New Internationalist 3 June, 2020
The fight continues: indigenous groups and their allies blockade government buildings in Victoria, Canada to protest a natural gas pipeline through Wet'suwet'en territory. Zuma Press inc/Alamy
Danny Chivers is a climate change researcher, activist and performance poet.
Danny Chivers is buoyed up by three decisive victories led by indigenous groups against fossil fuel interests in Australia, Brazil and Canada.
The fight against climate breakdown can feel overwhelming. But a run of amazing victories against the fossil-fuel industry – all in a single week in early 2020 – gave real cause for celebration. In February, three major projects to extract oil and coal were soundly defeated by indigenous-led campaigns, keeping around nine billion tonnes of greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere – roughly equivalent to stopping all emissions from the US and India for a year.
Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and co-founder of Indigenous Climate Action in Canada, explains that indigenous rights are one of the most powerful tools available for challenging extractive industries. ‘There’s a foundational legal element that makes it very difficult for corporations and state governments to simply override,’ she says.
Full article at New Internationalist Online