Mexico City-based Blue Planet Project organizer Claudia Campero Arena will be at the ‘Sí a la vida, No a la minería’ conference in Capulálpam, Oaxaca beginning today.
As noted in a media release for the ‘Yes to Life, No to Mining’ conference, “At this meeting we will work around the following themes: mining situation in Mesoamerica; Rights of Indigenous Peoples and Mining, Defense Strategies and Alternatives from the villages to the good life. The event will meet with organizations of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Canada and Mexico, who have accompanied various processes of resistance and defense of indigenous lands against mining.”
Mesoamerica refers to a region and cultural area in the Americas, extending from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica, within which a number of pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries.
We are also pleased to receive word from Claudia that John Cutfeet of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) First Nation will be attending this conference. Cutfeet spoke at our ‘Indignez-Vous! Hope in Resistance’ conference in Montreal in October 2011 and recently participated in a ‘solidarity with Chief Spence walk’ from Toronto to Ottawa.
In a recent media release it was noted, “Through bold action campaigns KI and their supporters have stopped mining companies Platinex and God’s Lake Resources from exploring on their land. The community has also successfully pressured the Ontario government to withdraw approximately half of their watershed from all mining activity. But the fight isn’t over yet. Ontario has yet to recognize KI’s right to protect their entire watershed of 13,025 square kms and to control their Homeland. The rest of the community’s watershed remains open to speculation by gold, diamond, and metals miners seeking to capitalize on Ontario’s mining boom.”
More on the ‘Yes to Life, No to Mining’ conference at http://www.movimientom4.org/2013/01/boletin-de-prensa-encuentro-de-pueblos-de-mesoamerica-si-a-la-vida-no-a-la-mineria/.