[Indigsol] RELEASE: Grassy Narrows blocks MNR enforcement team

[Indigenous Peoples' Solidarity Movement -Ottawa]

Forwarded message From: Grassy Narrows Asubpeeschoseewagong Anishinabek.
For more historical background, visit http://freegrassy.org/learn-more/



IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday August 23, 2010

Grassy Narrows Clan Mothers block MNR enforcement team


Slant Lake, Asubpeeschoseewagong - The site of Grassy Narrows' high
profile logging blockade will see action again today as grassroots women
block passage for Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR ) enforcement
officers interfering with back-road repair work by the northwestern
Ontario First Nations community.  The community was repairing washouts and
beaver damage to nearby back-roads to facilitate their ongoing use and
enjoyment of their traditional territory.  The MNR has visited the repair
work three times and have said to the workers they will be watching them
closely, threatening to stop the work.  This time the community has
resolved not to allow that and blocked MNR access at Slant Lake, allowing
repairs to proceed.

"We the Anishinabek have never given up jurisdiction on our natural
territories," said Judy Da Silva, a Grassy Narrows mother, blockader, and
traditional healer.  "We agreed to share the lands with the newcomers, but
we will never give up our inherent right to use and protect the land,
water and the forests."

The roads require repairs because the MNR has not conducted maintenance on
the back road network since 2002 when grassroots women and youth put their
bodies on the line to block logging machinery from further destroying the
forests their community depends on. Previously the back roads had been
maintained by local contractors through Provincial subsidies provided to
the logging industry.

The blockade, now in its eighth year is the longest running blockade in
Canadian history.  Logging trucks feeding Weyerhaeuser's Trust Joist mill,
and Abitibi pulp and paper mills shifted their clearcut logging operations
to other parts of the territory until June 2008 when AbitibiBowater bowed
to pressure and surrendered their license to log on the Whiskey Jack
Forest.  However, Weyerhaeuser continues to seek access to wood clearcut
on Grassy Narrows Territory and the MNR has threatened to resume logging
as early as September.

The back roads are used by Grassy Narrows members to access hunting,
trapping, wild rice picking and berry picking areas, and for access to the
Ball Lake fishing lodge.  For generations the lodge has been a key source
of employment for the community, but since the mercury poisoning of the
English-Wabigoon River System the lodge has had minimal economic
development benefits for the small indigenous community.

"The MNR attempt to stop maintenance of the roads is an attack on our
community's self sufficiency," said Roberta Keesick, a Grassy Narrows
grandmother, trapper, and blockader.  “It is another attempt by the
Province to assert unilateral control over the Territory in violation of
our inherent and treaty rights."




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