Written By Max Wilbert and  originally published on January 25, 2021 in Sierra Nevada Ally. In this article Max describes the plans for an industrial scale lithium mine, the harm this will cause and why we need to protect the area for endangered species.

[caption id="" align=“alignnone” width=“696”] Thacker Pass landscape. Image: Max Wilbert[/caption]

On January 15th, my friend Will Falk and myself launched a protest occupation of the proposed lithium mine site at Thacker Pass, Nevada. We have set up tents, protest signs, and weathered more than a week of winter weather to oppose lithium mining, which would destroy Thacker Pass.

DGR stands in solidarity with indigenous peoples worldwide. They are often decisive defenders of the landbase that is their home and also the most vulnerable people, facing endless attacks, harassment and genocide by the culture of empire. This is an excerpt from an article originally published on Mongabay.

• The Philippines’ Department of National Defense has unilaterally terminated an accord that ensured the 17 campuses of the University of the Philippines were off-limits to the military and police.
• The defense secretary justified the move by alleging that insurgents from the banned communist party and its armed wing are using the campuses’ sanctuary status as cover for their recruitment and propaganda purposes.
• The decision has alarmed displaced Indigenous students who are harboring at UP’s Quezon City campus after the military bombed or took over their schools in a counter-insurgency campaign that began in 2018.
• Critics say the move is the latest blow to human rights and environmental activists in the Philippines, following the recent enactment of an anti-terrorism law seen as giving the armed forces free rein to perpetuate abuses in a country already rated as the most dangerous in Asia for environmental and land defenders.

MANILA — Indigenous youths harboring from a military-led counterinsurgency in the Philippines may soon lose the only safe space they have known for the past two years.

Under a nearly 40-year pact, the 17 campuses of the University of the Philippines are off-limits to the country’s military and police. Since 2019, a group of 68 Indigenous students and teachers have taken refuge at the UP campus in Quezon City, where they attend a makeshift school following the forcible closure of more than 160 schools catering to Indigenous communities, or lumad, in the southern island of Mindanao.

In this episode of the Green Flame Lierre Keith Speaks on Biden Executive Order

In this timely episode of the Green Flame Jennifer Murnan interviews Lierre Keith regarding a new development in the war on women. That development is Biden’s executive order on “gender identity” signed the day of his inauguration, and it will eviscerate Women’s Rights.

Lierre Keith is the founder of the Women’s Liberation Front, WoLF founder and board member, a radical feminist for over 40 years and is the author of 6 books.

In this piece Meghan Murphy describes how the new administration in America has brought for the American women.

by Meghan Murphy/ Feminist Current

Across the internet, women have been expressing relief at the end of the Trump era.

Even Canadians are posting moving images of Kamala Harris and Jill Biden in outfits representing progress. No true feminist would wear a black suit and red tie, after all. What America needs now is jewel tones.

Activists Occupy Site of Proposed Lithium Mine in Nevada

By Kollibri terre Sonnenblume, originally published by Macska Moksha PressReproduced here with permission, thank you.

On Friday, January 15th, two activists drove eight hours from Eugene, Oregon, to a remote corner of public land in Nevada, where they pitched a tent in below-freezing temperatures and unfurled a banner declaring:

“Protect Thacker Pass.”

You’ll be forgiven if you’ve never heard of the place — it’s seriously in the boonies — but these activists, Will Falk and Max Wilbert, hope to make it into a household name.  One of the activists is Will Falk, a writer and lawyer who helped bring a suit to US District Court seeking personhood for the Colorado River in 2017. He describes himself as a “biophilic essayist” and he certainly lyrical in describing the area where they set up:

This is an excerpt from a news article originally published on Mongabay. Featured image: Sinjajevina, by JYB Devot, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Montenegro’s military — and maybe NATO — want the Sinjajevina Highlands for maneuvers; traditional herding communities want these biodiverse alpine pasturelands conserved.

BY John C. Cannon

• A 2019 decree by the government of Montenegro sets forth the country’s intention to set up a military training ground in the highland grasslands of Sinjajevina in the northern part of the country.
• But the pastures of Sinjajevina have supported herders for centuries, and scientists say that this sustainable use is responsible in part for the wide array of life that the mountain supports; activists say an incursion by the military would destroy livelihoods, biodiversity and vital ecosystem services.
• A new coalition now governs Montenegro, one that has promised to reevaluate the military’s use of Sinjajevina.
• But with the country’s politics and position in Europe in flux, the movement against the military is pushing for formal designation of a park that would permanently protect the region’s herders and the environment.

Mileva “Gara” Jovanović’s family has been taking cattle up to graze in Montenegro’s Sinjajevina Highlands for more than 140 summers. The mountain pastures of the Sinjajevina-Durmitor Massif are the largest on Europe’s Balkan Peninsula, and they’ve provided her family not only with milk, cheese, and meat, but with an enduring livelihood and the means to send five of her six children to university.

This writing by Will Falk outlines the harm anticoagulant rodenticides can do to our non human kin and why they must be stopped.

By Will Falk

The first time I saw a coyote with mange my heart broke.

Most of her fur was gone. Her skin, covered with scabs and lesions, had a sickly pink pallor. Her tail seemed stuck between her legs. And, her movements, as she stumbled through a ditch next to a Colorado country road, were lethargic and listless. Just the sight of her made my own skin chafe and itch. As I hugged myself to ward away the horror, my fingernails dug into my own skin, scratching at the backs of my arms. The experience educated me in the realest ways about what the phrase “it made my skin crawl” truly means.

In the following piece, Mark relates the population growth to patriarchy, exploitation, and capitalism. Editor’s note: DGR does not agree with all opinions on this article.

by Mark Behrend

The population of Africa is soaring.

Since 1950, it has grown from 227 million to 1.343 billion – an increase of 590%. Over the same period, South America has grown by 425%, Asia by 330%, and North and Central America by 250%, while Europe has only grown by 35%.

News Alert: Land and water defenders are opposing the creation of a dam across the Zambezi River. They are requesting support to highlight concerns. We encourage you to comment on the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) before it closes on January 25th. The Zambezi River Authority needs to capture grievances for their Responses Report for the ESIA. You can access the ESIA here and leave your comments on this email address.

by Cara Judea Alhadeff, PhD

Paintings in this post are by Micaela Amateau Amato from Zazu Dreams: Between the Scarab and the Dung Beetle, A Cautionary Fable for the Anthropocene Era.

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House —Audre Lorde

As with our shift from our systemically racist culture to one rooted in mutual respect for multiplicity and difference, we must practice caution during our transition out of our global petroculture. This vigilance should not be based on the motivation, but on the underlying false assumptions and strategies that perceived sustainability and “alternative” agendas offer. The implicit assumptions embedded in the concept of sustainability maintains the status quo. At this juncture of geopolitical, ecological, social, and corporeal catastrophes, we must critically question clean/green solutions such as the erroneously-named Renewable Energies Revolution. I suggest we face both the roots and the implications of how perceived solutions to our climate crisis, like “renewable” energies, may unintentionally sustain ecological devastation and global wealth inequities, and actually divert us from establishing long-term, regenerative infrastructures.