INM AT FOREFRONT OF PEOPLES CLIMATE MARCH

Dozens of Idle No More organizers joined hundreds of Indigenous leaders from across Turtle Island and beyond to gather at the Peoples Climate Week in New York that held the Ban Ki-moon UN Special Preparatory Meeting as part of the General Assembly, the UN World Conference on Indigenous Peoples, and the largest climate march in history. During this week of actions, a clear message was sent that Indigenous Peoples are leading the defense of our climate and that violence against the land begets violence against Indigenous women. At the opening plenary, Idle No More organizer Erica Violet Lee eloquently framed climate issues as inherently linked to colonial violence. Idle No More partnered with a delegation of four Indigenous women who are leading the fight against extreme energy and co-organized #Frack Off: Indigenous Women Leading Media Campaigns to Defend our Climate, where Ellen Gabriel (Kanien’keha:ka), Shelley Young (Mi’kmaw), Elle-Maija Tailfeathers (Blackfoot, Sámi), and Kandi Mossett (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) shared their experiences of the impact of the fracking industry on Indigenous communities. The stories wove together themes of the essential role of Indigenous women’s leadership, the importance of protecting the water and land, and the link between violence against Indigenous women and violence against the earth. These women led the audience through the social, political, emotional, and spiritual impacts of four distinct, and interrelated, struggles against extreme energy coming across Indigenous lands. (Photo by Allan Lisner)