Kirsten Leclaire-Mazerolle, from Natoaganeg First Nation, is a researcher and writer working out of the Human Environments Workshop (HEW) funded by RAVEN. Today she published “Elder leads medicine walk for young minds,” in the NB Media Co-op, about students learning about Mi’gmaq culture, traditional healing plants on cultural teaching hike.
Read Kirsten’s article HERE.
In stories about SMRs, corporate media–reporters, journalists, and editors in New Brunswick’s mainstream English-language press–have almost totally ignored Indigenous perspectives.
Read the full article HERE in the NB Media Co-op.
Harrison Dressler is a researcher and writer working out of the Human Environments Workshop (HEW) funded by RAVEN.
Harrison Dressler is a researcher and writer working out of the Human Environments Workshop (HEW) funded by RAVEN. His latest article for the NB Media Co-op is about UNB’s award of an honorary degree to a real estate magnate whose company has made headlines in Ontario for substandard housing and the alleged harassment of tenants. Read Harrison’s article HERE.
Peskotomuhkati Chief Hugh Akagi believes the recent CNSC hearing in Saint John was a PR exercise. Read the article HERE.
Writer Harrison Dressler is a researcher and writer working out of the Human Environments Workshop (HEW) funded by RAVEN. He attended the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission hearing to review NB Power’s application to renew its licence to operate the Point Lepreau nuclear reactor.
“The recent re-licencing hearing for New Brunswick’s Point Lepreau nuclear reactor highlighted the difficulty and cost of managing the province’s long-lived legacy of radioactive waste.
“Most of the radioactive materials generated by the Lepreau nuclear facility were never found in nature before the discovery of nuclear fission 83 years ago.
“The Point Lepreau facility, however, has produced – and will continue to produce – thousands of tons of these toxic radioactive materials in the form of high, intermediate and low-level radioactive waste which must be kept isolated from all living things for a period of time that dwarfs the span of recorded human history.”
Read the full article HERE, published by the NB Media Co-op, by RAVEN’s Kim Reeder and Susan O’Donnell.
This post includes files related to the zoom panel event held on Dec. 10, 2021 with speakers Gordon Edwards, Lorraine Rekmans, Tracy Glynn.
The story about the event, published by the NB Media Co-op, is HERE.
Direct link to the video archive of the event on YouTube is HERE.
The original panel description is HERE
Lorraine Rekmans kindly permitted us to photocopy her co-edited book (out of print), This Is My Homeland: Stories of the effects of the nuclear industries by people of the Serpent River First Nation and the north shore of Lake Huron. You can download it HERE.
Tracy’s slides HERE.
Gordon’s slides HERE.
Gordon also supplied: an edited text based on the transcript of the presentation given on December 10, 2021. In particular, an additional paragraph has been interpolated to explain the origin of the Port Radium mine in the NWT.
Uranium the Shape Shifter, by Gordon Edwards
www.ccnr.org/shape_shifter_2021.pdf
Questions answered in writing at the event HERE.
Eleven questions submitted by viewers were left unanswered at the end of the Uranium panel event. HERE are those questions, and Gordon Edwards’s answers, including his links to further documentation.
The file of the event chat is HERE.
More materials:
Gordon strongly recommends that everyone consult a 2014 Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility (CCNR) submission regarding a permanent moratorium on uranium exploration and mining in Quebec, HERE.
On the CCNR website, a list of links to Indigenous declarations on nuclear issues is HERE.
Lorraine found the link to the 1989 report published by the AECB, Childhood Leukaemia Around Canadian Nuclear Facilities Phase I, HERE.
All stories published by the NB Media Co-op tagged “nuclear” are HERE. This link includes all the stories about the new nuclear reactors proposed for New Brunswick.
Mining Watch Canada has an excellent set of resources coming from its 2019 conference: Turning down the heat: Can we mine our way out of the climate crisis? HERE.
RAVEN lead investigator Susan O’Donnell published an article today about the title claim by Wolastoqey Nations for land owned by NB Power and the largest forestry companies in New Brunswick. Read the article here in the NB Media Co-op.
The NB Media Co-op published the story of the rally in Fredericton to protest big banks funding the Coastal GasLink pipeline. RAVEN’s Rose He, leader of the fossil fuel divestment campaign at UNB, wrote the story. You can read it here.
RAVEN and other environmental groups across New Brunswick issued a call for action today. The climate emergency requires radical improvements in our treaty relationship and our relationship with nature and the environment, the way we produce and consume energy and food, and our approach to education and health services and management of our forests, waters and coastlines.
RAVEN is a member of the New Brunswick Environmental Network that published Greenprint 2021 today. RAVEN supported the publication development and we’re pleased to promote it.
HERE is the link to Greenprint 2021: Towards a Sustainable New Brunswick.
Read the article published by the NB Media Co-op, HERE.
Our new book is published! Letters from the Future: How New Brunswickers Confronted Climate Change and Redefined Progress features 37 authors from different backgrounds with many different ideas.
There’s info in the NB Media Co-op story about the book and where to buy or order it. Help us get the word out by sharing this info with your networks, including on your social media. The awesome book launch video link is also below.
Launch story, Letters from the Future New Brunswick: https://nbmediacoop.org/2021/11/01/29241/
Launch video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSTcn_IQHes&t=3s
The book is in bookstores now. We are also having an in-person book launch and discussion with the editors and local authors at the Sunbury Shores Arts and Nature Centre in St. Andrews on Saturday, Nov. 20 from 3 to 5pm. Everyone is welcome to join us there!
The Climate Action Team at Hampton High School (HHS) are not only activists but also allies to Indigenous peoples. MLA Megan Mitton (Green Party, Memramcook-Tantramar) tabled a petition from HHS students in support of the Wolastoq Grand Council resolution against nuclear energy development and nuclear waste. Read the story in the NB Media Co-op, HERE.
The nuclear projects planned for New Brunswick are delaying genuine climate action because they do nothing to address the climate crisis and divert resources and attention to the need to rapidly increase our reliance on renewable energy.
Caroline Ennis, organizer of the 1979 Tobique Women’s March to Ottawa, delivered a talk on how she and other Wolastoqiyik women of Tobique First Nation organized to stop gender discrimination in the Indian Act on March 31. RAVEN co-hosted the talk, organized by Tertulias Fredericton. The video of the talk was published by RAVEN partner, the NB Media Co-op, here.
RAVEN partnered with the NB Media Co-op and Tertulias for this webinar event about the Marshall Decision, a milestone in the legal history of Indigenous peoples and the state. In this video, former UNB prof David Bedford looks at the implications for First Nations in New Brunswick. The NB Media Co-op published the video here.
Indigenous Wayuu and Afro-Colombian communities have long been vocal against the forced displacement, environmental degradation, human rights abuses and increasing death toll caused by the Cerrejón coal mine in Colombia. NB Power sources coal from this mine.
RAVEN’s Environmental Action reporter Cortney MacDonnell prepared a video and wrote a story about it for the NB Media Co-op. You can read Cortney’s story here.
RAVEN’s Hannah Moore collaborated with St. Mary’s First Nation member Cecelia Brooks to write this story for the NB Media Co-op about the healing and vital action of growing food. Read their story here.
Environmental action reporter Cortney MacDonnell spoke with people in both northern New Brunswick region and Colombia, where NB Power has been sourcing coal since 1993 when the Belledune plant opened. Read her article here, published by RAVEN partner the NB Media Co-op.
RAVEN’s Hannah Moore is based at the Hayes Farm in Fredericton this summer. She has been writing stories about food security and food sovereignty issues for RAVEN partner, the NB Media Co-op. This week Hannah writes about two Indigenous trainees at the farm. Read Hannah’s story here.
RAVEN’s Environmental Action Reporter Cortney MacDonnell published her second story for the NB Media Co-op today: “There’s something in the water: meet four women combating environmental racism in Nova Scotia.” Cortney’s story profiles the women who participated in an online panel earlier this month to discuss their work organizing against environmental racism on the spirits, minds, and bodies of Indigenous and African Nova Scotian people. You can read Cortney’s story here.
RAVEN’s Tracy Glynn wrote a story published today by RAVEN partner, the NB Media Co-op. Her story includes an interview with a wood producer who supports Wolastoqey loggers. Last month, Tracy wrote a story about the court case brought by Wolastoqey First Nations against the province of New Brunswick for violating treaty right to harvest timber for a moderate livelihood. You can read Tracy’s new story here.
RAVEN’s Tracy Glynn published a story today in the NB Media Co-op about the suit against the government by six Wolastoqey First Nations for depriving the Wolastoqey people their treaty right to harvest Crown timber in order to earn a moderate livelihood. You can read Tracy’s story here.
RAVEN partner Sophie Lavoie with the NB Media Co-op wrote a story about the presentation by Miles Howe in Fredericton. The event was hosted by the NB Media Co-op and RAVEN.
Howe was at the Elsipogtog protest site during the struggle against shale gas. He became curious about the methodology behind Project SITKA’s investigations and decided to research it. At the presentation Howe shared the results of his findings. The RCMP were looking for a “pan-national Indigenous rights movement” but they found no links.
You can read Sophie’s story here.
“Race-shifters” are white people with no or a small amount of Indigenous ancestry who identify as Indigenous. Author Darryl Leroux has been exploring the race-shifting phenomenon for more than two decades. RAVEN’s Susan O’Donnell wrote a story for the NB Media Co-op about the social scientist’s book launch in Fredericton. The article includes information on the groups across Canada claiming to have Indigenous rights, including the five active organizations in rural New Brunswick. You can read the article here.
The RAVEN project and the NB Media Co-op’s Voices for the Environment week brings you this event on Sept. 27.
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/2111324139175403/
The Women Resisting Extractivism and Bridging the Scholar-Activist Divide
When: Friday, Sept. 27 at 2:00pm
Where: Brian Mulroney Hall Rotunda, 3rd Floor, St. Thomas University, Fredericton, Unceded Wolastoqey Territory
Resource extraction – including open-pit mines, mountain top coal removal, gas storage in salt caverns, fracking for shale gas, massive tailings dams and the dumping of mine waste into natural fish-bearing water bodies – is facing fierce resistance right here on unceded Wabanaki territory and across the world. Rural and Indigenous women are among those occupying the front lines of resistance movements against resource extraction. The women defending their land and livelihoods do so while facing gender-based violence.
Hear from scholar-activists on the latest struggles against resource extraction on Turtle Island and beyond. How can scholars contribute to a more just world in the face of runaway resource extraction and climate change? What is the potential for a decolonial feminist praxis?
Panelists:
Ramona Nicholas, Wolastoqey grandmother, UNB Elder-in-Residence and Knowledge Keeper, PhD Candidate and MiningWatch Canada board member, on the struggle to protect Wolastoqey territory from the Sisson mine project.
Sherry Pictou, Mi’kmaw woman from L’sɨtkuk, Professor of Women’s Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University, on Indigenous feminist resistance to resource extraction.
Shannon Bell, Professor of Sociology at Virginia Tech and author of Our Roots Run Deep as Ironweed: Appalachian Women and the Fight for Environmental Justice, and Fighting King Coal on the women resisting coal in Appalachia.
Chair: Tracy Glynn, Instructor, St. Thomas University and University of New Brunswick, doctoral researcher with RAVEN and MiningWatch Canada board member.
With a photovoice exhibition and refreshments. All welcome.
Organized by RAVEN Rural Action & Voices for the Environment.
Supported by: NB Media Co-op, Peace and Friendship Alliance, MiningWatch Canada, Maritimes-Guatemala Breaking the Silence Network- BTS, Canada Research Chair in Global & International Studies, STU’s Environment & Society Program and UNB’s International Development Studies Program.
Contact: raven.unb@gmail.com.
RAVEN’s Kim Reeder and her collaborators in Charlotte County wrote this week’s Letter from New Brunswick’s future: The tale of Skutik, written from the perspective of Skutik, the St. Croix River. You can read the story here.
The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) held their annual meeting in Fredericton this week, and policy and legal analyst, and environmental and Indigenous rights activist Russell Diabo spoke at the University of New Brunswick on the last day of the event. RAVEN’s Abram Lutes covered the story for our project partner, the NB Media Co-op. Diabo’s talk has implications for First Nation communities across the province and across Canada. You can read the story here.
RAVEN Summer Institute member Abram Lutes is a board member and writer for the NB Media Co-op. He interviewed Madawaska Maliseet First Nation Chief Patricia Bernard for a story about the “right to fish” in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. You can read his story here.
The Wolastoqey Nation in New Brunswick issued a statement signed by all the Chiefs strongly opposing the province’s “secret lifting of the fracking moratorium” in the Sussex area. RAVEN’s Susan O’Donnell wrote an article for the NB Media Co-op about this and related resistance including in the NB legislative assembly last week. The article is here.
RAVEN is attending the plenary in Fredericton today and tomorrow hosted by our research partner JEDI – Joint Economic Development Initiative. The focus is Indigenous economic development in New Brunswick.
In his video with the project, RAVEN collaborator David Perley said that economic sustainability is one of the foundations of healthy First Nation communities in the province. The JEDI conference includes a session on “The Madawaska story.” This session is particularly interesting for RAVEN because we are currently working on a study of climate change adaptation in a rural region that includes Madawaska First Nation and we engaged with members of that community to pilot the survey for the project.
David Perley, a collaborator on the RAVEN project, has been moving the University of New Brunswick toward a more respectful approach to Indigenous education in the province. Today RAVEN and our partner, the NB Media Co-op, published an article about how David and his wife, UNB Elder-in residence Imelda Perley, have made a difference during their time at the university. David retires in June and Imelda retired in April.
Read the article by RAVEN’s Susan O’Donnell and Brian Beaton, Celebrating Indigenous teachings at UNB with David and Imelda Perley. David also collaborated with RAVEN’s Tracy Glynn, Shanthi Bell, Rodrigo Hermelo and the UNB Media Lab to create several new videos for the project, also published by the NB Media Co-op site, including this one related to the article on Indigenous university education:
In this video made by the RAVEN project, David Perley, director of the Mi’kmaq-Wolastoqey Centre at the University of New Brunswick and RAVEN collaborator, speaks about what it will take to ensure that rural communities, including his home community of Tobique First Nation, are healthy and sustainable. You can watch the video from this page.
RAVEN’s Kim Reeder wrote an article for the NB Media Co-op about a panel presentation at the New Brunswick Graduate Research Conference, “Research for Piluwitahasuwawsuwakon: A sharing circle with Ntutemok,” with Lapskahasit Cihkonagc, Nancy Harn, Stel Raven and Elder Albert Marshall.
You can read the story here.
Today – World Water Day – we are celebrating with an article and a video about Wolastoq, produced in collaboration with RAVEN and published by the NB Media Co-op.
The video features David Perley, RAVEN team member and director of the Mi’kmaq-Wolastoqey Centre, telling the story of the traditional importance of Wolastoq and why we need to bring it back to health. The short video, Wolastoq: a healthy river is necessary for survival, was a collaboration with several RAVEN team members including Shanthi Bell, Tracy Glynn and Rodrigo Gutiérrez Hermelo.
The article, Wolastoq: a beautiful and bountiful teacher, written by David Perley and friend of RAVEN Brian Beaton, recalls the history of the degradation of the river and the work involved and underway to restore it to health. The story also identifies many of the groups working on restauration projects.
The annual Peace and Friendship Treaties Days at UNB is a celebration of the relationship between Indigenous and settler peoples in Wabanaki territory. This year’s event included a re-enactment of the longhouse gathering to ratify the terms of the 1760 treaty.
RAVEN’s Kim Reeder participated in the gathering and wrote a story for the NB Media Co-op, working with David Perley, RAVEN collaborator and director of the Mi’kmaq-Wolastoqey Centre, and Brian Beaton. You can read their story here.
The perspective of the RAVEN project is that understanding the relationships between the first peoples on this territory, European and other newcomers over the past four centuries, and all our relations, will help to guide us as we move forward to build a sustainable future together.
The Wabanaki Unity Gathering on Jan. 26 was an important event hosted by the Wolastoq Grand Council. RAVEN’s Susan O’Donnell participated and was asked to write a story for the NB Media Co-op. She spoke with several Indigenous women who highlighted the importance of unity among all nations and peoples to heal the earth, and for humans to see ourselves as part of the web of life. You can read the story here.
RAVEN is building its relationship with Indigenous leaders and community members. RAVEN participated at the Peace and Friendship Alliance meeting on Nov. 24 in Fredericton. Those gathered shared information about many issues affecting rural communities, including the Mount Carleton court case, fracking, Sisson mine and climate change.
In a video produced by the NB Media Co-op, the RAVEN team spoke with Wolastoq Grand Council Chief Ron Tremblay. He describes the importance of honouring the treaties. He also relates how the 2013 struggle in Elsipogtog and Kent County over exploration for shale gas resulted in the Peace and Friendship Alliance and relationships with allies. You can watch it here.
RAVEN’s Susan O’Donnell attended a public event on Nov. 3 in a community hall in Tobique First Nation. At the meeting, 50 people gathered to discuss how to stop the spraying of glyphosate on the New Brunswick forest. She spoke briefly about RAVEN at the gathering and, for the NB Media Co-op, interviewed several people for a news story. You can read it here.
For the NB Media Co-op, RAVEN’s Tracy Glynn interviewed Ron Tremblay, Wolastoq Grand Council Chief for a news story. In the story, Ron is reminding people that the Indigenous Wolastoq people of what is known as the “Saint John River Valley” today “never surrendered one inch of land, one drop of water.” Read the story here.
