TAR SANDS: Indigenous take on BP and Royal Bank of Scotland

TAR SANDS TOUR UK: Indigenous take on BP and Royal Bank of Scotland

April 12-20, 2011 IEN UK Tar Sands Speakers Tour!

By Indigenous Environmental Network
Photo by Allan Lissner

IEN is excited to announce a full schedule of events during the 2011 UK Tar Sands Tour! IEN is sponsoring two front line community activists who are confronting Tar Sands along with a member of our IEN tar sands team. For 11 days they will be traveling across the UK to confront BP and Royal Bank of Scotland and be making friends along the way. Look below for more details and also check out our web site for updates!
http://www.ienearth.org/tarsands.html
or check out our UK partners site:
See http://www.no-tar-sands.org/tar-sands-tour-2011/
for further details and updates.
Delegation bio's:
Melina Laboucan-Massimo is Lubicon Cree from Northern Alberta. She has been working as an advocate for Indigenous rights for the past 9 years. She has worked with various NGOs such as Redwire Media Society, the Indigenous Media Arts Group and the Indigenous Environmental Network and has written and produced short documentaries covering topics ranging from the tar sands, inherent treaty rights, water issues to cultural appropriation. She has studied and worked in Australia, Brasil, Mexico, and Canada focusing Indigenous rights and culture, resource extraction and international diplomacy. Before joining Greenpeace as a Tar Sands Climate and Energy Campaigner in Alberta, Melina was pursuing her Masters in Environmental Studies at York University.
Jasmine Thomas is a member of the frog clan from Saik’uz, which is part of the Dakelh (Carrier) Nation in central British Columbia, Canada. With a background in Environmental Planning, Jasmine also continues to practice the ancient traditional medicines of her people. A strong believer of grassroots-level advocacy, she has participated in the “World People’s Climate Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth”; one of three women in a National First Nations Women’s Tar Sands Speaking Tour; travelled to the UK to enlighten citizens on their country’s involvement in tar sands operations and related infrastructure through the Royal Bank of Scotland’s investments; and is strongly opposed to the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Project that plans to cross through her own and 52 other First Nations unceded traditional territories in British Columbia and Alberta.
Clayton Thomas-Muller, of the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation also known as Pukatawagan in Northern Manitoba, Canada, is an activist for Indigenous rights and environmental justice. Based out of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Clayton is involved in many initiatives to support the building of an inclusive movement for Energy and Climate Justice. Recognized by Utne Magazine as one of the top 30 under 30 activists in the United States and as a Climate Hero 2009 by Yes Magazine, Clayton is the tar sands campaign organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network. He works across Canada, Alaska and the lower 48 states with grassroots indigenous communities to defend against the sprawling infrastructure that includes pipelines, refineries and extraction associated with the tar sands, the largest and most destructive industrial development in the history of mankind.
SCHEDULE
Tuesday 12th April, 7pm
Calling BP to Account - Tar Sands, Deepwater Horizon and beyond...
Rich Mix, 35 - 47 Bethnal Green Road, London, E1 6LA
You are invited to a public meeting in advance of BP’s AGM, that will bring together a diverse coalition of individuals and organisations who are working together to call BP to account for the social and environmental impacts of their activities around the world. Join First Nations from Canada, fishermen and women from the Gulf of Mexico, shareholders, NGOs, lawyers and activists for an evening of information sharing and strategising, on the eve of BP’s Annual General Meeting (14th April).A chance to listen to first-hand accounts of how BP’s decision to go into the Alberta tar sands will affect indigenous communities, the local environment and the global climate. A chance to hear from those whose livelihoods have been destroyed by the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe. And a chance to build stronger links between different campaigns and strategies working to restrain the destructive activities of one of the world’s oil giants.
Calling BP to Account - Invitation http://www.no-tar-sands.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Calling-BP-to-Account-Invitation.pdf
Please RSVP to info@no-tar-sands.org
Co-hosted by Greenpeace, PLATFORM, FairPensions and Rising Tide.
Thursday April 14th, 10:30 am
BP AGM
We will be inside and outside BP's Annual General Meeting with a clear message: 'don't go into the Tar Sands.' If you would like to join us email info@no-tar-sands.org
Friday April 15th, 7pm
Tipping the Balance – Tar Sands, Indigenous Rights and Community Resilience workshop and film screening.
Grow Heathrow, Vineries Close, Sipson, West Drayton, UB7 0JG
Indigenous activists resisting the Alberta Tar Sands will join with Transition Heathrow for a workshop on building community resilience and the UK Premiere of the new documentary: Tipping Point - The Age of the Oil Sands!
What are the Tar Sands? Learn more about the Tar Sands giga-project and the growing resistance. What have they got to do with us in the UK? Learn about how the UK is involved in the tar sands and the vibrant movement in the UK working in solidarity with First Nations community members to shut down the tar sands. Building community resilience: The resistance to extractive destructive mining, response to peak oil and airport expansion all require the re-envisioning how our communities work together both locally and internationally.
8:30 pm UK Premiere Tipping Point: The Age of the Oil Sands! ( http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2011/tippingpoint/)
This documentary takes us to the heart of the struggle of resistance to the world’s largest industrial project. Not to be missed!
Sunday 17th April, 2pm
BP and Culture: Time to Break It Off!
Tate Modern, London
In the week between BP’s AGM on April 14th and the one year anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on April 20th, we are calling for actions and creative interventions to show the true nature of BP’s damaging activities around the world, and to persuade our most prestigious galleries and cultural spaces to liberate themselves from BP’s dirty money. (See http://www.facebook.com/home.php?%21%2Fevent.php%3Feid=198819640150485). On the anniversary of the Gulf spill, let’s reveal the sticky black stuff behind BP’s shiny green logo, and pile on the pressure to kick BP out of our cultural spaces for good. We will join the Rising Tide, Liberate Tate, Climate Camp London, Climate Rush and Art Not Oil for a day of action against extraction.
Monday April 18th 7-9pm
Clean the Banks! RBS People's AGM
Edinburgh University Chaplaincy, Edinburgh
Canada’s tar sands are the biggest energy project in the world, creating pollution ponds visible from space, felling the ancient boreal forests and threatening indigenous people’s rights. From this test-bed, the industry is now expanding globally; to Madagascar, Venezuela and Congo. After a massive public bailout RBS continues to provide finance for companies mining tar sands around the world. On the eve of the RBS AGM in Edinburgh this event is a vote against UK tax money financing fossil fuels!
Indigenous people in Canada are fighting ‘the most destructive project on earth’ – the extraction of oil from tar sands and the building of a super-pipeline through their ancestral lands. Hear their stories first hand and learn what we can do to cure RBS of its oil addiction and help stop tar sands spreading to other parts of the world.
FREE, register here: http://www.facebook.com/l/55f5eSmYoRMoC90yYGuWr9UxjSw/foe-scotland.org.uk/book/1132
Organized with WDM, Indigenous Environmental Network, People & Planet Edinburgh, UK Tar Sands Network, Friends of the Earth Scotland, Platform and SEAD.
Tuesday April 19th, 10:30 am
RBS AGM
First Nations community member will be inside RBS's Annual General Meeting to raise their concerns with banks investment in the destruction of their homelands.