One of the 2.5 million waterways no longer protected in Canada
"Land defenders are heroes, not criminals" is a new-to-me slogan so obvious after reading it. Following the links in a friend's email the other day led me to Wild Coast..."a crew that's Grassroots, anti-racist, feminist, and fierce in defense of the land." WildCoast and Forest Action Network are 100% home-grown and volunteer-led. They have no fancy offices or high-paid staff, just a fighting spirit and the courage to win.
One of their prime projects right now is the Caravan to Unis'tot'en Camp. The camp is snowed in and the caravan organizers are looking for: "Strong-hearted volunteers are needed to break trail and supply the camp, We are organizing rides for March and April."
The Unis'tot'en Camp is in its fifth year blocking gas and tarsands pipelines in the mountains between Smithers and Kitimat, and it keeps growing. This camp is a both a symbolic and actual example of the 'War on the Wild'. The land defenders themselves understand that we're all - flora, fauna, microbes, minerals, forces and faeries - in this together.Without land defenders, without bottom up resistance, there will be no future for any of us.
Considering that: "In 2012, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Omnibus Budget stripped away the rules that protected our rivers, lakes, and habitat for decades. waterways were protected in Canada. Before the bill 93 lakes.2.5 million lakes and waterways were protected in Canada, today that total is 62 rivers and 93 lakes." - WildCoast.ca
It's little wonder that resistance to extractive capitalism is growing everywhere. In environmental activist and co-LAN founder Zoe Blunt's article in the The Strait the B.C. environmentalist says oil pipelines kill, not protesters. It's a great read, Zoe stands tall, in it she says, "“The violence is going to be done to the land if these pipelines go through,” Blunt said. “It’s not the kind of scars that can heal. If a pipeline ruptures, that is incredibly destructive. It kills living things. It kills entire ecosystems for generations. There’s no recovery from that.”
One rupture and thousands of jobs are lost in the fishing and tourist industries. A huge swath of forest that now happily sequesters GHGs leveled...Devastation, Death of all living things, No recovery...that's the inevitable cost sooner or later. Short term profit, paper money to boot, for a few already obscenely rich assholes is the benefit. The corporations are theives, they deserve no respect, no co-operation, no capitulation.
