As part of its commemoration of the 1906 earthquake, the San Francisco Chronicle yesterday reprinted the front page of its April 17th edition of 100 years ago. At the bottom of the front page is a tiny article with a headline, "Dying Geronimo Prays for Life", describing how the Apache Chief was praying "to the white man's God" to live for a few more years so that he could die a free man, and see his people escape tyranny.
When we reflect upon our relations with indigenous communities for the past 100 years, we have to ask: has much has changed? Have we learned from our mistakes? Sadly, we clearly haven't, and increasingly it's corporations who are to blame.
Consider the conflict between the logging giant Weyerhaeuser and the Grassy Narrows First Nation, an indigenous community in Ontario, Canada. The Grassy Narrows traditional territory extends for 2500 square miles, encompassing intact forests, pristine lakes and rivers north of Kenora, Ontario, which have sustained the people of Grassy Narrows for thousands of years. Weyerhaeuser is driving a wave of destructive logging that threatens to uproot the way of life for the entire community. The community has written angrily to Weyerhaeuser to "leave us alone". In a lengthy briefing to the UN, Amnesty International asserts that the extensive logging violates the community's right to self-determination.
And get this: Weyerhaeuser has now been exposed for taking the old growth forests from this area and milling them into engineered wood products for new "built green" houses by its subsidiary, Quadrant Homes. Weyerhaeuser is robbing from the homeland of Grassy Narrows, destroying traditions and cultures, and greenwashing its operations in new home construction in Seattle, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and elsewhere.
Three community members from Grassy Narrows have driven across the country to deliver their message directly to Steven Rogel, the company's CEO, at the annual shareholder meeting on Thursday. The Seattle media is watching. Will Weyerhaeuser listen?
Down in Texas, a similar battle is brewing. Oil giant ConocoPhillips, the third-largest integrated oil company in the US, has taken over Burlington Resources, the controversial oil company also based in Houston, TX. The new combined company has plans to plunder Ecuadorian rainforests and the traditional homeland of the Shuar and Achuar peoples of the Ecuadorian Amazon to feed America's oil addiction. On May 10th, leaders from the native community will leave their families in Ecuador to travel to the posh conference center in downtown Houston to appeal to the company's CEO, James Mulva. Let's wish them luck.