The Grassy Narrows Earth Justice Gathering was a great success! The gathering included workshops, trainings, stories, campfires, feasting, music and action at the Grassy Narrows blockade. Check out the summary below to learn more. The Rainforest Action Network continues to support the struggle to Free Grassy.
Summary:
The Rainforest Action Network, in coalition with the Indigenous community in Grassy Narrows, and ForestEthics hosted a summer-long camp to support the blockade of a logging road on Grassy Narrows traditional territory. The camp culminated in an Earth Justice Gathering July 10-16 of forest and Indigenous rights activists from the United States and Canada.
On Thursday, July 13th community members from Grassy Narrows, along with organizers from the Rainforest Action Network and ForestEthics blockaded part of the TransCanada highway bypass north of Kenora. The blockade was designed to block the path of logging trucks taking hardwood trees from Grassy Narrows’ territory to the Weyerhaeuser Timberstrand mill in Kenora. One organizer’s description of the reasons behind the blockade:
“We stand proudly with the people of Grassy Narrows and will continue to work to ensure the protection of Ontario's Boreal forest,” explained Leah Henderson, campaigner with ForestEthics. “Weyerhaeuser and Premier McGuinty are violating Grassy Narrows’ basic human right to self determination and culture and undermining the earth’s ecological life support systems.”
The highway blockade is the latest development in a decade-long effort by the Grassy Narrows community to end logging without consent on the community’s traditional territory.
For years, community members in Grassy Narrows, Ontario have filed official complaints, environmental assessment requests, and lawsuits to stop destructive clear-cut logging on their traditional land use territory. Four years ago this December, the youth of Grassy Narrows established what is now the longest running Indigenous logging blockade in Canadian history. The people of Grassy Narrows see the destruction and degradation of their land, and work tirelessly to put an end to it. All the while, logging companies Weyerhaeuser and Abitibi continue to use wood clear-cut on Grassy Narrows’ traditional territory and the McGuinty Provincial government continually fails to address longstanding Native land rights issues. There is growing crisis of mismanagement in the Boreal Forest, one of Earth’s last intact original forest ecosystems.
On Saturday, two days after the peaceful protest on the TransCanada Highway, more than 50 police officers mobilized to monitor approximately 100 Grassy Narrows supporters and community members camped at the Grassy Narrows blockade site. Between 12 and 30 police vehicles stopped traffic on Highway 671 to Grassy Narrows. Approximately a dozen arrests were made; white arrestees were cited and released on mischief charges, while Natives and other people of color were taken to jail and interrogated before they were released and charged. An organizer’s reaction to the arrests:
“Weyerhaeuser is destroying the Grassy Narrows’ ancient way of life and an ecosystem vital to our planet’s health while the McGuinty government refuses to act to resolve this crisis,” said David Sone, an organizer with the Rainforest Action Network. “Instead of dealing with the root issues of neglected Native land rights and ecological devastation, the authorities have chosen to criminalize dissent and punish peaceful protesters and Native people as they assert their inherent rights.”
After hours of ceremony and prayer, a convoy leaving Grassy on Sunday left safely and successfully without arrests. We will post updated information about the controversy in Grassy Narrows as it becomes available. Please sign the petition in support of the Grassy Narrows community on www.freegrassy.org.
Background:
We are working closely with community leaders from Grassy Narrows who have invited supporters of social, economic, and ecological justice to support their blockade and to bring the action into the stores where this wood is sold, the legislatures where the laws are passed, the board rooms where the decisions are made, and to broad public attention in the media. Let's answer their call.
The crisis in Ontario's Boreal Forests is heating up. While much of the world is aware of the devastating destruction occurring in the Amazon rainforests, many don't realize the other important remaining intact forest ecosystem left on earth is the Canadian Boreal forest. Not only is this vast mosaic of forests, river, wetlands and lakes a breeding ground for billions of birds and home to the endangered woodland caribou, but it stores more carbon than any other terrestrial ecosystem, making it one of our first lines of defense against global warming, and provides more freshwater than any other place on earth. The various provincial governments in Canada have already allocated most of the Boreal's productive timber lands to logging companies and almost all logging is done through clearcuts - some as large as 20,000 acres. Logging and mining are moving further north threatening this vital forest ecosystem and the traditional territory of many First Nations in Ontario.
On December 2nd 2002, the indigenous youth of Grassy Narrows lay down in the path of industrial logging trucks – blocking access to their traditional lands and sparking what is now the longest standing indigenous blockade in Canada
Although the blockade still stands strong, logging companies Weyerhaeuser and Abitibi are still destroying parts of Grassy Narrows' traditional lands, and the McGuinty government refuses to address the growing crisis of unresolved native land rights conflicts and habitat destruction in the great northern Boreal forest.
