From the POPs INC3, Treaty Negotiations, Geneva, Switzerland for the third round of negotiations of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC-3), September 1999

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. I speak to you today as an indigenous citizen of the Penobscot Nation, USA. I wish to respectfully offer a statement on behalf of Indigenous Resistance Against Tribal Extinction (IRATE) with support of the Indigenous Environmental Network, on behalf of the indigenous children of my nation and those who have yet to be created and finally on behalf of our worldwide Mother, the Earth. Today in this room my ancestors are with me - We implore you to draft a treaty that not only upholds our land use rights to hunt and fish as sovereign nations, but even more importantly, insures the mental and physical health of the Penobscot children, and a treaty that assures the future existence of my people.

Allow me to present a series of facts that describe the devastating impact of dioxin in my community:

• My nation of nearly 500 live on an island in the river, where seven (7) pulp and paper mills dwell both upstream and downstream from us
• Dioxin is a by-product of the chlorine bleaching process in making paper, discharged from all 7 of these mills
• Dioxin is a highly potent toxic chemical that causes cancer and other devastating health effects that is being poured into the river daily
• My people have survived on the fish from this river, now we are dying from it
• Neither dioxin or cancer is indigenous to the Penobscot people, however they are both pervasive in my tribal community
• My people face up to 3 times the state and national cancer rate, moreover, those that are dying of cancer are dying at younger and younger ages, our reproductive generation. This means that unless you take action to eliminate dioxin and other persistent organic pollutants (POPs), there will be no Penobscots living on the island by the end of the next century.

Finally, as a breast feeding mother the only way to rid my body of this multi-generational dioxin exposure is to nurse my baby, in turn this lowers my risk of breast cancer. However, at the same time, we nursing mothers are being told by experts in the field that even with this knowledge, out of the two evils, formula versus breastfeeding, that the breastfeeding is more beneficial for our babies, ultimately shedding our bodies of the dioxin into our future generations.

With this, I humbly, respectfully and desperately urge you to draft a treaty that insures the existence of the Penobscot and other indigenous peoples who are so disproportionately impacted by dioxin. That the breast and spoon we feed our babies with is not filled with cancer, diabetes, learning disabilities, and attention deficit. That we may have the basic human right to provide to our children the same foods our ancestors provided with a clear conscience, not the present knowledge that we as mothers are party to their future cancer and diseases.

Today, you have been blessed with the unique world power to warrant the survival of the Penobscot people and indigenous peoples all over the world. We ask that you please at this moment, think of your mothers, daughters, sisters, and grandmothers and find the courage to use this unique world power to take action to eliminate dioxin and POPs creating a promise that I may look upon my great-grand children on our common mother, the earth, as my ancestors look upon me now in this room.

Woliwon, Thank you                                 

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