Rion Sanders/Great Falls Tribune Thirty-four genetically pure bison were released onto a 1,000-acre pasture on the Fort Belknap Reservation on Thursday, August 22.
Onlookers hooted, hollered and cheered as bison were coaxed off the trailer and went racing off onto the plain of the Fort Belknap Reservation in Montana. On Thursday, 34 genetically pure animals were set loose. It marks the first time in a century the animals have roamed the area.
“It’s a great day for Indians and Indian country,” Mark Azure, who heads the tribe’s bison program, told the Great Falls Tribune moments after the final two big bulls rumbled out of a trailer and trotted away onto the prairie. The bulls were kept in a trailer separate from the others.
The animals had traveled the 190 miles from the Fort Peck Indian Reservation where Fish, Wildlife and Parks had put 70 of them last year from Yellowstone National Park. Fort Peck already had a herd of some 200 animals, but the Yellowstone bison are the only remaining genetically pure and free ranging wild bison in the United States, the same animals that covered the western plains 200 years ago and numbered in the millions.
The intention was to move half of the Yellowstone bison to Fort Belknap, but the move was stalled by legal actions. Until the Montana Supreme Court finally ruled that it was legal earlier this summer, paving the way for the bison’s return.
“The fact that we’re assisting in preserving the genetically pure buffalo out of Yellowstone is significant—the fact that we’re ensuring the long-term survival of the species,” Mike Fox, tribal councilman, said in a Great Falls Tribune video report about the bison release. “But, on the cultural side… they took care of us and now it’s time for us to take care of them.”
The bison were released into a 1,000-acre pasture with an 8-foot fence, reported the Tribune, and just one of the animals was not released due to an injury.
Before being released all the animals were tested and found to be disease-free.
Fox told the Tribune that Fort Belknap will manage a herd and use it as seed stock for other places looking to reintroduce bison.
The release meant a lot to those gathered to watch. There was a pipe ceremony to welcome the bison back.
Fox told the Tribune the last few bison disappeared from Fort Belknap around 1910. “It’s a homecoming for the animals.”
The City of Marysville invites you to Touch-A-Truck on Saturday, Sept. 14, an event that puts your kids in the driver’s seat of Marysville’s biggest heavy-duty rigs. Honk the horns, set off sirens, kick the tires on a variety of big rigs – dump trucks, backhoe, vactor truck, police vehicles, street sweeper, Marysville Fire District fire engines, garbage trucks, an aid car and more. Come join the fun!
Marysville Noon Rotary Club will offer special activities for kids, and Marysville Kiwanis will have tasty treats for sale.
For more information please call (360) 363-8400. Please bring a donation for the Marysville Food Bank. No pets, please.
In the first positive federal response to widespread Indian protests over government attacks on tribal companies’ online loan businesses, U.S. Department of Justice officials August 21 assured eight tribal officials that they are not being illegally targeted.
The Department of Justice’s Financial Fraud Task Force’s recent activities were “not directed at tribal entities short-term lending businesses,” eight tribal leaders were told Wednesday in a meeting with Deputy Assistant Attorney General Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, said John Shotton, chairman of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe and chairman of the Native American Financial Services Association (NAFSA). Shotton participated with other tribal leaders in the meeting with Frimpong.
Also on Wednesday, NASFA, which Shotton chairs, sued the state of New York in federal district court demanding that the state stop trying to shut down tribe-owned online lending companies. New York’s attack on at least 16 tribal lending companies launched August 6 was filed by former federal prosecutor Benjamin Lawsky, the new czar of NY’s Department of Financial Services.
“Defendant Lawsky and the State of New York have overstepped their bounds with their illegal attacks on our tribes,” said Barry Brandon, NAFSA executive director whose members filed the complaint.
Jane Daugherty (Florida International University)
Any government crackdown on tribal lending companies—by federal or state regulators—would produce devastating cuts in education, health care and housing on Indian lands. Income generated by the tribal online lenders generates millions of dollars of income used to fund those core services, all of which have sustained huge cutbacks from sequestration of the federal budget.
The catastrophic sequestration cuts in promised funding to the tribes, $552.7 million cut so far, occurred despite assurances from the Obama Administration that guaranteed federal support for essential services to the tribes granted in treaties and agreements would be exempt from sequestration, mandatory across-the-board budget cuts ordered by Congress.
In response to Wednesday’s meeting with DOJ officials, Shotton said in a letter, “We were pleased to hear from you today that your actions are not directed at our tribal government short-term lending businesses. In particular, it was a relief to hear Deputy Assistant Attorney General Frimpong make the statement that, ‘It didn’t occur to me that we should consult with tribes in advance because we are going after fraud. Never have we focused on tribal payday or payday. We go after financial fraud, so we are not going after you.’ ” Shotton’s and other tribal leaders’ letter to Frimpong was posted on the NAFSA website Thursday, August 22.
Shotton also revealed that the DOJ has invited the tribal representatives to be part of the new DOJ Consumer Protection Working Group. Shotton added, “Tribal governments share your dedication to protecting consumers by offering responsible financial services products and services.”
The letter to the DOJ also noted the “recent … proud tradition of consultation between our governments that was memorialized by Executive Order during the Clinton Administration. Both the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations have continued this legacy of cooperation and respect for the sovereign rights of American Indian tribal governments.
“President Obama confirmed this commitment on November 5, 2009 by reaffirming Executive Order 13175, requiring all heads of departments and executive agencies to consult with American Indian tribal governments before taking any action which may affect the sovereign rights of an Indian Tribe. The recent Executive Order, dated June 26, 2013, establishing the White House Council on Native American Affairs, specifically acknowledges, ‘that self-determination—the ability of tribal governments to determine how to build and
sustain their own communities—is necessary for successful and prospering communities.’ ”
The key legal precedent governing tribe-owned businesses, including online lenders, is sovereign immunity, which recognizes the tribes as sovereign nations within the U.S. with complete control over their lands, businesses, laws and governance. Sovereign immunity was guaranteed in numerous treaties with the U.S. government in exchange for the surrender of vast tracts of Indian land and natural resources.
Tribal sovereign immunity has repeatedly been upheld in the Supreme Court and in numerous states. First expressed in Article I, section 8, of the United States Constitution, the courts have since consistently found that any erosion of Tribal Sovereignty would lead to a complete loss of the rights of recognition granted to the tribes by the federal government.
In 2012 in Colorado, tribal rights to operate online lending businesses under circumstances very similar to those in New York were upheld. In State of Colorado v. Cash Advance and Preferred Cash Loans, fully recognized as “arms” of Congressionally acknowledged tribes, dragged on for seven years with a final ruling that proved to be an overwhelming affirmation of tribal sovereign immunity.
Despite the Colorado case, former federal prosecutor and New York’s new banking czar, Lawsky, issued a written order August 6 against internet lenders – including at least 16 tribal entities – demanding that they stop making loans to New York state residents. His letter went out to 35 lenders and 112 banks that help process the loans.
Some tribal officials worry that the Department of Justice actions may have inspired New York’s attack on tribal lenders. Despite his experience as a former federal prosecutor, Lawsky’s reference to “illegal payday loans” shows a complete disregard for the centuries-old federal doctrine of tribal sovereignty, in which states have consistently been prohibited from meddling in the business affairs of Congressionally recognized tribes.
CNN reported Thursday that New York has made several attempts in recent years to interfere with tribal commerce. It attempted to atop the sale of tobacco by the tribes by arranging agreements with credit card companies to stop processing tobacco sales. That attempt ultimately failed when the U.S. Postal Service adopted rules allowing it to facilitate the transactions.
Lawsky’s cease and desist order against online lenders has already prompted the layoffs of 300 workers in Tennessee who worked for online lenders. NAFSA’s Brandon said several other online lenders may close because of Lawsky’s order to banks to stop acting as clearing houses for such loans.
In a telephone press conference Thursday, Brandon said, “We wrote a letter to Lawsky with our concern about his actions, requesting a meeting. We received no response from him.”
Brandon said for some tribes online lending businesses fund as much as a quarter of the government’s operational budgets, money they can ill-afford to lose for schools, health care and housing in economically depressed Indian communities.
Jane Daugherty, former associate professor of journalism at Florida International University, is a doctoral candidate at the University of Miami School of Communication. An investigative reporter and editor for 25 years, she is a four-time winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for coverage of the disadvantaged and was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in commentary in 1994. Her great-great-grandmother was a member of the Creek nation who fled Indian removal.
Whether you’re Assiniboine, Nʉmʉnʉ, Skokomish or otherwise, you’ve probably got some beadwork somewhere. It might be a gift for your family, for friends or maybe a co-worker who’s done an exceptional thing for you. It’s important and it’s a heartfelt thing, but where did it come from? Is it handmade or is it fake? If it’s fake, could you tell?
Although we sometimes take for granted our talented craftspeople, it’s important to know that there are threats to their very livelihoods. Much of the problem stems from fakes. The market for various Native arts has been flooded for years with fakes and knock-offs, and bead-work is no different. For the last few decades the craftspeople who make a living off of bead-work have had to contend with competition from non-natives and from overseas. Spotting these fakes and knowing why it’s important to call them out is only part of the solution. Knowing what to do and then acting is key.
Even if you buy from a pow wow, it’s not always guaranteed that the bead-work you get will be authentic. No matter how observant you are, if you roll it over in your hands, look it up and down, it’s sometimes hard to tell what exactly you’re buying. Many fakes simply look convincing. AAA Native Arts, a website devoted to selling native arts, says that bead-work is often imported from China and Taiwan. Still other problems exist with non-Natives selling imitations or art “inspired by” Native crafts, often times unlabeled as such. This can be a problem for the broader Native community.
A quick search online for “imitation native american bead-work” brings up 14,300,000 results on Google.com, and similar numbers on other search engines. Searching for “imitation native american headdress” gets 10.3 million results. A look for “native american costume” nets almost 4.4 million results. Almost none of the pieces look quite as good as something you’d get from a cousin or from one of our skilled elders, it’s missing something vital.
One of the most important aspects of Native bead-work, one thing that fakes lack, is its deep cultural value. Many of us can identify a friend or family member who beads. One such person is Cynthia Parrott from Washington State. A junior at the Tacoma campus of the University of Washington, Cynthia has been working with beads for years. She started working with beads in 5th grade after watching her mother for years, saying “ it was either this or weaving.” It’s a family matter as much as it is a personal one.
Parrott also brings up a second important aspect of bead-working: sustaining their families and themselves. “In college we all need extra money, so my bead-work is the way I make extra money,” says Parrott, “it’s my own little business”. For this reason she’s keenly aware of the fakes and fraudulent Native crafts that flood the market from time to time. “My craft is mass-produced in Guam and is brought here,” Parrott adds, “I think it is so disrespectful and there is no way we can compete with these prices.”
In order to help stem this tide the United States Congress passed the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990. This act sets out to create standards for labeling and representation. It sets clear limits on who can call their art Native, how they can label it when they sell it, and who exactly is able to benefit from this protection. The reason was wholly cultural: bead-working and many other crafts can be traced back centuries, well before Columbus landed here. Beads, for example, originally started as bits of stone, shell, clay, bird bones or the leg bones of small animals. Pre-Columbian archeological sites often contain beads of all sorts. Protecting this art is vital to ensure the continuation of the multitude of Native cultures.
Of course, this act did not create a series of agents trolling pow wows and craft fairs in Brooklyn for fake Native crafts, so what do you do if you suspect what you’ve bought or what a dealer is selling is a fake? You get in contact with somebody! In order for it to be successful, it requires an attentive population calling out items they suspect of being fake or artists selling Native art that they think may not be Native. To that end, the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 needs you to be effective! The law allowed for the creation of the Indian Arts and Crafts Board. This board is tasked with oversight of enforcement and reporting and is the place you bring complaints and reports of violations. It also has brief reports, examples of violations and info brochures for you to download at its website: iacb.doi.gov.
To protect our culture we need to be aware of what we’re looking for and what to do if we find it. The problem is clear and the solution is there. Now let’s do something about it!
JUAN MABROMATA / AFP/Getty Images, 2012 Transgenic soy plants are seen in an Argentina farm field.
Washington voters will decide whether to label food that contains genetically engineered ingredients, a debate that’s roiling the food industry nationally.
When Washington voters decide Initiative 522 this fall, they will do more than determine whether to label food that contains genetically engineered ingredients.
They also will take sides in a national battle that has raged for two decades about the benefits and safety of manipulating the DNA of food — something many people view suspiciously but do not really understand.
“There’s a lot of uneasiness among consumers on the topic,” said Amy Sousa, managing consultant at the consumer research firm Hartman Group in Bellevue. “They don’t like the sound of it but have a difficult time articulating exactly why.”
GMO stands for genetically modified organism. Technically, any plant or animal that has been bred for particular characteristics is genetically modified. The difference with so-called GMOs is that their DNA is directly manipulated by inserting or modifying particular genes. Some call such targeted work “genetic engineering.”
The first genetically engineered food to appear on grocery shelves was a tomato that failed because consumers didn’t buy it. By contrast, the handful of genetically engineered crops that have been widely adopted by American agriculture — corn, sugar beets, soybeans, canola — are designed to appeal to growers by withstanding certain herbicides or creating their own internal pesticides.
Many of these genetically engineered seeds are owned by chemical companies such as Monsanto and Bayer — which has fueled some people’s mistrust.
GMO advocates, however, also include powerful non-business players, such as the Gates Foundation, that say the technology can be used to enhance nutrition and other qualities desired by consumers.
To Neal Carter, founder of a British Columbia company seeking regulatory approval for genetically engineered apples that don’t brown, GMOs conceived to appeal to consumers constitute a “second wave.”
“We’re going to see the next generation of biotechnology,” he said.
What he calls his “arctic” apples are a start. Carter grows them at test sites in Washington and New York states but will not disclose specific locations for fear anti-GMO activists could disrupt the work.
“It’s a huge investment, and we can’t afford to let folks know where we’re doing this because of that kind of risk,” he said. He wants to avoid the type of GMO crop sabotage that appears to have happened this summer in Oregon, where 6,500 genetically engineered sugar beets were uprooted.
Monsanto has said it also suspects sabotage in the discovery of genetically engineered wheat in Oregon during the spring, which prompted Japan to stop buying a popular Northwest wheat for two months. GMO wheat is not approved for commercial use, and it was found miles from where the company tested genetically engineered wheat almost a decade ago.
But the real war over GMOs is happening in the political arena.
Airing the arguments
The most recent skirmish took place last year in California, where the biotech industry and others spent $44 million to fight a labeling measure similar to I-522. Labeling supporters spent about $10 million.
The measure lost, but the idea of labeling GMOs appears to be gaining traction.
Maine and Connecticut recently passed labeling laws, although they are contingent upon other states participating. The grocery chain Trader Joe’s said in December that its private-label products contain no GMOs, and Whole Foods said earlier this year that within five years it will require suppliers to label products with genetically engineered ingredients.
The Hartman Group advises clients, which regularly include major food companies such as Kraft Foods, General Mills, ConAgra Foods and Kellogg’s, to discuss the matter openly.
“Trying to suppress labeling and skirt around the issue is not a sustainable approach, especially as more and more food retailers get on board with crafting their own position,” Sousa said.
People who oppose GMOs want labeling because they say genetically engineered crops have not been studied or regulated enough to know whether they are harmful.
They also argue it would be hard to return to non-engineered crops if damage is discovered later. And they point to dozens of other countries, including Japan and those of the European Union, that ban or label genetically engineered food.
“We already have the right to know as Americans what the sugar and fat content is, whether flavors are artificial or natural, whether fish is wild or farmed, what country our fruit comes from — and we have a right to know whether our food is genetically engineered,” said Trudy Bialic, director of public affairs for PCC Natural Markets, which helped write I-522 and led signature-gathering for the measure. It garnered about 100,000 more signatures than were required.
Other authors were Washington wheat farmer Tom Stahl and lawyers from the nonprofit Center for Food Safety and a Washington, D.C., law firm that helped write the California measure.
GMO proponents say the changes made to food using genetic-engineering techniques are not that different from changes that occur when plants and animals are bred conventionally.
They also point out that every independent science group to look into the issue, including the National Academy of Sciences, has found no evidence of ill health effects. And, they add, millions of people have eaten genetically engineered food for 20 years.
“It’s fine for people from rich, well-fed nations with productive farms to decline the use of GMOs. But they should not be allowed to impose their preferences on Africa,” Bill Gates said in a 2011 speech.
Processed-food manufacturers oppose labeling because labels could hurt sales, said Dave Zepponi, president of the Northwest Food Processors Association.
Removing all genetically engineered ingredients to avoid labeling would create enormous expenses, both in tracking down GMO-free ingredients and in segregating GMO and GMO-free ingredients, he said.
“Most of our companies are or attempt to be GMO free, but the risk of having a small amount of genetically engineered material in the product is too great. They would have to put a label on it, which is probably going to hurt their sales,” Zepponi said.
Although most food in the produce section is not genetically engineered, several major U.S. crops are — along with many processed foods.
More than 90 percent of soybeans, field corn and canola grown in the United States is genetically engineered. So is more than 80 percent of the sugar beets.
Those crops are turned into dozens of ingredients — cornstarch, soy lecithin, non-cane sugar — that are in processed foods.
But that is not how the GMO industry began.
The first genetically engineered food, which appeared in supermarkets in the early ’90s, was the Flavr Savr tomato. It was designed to last longer than regular tomatoes, but it flopped in the market.
“The tomato variety they worked with wasn’t that well suited for fresh use; it was more of a processing variety,” said Carter, the orchardist developing the non-browning apple. “It was remarkably ignorant or naive, and it goes to show how technology by itself isn’t the be all, end all.”
The market has not seen more products like the Flavr Savr, with traits that appeal directly to consumers, in part because it costs so much to develop GMOs.
“It’s very hard to get a payoff,” said Daniel Charles, author of the 2001 book “Lords of the Harvest: Biotech, Big Money, and The Future of Food.”
“If you come up with, say, a soybean with maybe healthier oil content, how are you going to make money on that? You have to first convince the consumer they want to pay more for that.”
Making a better apple
While the focus has been on growers, other GMOs are in the pipeline that have functions unrelated to herbicides and pesticides.
One is a genetically engineered salmon that grows to maturity more quickly. Another is rice with higher levels of vitamin A, known as “golden rice”; it has been a project of the Gates Foundation and others for years.
Then there are Carter’s non-browning “arctic” apples from British Columbia.
He said apple consumption has been in decline for years, and one reason restaurants and industrial kitchens don’t want to use them is that they brown.
So Carter, a former agricultural engineer, set up a research facility to create apples that do not brown. His company of seven employees is awaiting regulatory approval in Canada and the U.S. for arctic apples.
Like the Flavr Savr tomato, his genetically engineered apple turns off a gene rather than inserting one. But unlike the Flavr Savr, Carter said, his apples are derived from popular varieties — Granny Smith and Golden Delicious, to start.
Carter plans to label them as arctic apples, not specifically GMO. But information about their GMO origin will be available on the company’s website and elsewhere.
“We’re pretty confident by the time it hits stores, people will know exactly what it is,” he said.
Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com. Twitter @AllisonSeattle.
Seattle Times science reporter Sandi Doughton contributed to this report.
Invision Mick Jones (left), Lou Gramm and the band Foreigner perform Sunday at the Tulalip Amphitheatre, followed by the Doobie Brothers and America on Sept. 7.
Ashley Stewart, The Herald
Foreigner will perform Sunday at the Tulalip Amphitheatre.
With 10 multi-platinum albums and nine top 10 hits dating back to the bands formation in the late ’70s, the band has become a fixture in classic rock.
They’re best known for hits like “I Want To Know What Love Is,” “Juke Box Hero” and “Waiting For A Girl Like You,” and will play selections from throughout their more than 30-year career.
The show starts at 7 p.m.; doors open at 5 p.m. You must be age 21 or older to attend.
The Nisqually Tribe’s natural resources office has been recording their activities over the last few weeks using personally mounted cameras. Here’s your first look, this time at steelhead surveys.
This has been a busy summer for climate activists — with actions against the fossil fuel industry taking place on a near daily basis around the country. But busy is not the word they are using. They prefer to describe their efforts this summer as fearless. And why not? They are, after all, facing off against the largest, most profitable industry in the history of the world.
Nevertheless, this fearless action is not without strategy. In fact, the term Fearless Summer is being used to unite climate campaigns across the country that are working to stop fossil fuel extraction and protect communities on the frontlines. By coordinating collective action under the same banner, the aim is to speak as one voice against the fossil fuel industry.
To better understand how Fearless Summer came to be and what it’s accomplishing, I spoke with one of its coordinators, Mathew Louis-Rosenberg, who works in southern West Virginia fighting strip-mining — both with the community organization Coal River Mountain Watch and the direct action campaign Radical Action for Mountains and Peoples Survival.
How did the idea for the Fearless Summer come about?
Fearless Summer grew out of a discussion at the first Extreme Energy Extraction Summit held last February in upstate New York. The summit brought together an incredibly diverse group of 70 activists from across the country fighting against coal, gas, oil, tar sands, uranium and industrial biomass to create a more unified movement against energy extraction. We created shared languages, fostered relationships across the diverse spectrum of groups working on the issues and provided space for dialogue that allows innovative collaborations to form. Fearless Summer was one such collaboration.
Who are the principle organizers and groups involved? And how do you coordinate between one another?
Fearless Summer is an open-ended organizing framework and a call-to-action. So it’s difficult to say who the “principle organizers” are. There has been a core group of folks helping to coordinate and create infrastructure that includes organizers across a wide spectrum of groups, such as Radical Action for Mountains and Peoples Survival, Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment, Peaceful Uprising, Food and Water Watch, Green Memes, Tar Sands Blockade, the student divestment movement and others. Coordination work has primarily been done through a listserv and open, weekly conference calls. There is no formal organizing or decision-making structure.
How does this build on last year’s Summer of Solidarity initiative and the actions that have happened since? Do you see it as an escalation?
Fearless Summer was explicitly conceived of as a next step beyond last year’s Summer of Solidarity. I think the intention and scale of Fearless Summer is the escalation. Summer of Solidarity arose out of the organizers of several large actions — the Mountain Mobilization, Coal Export Action, Tar Sands Blockade and Stop the Frack Attack — recognizing that we were all planning big things in a similar timeframe and by working together, primarily through social media, we could amplify each other’s messages rather than compete for attention. The hashtag #ClimateSOS took off and had a life of its own, but coordination never went beyond that core group. Fearless Summer was explicitly launched as an open framework intended to draw in as many groups and actions as possible and came with a clear statement of purpose. This time we engaged a much much wider spectrum of groups and actions under clear principles of unity and escalation. Fearless Summer has gone beyond social media coordination to really create some national dialogue between grassroots groups on presenting a united front on energy issues.
How does Fearless Summer compliment or differ from the many other summer initiatives going on, such as 350.org’s Summer Heat and indigenous peoples’ Sovereignty Summer? Did you coordinate with those organizers?
We see these efforts as highly complementary. We are probably most similar to Sovereignty Summer in how we are organized. Many current indigenous sovereignty struggles are deeply connected to struggles against energy industry attacks on native lands and we have been promoting many such struggles through Fearless Summer. We have also been talking extensively with 350.org organizers about the connections with Summer Heat, which is obviously different due to the central coordination through 350.org and a much more focused timeframe. Fearless Summer is an open framework for action through the summer, so any other similar organizing efforts strengthen the goals of Fearless Summer regardless of how coordinated they are with us.
How many actions have taken place under the Fearless Summer banner so far?
It’s really difficult to say. The trouble with an unstaffed, unfunded, open collaboration is that it’s hard to keep up with where people are taking things. Our kickoff week of action in June had at least 28 actions in six days and there have been dozens more outside of that. At least 50-60.
What actions are coming up?
To be honest, I don’t know. There’s still a lot going on. We’re hosting an action camp in West Virginia and I’ve heard whispers of big plans in other parts of the country, but at this point people are just taking the framework and running with it as we intended.
What are the plans for the fall and beyond?
Those conversations are happening right now. I think people want to see coordination move to the next level of acting together nationally on some common targets more and there’s also a lot of talk about connecting more with other social justice issues and talking about root causes. The second Extreme Energy Extraction Summit is coming up September 6-10 and a lot of discussion will happen there.
Are you feeling optimistic about the larger climate justice movement at the moment?
I am feeling optimistic about the movement. We see more and more communities getting active. It’s getting harder and harder for the energy industry to find anywhere to operate without resistance. And it’s having an impact. The president’s speech and climate plan, despite its deep flaws, speak to the impact we are having. Four years ago, Obama was telling student leaders that he couldn’t do anything without a large scale public pressure movement. We have that now. I think we have a long way to go still. A lot of work still needs to be done to engage a wider base, connect with other struggles around justice and root causes of climate change, and articulate a policy platform that solves the climate crisis in a just and honest way. On the action front, we are still a long way from where the nuclear freeze movement was — with thousands occupying power plants and test sites — doing jail solidarity and really creating a concrete problem for the industry beyond public relations.
If momentum continues to build in the next year, where do you see it coming from? And what might the work of activists look like next summer?
I’m not sure what the big catalyst could be. So far the growth of the movement has mostly been in a proliferation of local campaigns. I think it’s going to take a lot of national dialogue to knit those into collective action for collective wins. My hope is that by next year we will be seeing mass direct action that truly challenges the ability of legal systems to respond and corporations to operate. We need more people acting like their children’s lives are on the line. Because they are.
Last Thursday, an intriguing press release from “Monsanto Global” was sent out to to the email inboxes of media organizations all over the world. According to the press release, Monsanto had received approval from Mexico’s SAGARPA (Secretariat of Agriculture) to plant a quarter of a million hectares of GMO corn in Chihuahua, Coahuila, and Durango. This was coupled with the announcement of two new Monsanto-funded institutions: a seed bank preserving Mexico’s 246 native strains of corn, and a museum of Mexican culture, to be established such that “[n]ever again will the wealth of this region’s culture be lost as social conditions change.”
This was certainly interesting, and indeed, the SAGARPA was in fact considering a permit to allow Monsanto to plant the corn. Still, it seemed fishy, and totally unlike Monsanto to admit (even obliquely) that their corporate practices could possibly change Mexican culture and wipe out indigenous corn strains.
Within hours, the domain name linked to in the press release (monsantoglobal.com) was no longer available, and a second Monsanto-branded press release denouncing the earlier announcement went out. This one, sent from an email at a different domain name (monsanto-media.com), claimed that the Monsanto Global press release was the work of an activist group called Sin Maíz No Hay Vida.
The highlights of the strongly-worded message included the following:
“The action of the group is fundamentally misleading,” said Janet M. Holloway, Chief of Community Relations for Monsanto. “The initiatives they put forth are unfeasible, and their list of demands is peppered with hyperbolic buzzwords like ‘sustainability,’ ‘culture,’ and ‘biodiversity.’”
“Only ecologists prioritize biodiversity over real-world concerns,” said Dr. Robert T. Fraley, who oversees Monsanto’s integrated crop and seed agribusiness technology and research worldwide. “Commercial farmers know that biodiversity means having to battle weeds and insects. That means human labor, and human labor means costs and time that could be spent otherwise.”
Later that day, a post on Monsanto’s blog denied that they had sent a press release about Mexico of any kind that day, stating that “Information on this hoax web site and its related communication properties has been turned over to the appropriate authorities to further investigate the matter.”
I reached out to a spokesperson for Sin Maíz No Hay Vida to find out more about the motivations behind the hoax.
PolicyMic (PM): Can you tell me about Sin Maíz No Hay Vida, who they are, and what their mission is?
SM: Sin Maíz No Hay Vida (Without Corn, there is No Life) is a coalition of activists, students, and artists from Mexico, the United States, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Uganda, Venezuela, Spain, and Argentina.We are fighting to preserve biological and cultural diversity in Mesoamerica and around the world.
PM: What was the goal of the fake press release?
SM: We wanted to demonstrate the importance of corn (in terms of biodiversity, sustainability, and cultures in Mexico) and to show what is at stake if companies like Monsanto manage to privatize this staple crop. It’s not an exaggeration to say that in Mexico and around the world, there is no life without corn.
We also hoped to raise consciousness about Monsanto’s current application to seed genetically modified corn on a commercial scale in three states in Mexico, a huge expansion of their current projects in Mexico. We wanted remind the Mexican officials at SAGARPA, who have the power to make this decision, that activists are paying attention. We urge them not to grant Monsanto the permit to seed commercially. Finally, we hoped to work in solidarity with other activist groups fighting Monsanto.
PM: What do you believe should be the alternative to growing GMO corn?
SM: I think that question “What’s the alternative to growing GM corn?” assumes that genetically modified corn is a necessity, and it’s not. Monsanto and other producers of GMOs want us to believe that these crops are necessary to sustain a growing population, but in fact, Monsanto is just trying to grow their bottom line by privatizing staple crops around the world. This hurts all of us: farmers, the environment, and just about everyone who eats food. To paraphrase Irina Dunn and Gloria Steinem, we need GM corn like a fish needs a bicycle, and a rusty, blood-thirsty bicycle at that. Have you ever ridden a blood-thirsty bicycle? It’s a terrible experience.
PM: Do you have any info on the website coming down?
SM: Unfortunately, I don’t have any information about why monsantoglobal.com was taken down. We’re working to get it back up. In the meantime, you can visit our website for more information about the action.
PM: What do you think of Monsanto’s response?
SM: It’s interesting that Monsanto was frightened enough by activists paying attention to their actions that they quickly denounced us online and on social media. I think I’d be happier, though, if they had withdrawn their petition to seed commercially in Mexico. I expect them to do so any minute now.
PM: What are some resources you can recommend for everyone reading who wants to get involved?
SM: We’re compiling resources for activists on our blog, especially links to activist groups in Mexico and the United States who are have been fighting Monsanto. If you want to help mobilize against Monsanto or to suggest a group that we should link to, please visit our blog.
NESPELEM — A Colville Tribal court will hear a civil complaint Wednesday claiming the Colville Business Council should have considered a petition from tribal members seeking full distribution of a $193 million settlement with the U.S. government.
Yvonne L. Swan, a member of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, said she filed the complaint in May on behalf of herself, other members of the Colville Members for Justice, and 2,700 tribal members who signed a petition asking the council to distribute the entire amount to members.
The money is part of a $1 billion settlement from the U.S. government with 41 American Indian tribes whose trust lands were mismanaged by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Last year’s council adopted a plan in October to spend half of the settlement to fund senior centers, health clinics, resource restoration, language development and other programs.
The council distributed the other half to members in two separate payments, giving about $10,000 to each of roughly 9,500 members.
Swan will ask a judge to prevent the council from spending or planning to spend the remaining funds until the issue over whether the council should consider full distribution is settled.
She said she also hopes the court will order the council to direct all tribal programs to return any funds provided through the settlement.
And, she said, she wants a full accounting of any funds spent so far, and detailed information on the council’s plans for remaining money.
“We have a right by (tribal) constitution to have that,” she said. “We’ve been fighting for 15 or 16 months to try to get that information. They did not keep their promise to let us decide how to spend the remaining 50 percent, so that’s when the petition for the rest of the money began,” she added.
