, water, animal, return to the scientists we were 100 years ago, and relearning from elders who did know this, and young ones that are learning
      • Back in the old days, we knew how to organize, we’ve forgotten based on colonization with “competition” mentality – now we can heal, build trust and not be afraid of each other.  
        • Each of the languages has a code
          • There are secrets that are still there for us to remember now
      • Water testing
        • We need to raise above EPA, it is not acceptable, it is federal
      • NOW: 
        • April 16, rosebud and fort belknap asking for a Temp. Restraining Order
        • https://www.lakotatimes.com/articles/rosebud-fort-belknap-ask-for-restraining-order-against-kxl-construction/
        • Pray as hard as you can for a good outcome to restrict the bad people
        • The gov.s There will not announce shelter in place all along the keystone pipeline the  so that they can get the oil in place and so that tourists can continue to come in and fill campgrounds, etc. 
        • The legislators there in SD are elders, and lacking, getting sick with covid and dying even, and yet not doing whats right

Freda Huson (Chief Howihkat), Unist’ot’en – Wet’suwet’en People, Leader and spokesperson for the Unist’ot’en camps resisting the Coastal GasLink Pipeline

  • Prayers, still and always our most powerful form of activism
    • They were met with peace, not aggression
    • Our ancestors did everything in prayer
      • Prayer before they did everything all of the time
    • We’re learning how to pray again
  • It’s always about the money, and yet its losing money, but they still keep going
  • For us it’s about the water, it is about Life.
    • We drink water, we grow our food with water, it is Life
    • When mother earth starts fighting back you can’t stop her, and so we will all pay, but some more than others
  • Lots of people are still sleeping, it’s time to wake up
  • If people don’t get back to prayer, in the forefront, then we all lose
    • For each other, the planet, Pray. pray.
  • https://www.yintahaccess.com/
  • https://unistoten.camp/

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action, Tar Sands extraction Resistance Leader, Alberta, Canada

  • Alberta tar sands fight
  • Even the coastal gas link has direct links to the alberta tar sands project as they are the biggest user of the natural gas, and so to secure in country energy to power project
    • Government just announced HUGE education layoffs then days later announced multibillion dollar funding package to gas line completion
  • We are actually all in the same fight
  • Price of oil is at an all time low, its not economically viable to do it, its dying and yet we see even our gov during a global pandemic are not helping the people eat and live, but the oil corps
    • Lending billions to them, while laying off educators
  • Have seen people showing up for each other
    • The fishers, hunters and trappers feeding those that don’t have food
    • Elders being watched over
    • Young people learning the ways
  • It is a time to reimagine
  • HIV. In the 80’s when HIV was sweeping the world she remembers a time when a young man came to her people asking to be healed. And the medicine man saw him and after silence he said… We don’t know this sickness. We need time to understand this sickness so that we may learn what mother provides us to heal with. So you must come back, you must keep coming to ceremony. 
  • Faith in our people and that mother earth knows best
  • We continue to hold the line and replace with something better
  • Jack forbes, columbus and other cannibals https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2041688.Columbus_and_Other_Cannibals
  • Breaking the cycles, breaking the disease in the spirit and the mind 
  • https://www.indigenousclimateaction.com/blog-1
  • Dream came in February to a South Am. sister:

The plant world said you need us right now, you need to be growing more food, more medicine; need to listen now to the plant and animal people.

Tara Houska, Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe, Tribal Attorney and Founder of Giniw Collective, Line 3 pipeline Resistance Leader, Leech Lake Reservation, MN

  • Update:
    • Workers for oil projects have been exempted from shelter in place orders
    • They’re moving material in for all the work
    • Despite ‘tar sands collapsing before our eyes’ – its being traded for practically nothing, so all of this for no reason
    • Direct threat to Anishinabe wild rice – absolutely Who they are
    • The indigenous shouldn’t be alone in these fights anymore
    • Earth day stuff… 
      • Continue to divest… they listen to this direct feedback…
        • Now they’ve even begun to buyout, own and run these banks that finance their own energy development 
        • StopLine3.org 
        • StopTheMoneyPipeline.org 
        • Earthdaylive2020.org
        • EarthDayLive.org 

On the matters of rebalancing and the need for Women in Leadership 

Tara

  • So we’ve seen what patriarchy looks like, that’s where we are right now
  • This time, of women stepping into leadership, the rebalance has been prophesied
    • Here’s what needs to happen
    • Hare are the uncomfortable steps we need to take
    • To save life, not money but for life
    • That is our duty, to be caretakers
    • We’re at  moment to choose to live 
      • This our moment to choose
    • Mother earth will be fine, she’ll be great
      • It is us who will or will not be here
    • From Tara Houska to Everyone: (02:22 PM)
    • Yes, transwomen are incredibly important, as is all life. I spoke as a woman, not as a transwoman. I cannot speak for people I am not of. Our culture recognizes two-spirited people in a different way — they are balanced unto themselves.
      • From Tara Houska to Everyone: (02:24 PM)
      • 
I am one of the speakers: Yes, transwomen are incredibly important, as is all life. I spoke as a woman, not as a transwoman. I cannot speak for people I am not of. Our culture recognizes two-spirited people in a different way — they are balanced unto themselves.

The MOST powerful things we can do:

Tara

  • Learning the values and teaching  ‘living in balance.’
    • What are we going to share during our time here?
  • Questioning these things and getting to the bottom of them
  • Teaching, humbly, and always striving to be a complete human

Freda

  • Healing center is doing land based healing to remind Us Who we are so that we feel our connection to the land and so we choose to protect the land

Osprey

  • Anurahadta roy: Nothing could be worse than a return to reality. … we can choose. 

Indigenous Women of North America, Turtle Island on the Frontlines: COVID-19 and Fossil Fuel Resistance

During the webinar, Indigenous women leaders will discuss how COVID-19 is impacting their communities and how oil and gas pipelines are being fast-tracked in their lands— violating Indigenous rights and further putting Indigenous women at risk. In this wide-ranging discussion, presenters will share calls to action, stories and wisdom, immediate needs of their communities, community-care practices, and the latest updates from various campaigns and resistance movements, focusing on Keystone XL, Line 3 and Coastal GasLink pipelines, and tar sands extraction.

Speakers include Freda Huson (Chief Howihkat), Unist’ot’en – Wet’suwet’en People, Leader and spokesperson for the Unist’ot’en camps resisting the Coastal GasLink Pipeline; Faith Spotted Eagle (Tunkan Inajin Win), Dakota and Nakota Nations within the Oceti Sakowinan, Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines Resistance Leader; Tara Houska, Couchiching First Nation Anishinaabe, Tribal Attorney and Founder of Giniw Collective, Line 3 pipeline Resistance Leader; and Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation, Executive Director of Indigenous Climate Action, Tar Sands extraction Resistance Leader. Moderation and comments by Osprey Orielle Lake, Executive Director of the Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN).

A list of resources shared during the webinar is available here: https://bit.ly/2xo5U97

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