Unceeded Kwantlen, Katzie, and Coast Salish territory (Fraser Heights, Surrey, BC). From 10am today, Hummingbird Land Defenders will use their bodies to block tree cutting for the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) pipeline. The women wish to protect the mature forest and seven grand cedars, in the North Slope Buffer Park.
The Unist'ot'en Village and their neighbours at Gidmet'en Checkpoint are both calling for supporters who can come out and spend multiple weeks or months on the territory.
"What corporations and big conservation groups call 'nature-based solutions' is a dangerous distraction."
As a global climate summit continued in Glasgow, Scotland on Tuesday, an international coalition of advocacy groups warned world leaders that corporate polluters are pushing for "nature-based solutions" to capture planet-heating emissions so they can "keep burning fossil fuels, mine more of the planet, and increase industrial meat and dairy production."
The Gitxaala charge that mineral claims in their traditional territory were granted without consultation or even notice, which violates constitutional obligations to them and violates the United Nations declaration of the rights of indigenous peoples, which the B.C. government adopted in 2019.
The Gitxaala First Nation in northwestern B.C. has filed a first-of-its-kind legal challenge to the province’s mineral rights regime, which some critics have likened to a relic from the gold-rush era.
