"SNAP-SHOT" of environmental and economic justice issues
in indigenous lands (US-CANADA)
- Toxic contaminants, agricultural pesticides and other industrial
chemicals that disproportionately impact Indigenous peoples, especially
subsistence and livestock cultures.
- Inadequate governmental environment and health standards and
regulations.
- Clean up of contaminated lands from mining, military, and other
industry activities.
- Toxic incinerators and landfills on and near Indigenous lands.
- Inadequate solid and hazardous waste and wastewater management
capacity of Indigenous communities and tribes.
- Unsustainable mining and oil development on and near Indigenous
lands.
- National energy policies at the expense of the rights of Indigenous
peoples.
- Climate change and global warming.
- Coal mining and coal-fired power plants resulting in mercury
contamination, water depletion, destruction of sacred sites and
environmental degradation.
- Uranium mining developments and struggles to obtain victim
compensation to Indigenous uranium miners, millers, processors
and Downwinders of past nuclear testing experiments.
- Nuclear waste dumping in Indigenous lands.
- Deforestation.
- Water rights, water quantity and privatization of water.
- Economic globalization putting stress on Indigenous peoples
and local ecosystems.
- Border justice, trade agreements and transboundary waste and
contamination along the US/Mexico/Canada borders and other Indigenous
lands worldwide.
- Failure of the US government to fulfill its mandated responsibility
to provide funding to tribes and Alaska villages to develop and
implement environmental protection infrastructures.
- Backlash from US state governments giving in to the lobbying
pressures of industry and corporations against the right of tribes
to implement their own water and air quality standards.
- Protection of sacred, historical and cultural significant areas.
- Biological diversity and endangered species.
- Genetically modified organisms impacting the environment, traditional
plants and seeds and intellectual rights of Indigenous peoples
- bio-colonialism.
- Economic blackmail and lack of sustainable economic and community
development resources.
- Just transition of workers and communities impacted by industry
on and near Indigenous lands.
- Urban sprawl and growth on and near Indigenous lands.
- Failure of colonial governments and their programs to adequately
consult with or address environmental protection, natural resource
conservation, environmental health, and sacred/historical site
issues affecting traditional Indigenous lands and its Indigenous
peoples.
- De-colonization and symptoms of internalized oppression/racism/tribalism.
- And many others ..
Compiled by the INDIGENOUS ENVIRONMENTAL NETWORK
"An activist alliance of Indigenous Peoples addressing environmental
and economic justice issues through grassroots organizing that impact
tribal, national and international policy with a challenge of achieving
systemic change"
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