Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Gary McKinney, Spokesman for The People of Red Mountain and Lead Scout for the American Indian Movement-Northeast Nevada, reveals to EcoJustice Radio the true cost of lithium and what we might do to protect the Northern Paiute & Western Shoshone sacred site of Peehee Mu’huh to ensure Indigenous peoples and their legacies are not irreparably harmed by the world’s growing hunger for lithium.
One of Africa’s most rare-minerals-rich countries, the Democratic Republic of Congo, has endured Belgian colonization, slavery, and continuing atrocities, where militant groups control the extraction of “conflict resources.” The tech industry turns these extracted raw materials into components of mobile phones and computers. Yet the cost is deadly.
On a visit with the Outdoor Writers Association of California to the Sierra Nevada town of Auburn, the dark and light of the gold rush history sparkles its brick-faced brilliance in a stroll through Old Town.
Two documentary films chronicle the struggle of the Huichol or Wixárika People to protect their culture and spiritual connection with the ancestors, through the journey to Wirikuta, where peyote grows, now threatened by mining and development interests.
The Nukak People of Colombia have been forced from their homes by illegal armed groups, in the latest attack against the country’s most recently-contacted tribe. Mining, palm oil, cattle ranching and coca threaten the majority of the country’s 102 indigenous communities.
A gold rush that accelerated with the onset of the 2008 global recession compounds the woes of the Amazon basin, laying waste to Peruvian rain forest and spilling tons of toxic mercury into the air and water.
In traditional indigenous societies, land means life. Following is a documentary on the struggle of two Western Shoshone elders against mining threats to their ancestral lands from the United States in Crescent City, Nevada.