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In Brazil, Mining Giant Vale Is Sued Over Metal Contamination Found in Indigenous Peoples

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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office is suing the giant mining company Vale, the Brazilian government and the Amazon state of Para over heavy metal contamination in the bodies of Xikrin Indigenous people.The civil lawsuit, filed Friday and disclosed this week, alleges contamination from Vale's nickel mining at the Onca-Puma site, with the Catete River carrying mine pollution into Indigenous territory. In 2022, the company and the Xikrin reached an agreement for monthly compensation, but it did not cover health issues, according to the prosecution. A study by the Federal University of Para, conducted last spring in villages in the Xikrin do Cateté Indigenous Territory, found dangerously high levels of heavy metals, including lead, mercury and nickel, in the hair of virtually all the 720 people surveyed. Fearing contamination in the river water, the Xikrin are using bottled water for their children and buying fish from municipal markets. In one extreme case, a 19-year-old woman had nickel levels 2,326% above the safe limit, according to the study. If untreated, heavy metal poisoning can lead to brain damage and organ failure.The Federal Prosecutor’s Office, responsible for protecting Indigenous rights, is demanding that Vale establish a permanent health monitoring program for the community. It also calls on the state of Para, which granted the environmental license, and the federal government, which oversees Indigenous public health policies, to provide technical and administrative support and ensure proper environmental oversight.“The situation of the Xikrin do Cateté is a true humanitarian tragedy and requires an urgent response from the Brazilian judiciary. Inaction would only add to the suffering of the Indigenous community, who face daily contamination in their own environment,” the lawsuit states.In a written response, Para's environmental agency said it signed an agreement with Vale in 2024 “to mitigate the socio-environmental impacts of the Onca-Puma nickel mine’s activities.”Vale and Brazil´s Ministry of Health did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press seeking comment. In November, Para's capital, Belem, will host the United Nations climate conference known as COP30. Vale is building one of the largest infrastructure projects for the conference, Parque da Cidade, or City Park, of about 50 hectares (123 acres).The mining company was responsible for two of Brazil’s most devastating environmental disasters, in 2015 and 2019, when waste dams collapsed in Minas Gerais state. The disasters killed 291 people and contaminating hundreds of miles of waterways.The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Brazil’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office is suing the giant mining company Vale, the Brazilian government and the Amazon state of Para over heavy metal contamination found in the bodies of Xikrin Indigenous people

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil’s Federal Prosecutor’s Office is suing the giant mining company Vale, the Brazilian government and the Amazon state of Para over heavy metal contamination in the bodies of Xikrin Indigenous people.

The civil lawsuit, filed Friday and disclosed this week, alleges contamination from Vale's nickel mining at the Onca-Puma site, with the Catete River carrying mine pollution into Indigenous territory. In 2022, the company and the Xikrin reached an agreement for monthly compensation, but it did not cover health issues, according to the prosecution.

A study by the Federal University of Para, conducted last spring in villages in the Xikrin do Cateté Indigenous Territory, found dangerously high levels of heavy metals, including lead, mercury and nickel, in the hair of virtually all the 720 people surveyed. Fearing contamination in the river water, the Xikrin are using bottled water for their children and buying fish from municipal markets.

In one extreme case, a 19-year-old woman had nickel levels 2,326% above the safe limit, according to the study. If untreated, heavy metal poisoning can lead to brain damage and organ failure.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office, responsible for protecting Indigenous rights, is demanding that Vale establish a permanent health monitoring program for the community. It also calls on the state of Para, which granted the environmental license, and the federal government, which oversees Indigenous public health policies, to provide technical and administrative support and ensure proper environmental oversight.

“The situation of the Xikrin do Cateté is a true humanitarian tragedy and requires an urgent response from the Brazilian judiciary. Inaction would only add to the suffering of the Indigenous community, who face daily contamination in their own environment,” the lawsuit states.

In a written response, Para's environmental agency said it signed an agreement with Vale in 2024 “to mitigate the socio-environmental impacts of the Onca-Puma nickel mine’s activities.”

Vale and Brazil´s Ministry of Health did not immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press seeking comment.

In November, Para's capital, Belem, will host the United Nations climate conference known as COP30. Vale is building one of the largest infrastructure projects for the conference, Parque da Cidade, or City Park, of about 50 hectares (123 acres).

The mining company was responsible for two of Brazil’s most devastating environmental disasters, in 2015 and 2019, when waste dams collapsed in Minas Gerais state. The disasters killed 291 people and contaminating hundreds of miles of waterways.

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

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In Canada, Indigenous advocates argue that mining companies violate the rights of nature

Tribunal judges found the industry guilty of “ongoing ecocide.”

In Western legal systems, arguments against pollution or the destruction of the environment tend to focus exclusively on people: It’s wrong to contaminate a river, for example, because certain humans depend on the river for drinking water. But what if the river had an inherent right to be protected from pollution, regardless of its utility to humans? This is the idea that drives the “rights of nature” movement, a global campaign to recognize the intrinsic value of nonhuman nature — not just rivers, but also trees, mountains, animals, ecosystems — by granting it legal rights. Many Indigenous worldviews already recognize these rights. The question for many in the movement, however, is how to bring the rights of nature into the courtroom. Enter the International Rights of Nature Tribunal, a recurring gathering of Indigenous and environmental advocates who present arguments regarding alleged violations of the rights of nature and Indigenous peoples. Given international law’s broad failure to recognize the rights of nature, the events provide a model showing what this type of jurisprudence could look like.  At the sixth tribunal in Toronto late last month, a panel of nine judges heard cases against Canadian mining companies, ultimately ruling that they had violated “collective rights, Indigenous rights, and rights of nature.” “Today’s testimonies have emphasized the age-old stories of greed, colonization, … and the ongoing ecocide caused by the extractive industries,” said Casey Camp-Horinek, an elder of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma and one of the tribunal’s judges. She and the other judges called for the ratification of a United Nations treaty on business and human rights, a report from U.N. experts on critical minerals and Indigenous peoples’ rights, and further consideration of mining’s impacts at the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.  Those recommendations and the verdict against the mining companies are set to be presented later this year at COP30 in Brazil — the United Nations’ annual climate change conference — where the tribunal judges hope their findings will pressure countries to develop legal protections for nature and Indigenous peoples. Mining was selected as the theme of this tribunal because of the damage that resource extraction can cause to people and ecosystems, even though the sector is necessary for addressing climate change. Minerals like lithium and copper are needed in large quantities for electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and other renewable technologies to replace fossil fuels. A previous session of the tribunal, held in New York City last September, focused on oil and gas infrastructure.  Canadian companies were singled out because of their prominence in the global mining sector. According to a recent report by the nonprofit MiningWatch Canada, the country is home to more than 1,300 mining and exploration companies, 730 of which operate overseas. About half the world’s public mining companies are listed on Canadian stock exchanges. The tribunal was also meant to contrast with this week’s annual conference of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, which featured climate change and Indigenous issues in a way that speakers described as opportunistic — by now a familiar criticism.  James Yap, the tribunal’s prosecutor and acting director of an international human rights program at the University of Toronto, called out one particular event titled “Caliente Caliente Ooh Aah: Latin American Mining Is Heating Up!,” which invited attendees to “dance to the Latin beat through the various regulatory issues affecting the region.”  Neither the law firm that organized the Latin American mining event nor the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada responded to Grist’s requests for comment. Jérémie Gilbert, a professor of social and ecological justice at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, applauded the tribunal for building an evidence base of the alleged human rights and nature’s rights violations by transnational mining companies. His research has highlighted how most international law treats nature as a resource to be owned or exploited instead of having value in its own right. Legal protections that include Indigenous knowledge and the rights of nature have already been implemented in several countries — most famously in Ecuador, which in its rewritten 2008 constitution acknowledged the rights of Mother Earth, or Pacha Mama, to the “maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions, and evolutionary processes.”  “What’s required for the rights of nature is a pen and then enforceability,” said Dov Korff-Korn, the legal director of Sacred Defense Fund, an Indigenous environmental group based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Korff-Korn said that giving rights to nonhuman entities like water, animals, and plants is already baked into how many tribes see the world, so using tribal laws and respecting sovereignty is a way forward.  “We’ve got some unique rights and laws that have unique expressions,” said Frank Bibeau, an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe and a tribal attorney with the nonprofit Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights who has worked on cases that give rights to nonhuman relatives under Chippewa treaties.  One example came during the fight against the controversial Line 3 pipeline proposed by the oil and gas company Enbridge in Minnesota. Bibeau listed manoomin, Ojibwe for wild rice, as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources, arguing that the rice had rights to clean water and habitat that would be jeopardized by the pipeline and the oil spill risks it would bring. Bibeau said the lawsuit is an example of how many tribes see the rights inherent in nature. But since most settler courts don’t, he argues that Indigenous treaties are a useful way to help protect nonhuman relatives.  Other ways to develop legal protections could involve tribal courts. tribal courts. This year in Aotearoa, also known as New Zealand, the mountain Taranaki Maunga was recognized as a legal person because the Maori see it as an ancestor. The country also recognizes the rights of the Te Irewera Forest and the Whanganui River, so there is a developing global precedent for this sort of legal framework.  Protections like these could protect ecosystems in the examined cases of the tribunal, including in Brazil where a firm called Belo Sun has proposed the development of the country’s largest open-pit gold mine, and in regions affected by copper, silver, and other metals mining throughout Ecuador. One of the cases heard by tribunal judges related to a gold mine proposed in eastern Serbia by the Canadian company Dundee Precious Metals, and another centered on uranium mining within Canada.  In a presentation about heavy metals mining in Penco, Chile, Valerie Sepúlveda — president of a Chilean environmental nonprofit called Parque para Penco — criticized the Toronto-based Aclara Resources for opaque operations and a failure to engage with residents near its mines. “We must reevaluate what mining is really necessary and which is not,” she told the audience. One of the judges, in describing the 2015 release of millions of liters of cyanide solution from a gold mine in San Juan, Argentina, said mining companies are “sacrificing these towns so that Americans can have their Teslas.”  Another judge — Tzeporah Berman, international program director at the nonprofit Stand.earth — told attendees she was “horrified and embarrassed” by the practices of Canadian mining companies. “Canada must pursue human and environmental due diligence,” she added while delivering her verdict. “I hope that our recommendations will be used in future policy design and legal challenges.” This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/equity/in-canada-indigenous-advocates-argue-mining-companies-violate-the-rights-of-nature/. Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org Read more about the environment

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In Canada, Indigenous advocates argue mining companies violate the rights of nature

In Western legal systems, arguments against pollution or the destruction of the environment tend to focus exclusively on people: It’s wrong to contaminate a river, for example, because certain humans depend on the river for drinking water. But what if the river had an inherent right to be protected from pollution, regardless of its utility […]

In Western legal systems, arguments against pollution or the destruction of the environment tend to focus exclusively on people: It’s wrong to contaminate a river, for example, because certain humans depend on the river for drinking water. But what if the river had an inherent right to be protected from pollution, regardless of its utility to humans? This is the idea that drives the “rights of nature” movement, a global campaign to recognize the intrinsic value of nonhuman nature — not just rivers, but also trees, mountains, animals, ecosystems — by granting it legal rights. Many Indigenous worldviews already recognize these rights. The question for many in the movement, however, is how to bring the rights of nature into the courtroom. Enter the International Rights of Nature Tribunal, a recurring gathering of Indigenous and environmental advocates who present arguments regarding alleged violations of the rights of nature and Indigenous peoples. Given international law’s broad failure to recognize the rights of nature, the events provide a model showing what this type of jurisprudence could look like.  At the sixth tribunal in Toronto late last month, a panel of nine judges heard cases against Canadian mining companies, ultimately ruling that they had violated “collective rights, Indigenous rights, and rights of nature.” “Today’s testimonies have emphasized the age-old stories of greed, colonization, … and the ongoing ecocide caused by the extractive industries,” said Casey Camp-Horinek, an elder of the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma and one of the tribunal’s judges. She and the other judges called for the ratification of a United Nations treaty on business and human rights, a report from U.N. experts on critical minerals and Indigenous peoples’ rights, and further consideration of mining’s impacts at the U.N.’s Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.  Those recommendations and the verdict against the mining companies are set to be presented later this year at COP30 in Brazil — the United Nations’ annual climate change conference — where the tribunal judges hope their findings will pressure countries to develop legal protections for nature and Indigenous peoples. Mining was selected as the theme of this tribunal because of the damage that resource extraction can cause to people and ecosystems, even though the sector is necessary for addressing climate change. Minerals like lithium and copper are needed in large quantities for electric vehicle batteries, solar panels, and other renewable technologies to replace fossil fuels. A previous session of the tribunal, held in New York City last September, focused on oil and gas infrastructure.  Canadian companies were singled out because of their prominence in the global mining sector. According to a recent report by the nonprofit MiningWatch Canada, the country is home to more than 1,300 mining and exploration companies, 730 of which operate overseas. About half of the world’s public mining companies are listed on Canadian stock exchanges. Casey Camp-Horinek, International Rights of Nature tribunal judge and Ponca Nation of Oklahoma elder, reveals Canadian mining companies are violating the rights of both nature and Indigenous peoples in South America and Serbia. Courtesy of the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature The tribunal was also meant to contrast with this week’s annual conference of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada, which featured climate change and Indigenous issues in a way that speakers described as opportunistic — by now a familiar criticism.  James Yap, the tribunal’s prosecutor and acting director of an international human rights program at the University of Toronto, called out one particular event titled “Caliente Caliente Ooh Aah: Latin American Mining is Heating Up!,” which invited attendees to “dance to the Latin beat through the various regulatory issues affecting the region.”  Neither the law firm that organized the Latin American mining event nor the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada responded to Grist’s requests for comment. Read Next UN report backs up Sámi claims that mining in Finland violates their rights to land and culture Tristan Ahtone Jérémie Gilbert, a professor of social and ecological justice at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom, applauded the tribunal for building an evidence base of the alleged human rights and nature’s rights violations by transnational mining companies. His research has highlighted how most international law treats nature as a resource to be owned or exploited, instead of having value in its own right. Legal protections that include Indigenous knowledge and the rights of nature have already been implemented in several countries — most famously in Ecuador, which in its rewritten 2008 constitution acknowledged the rights of Mother Earth, or Pacha Mama, to the “maintenance and regeneration of its life cycles, structure, functions, and evolutionary processes.”  “What’s required for the rights of nature is a pen and then enforceability,” said Dov Korff-Korn, the legal director of Sacred Defense Fund, an Indigenous environmental group based in Santa Fe. Korff-Korn said that giving rights to nonhuman entities like water, animals, and plants is already baked into how many tribes see the world, so using tribal laws and respecting sovereignty is a way forward.  “We’ve got some unique rights and laws that have unique expressions,” said Frank Bibeau, an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa tribe and a tribal attorney with the nonprofit Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights who has worked on cases that give rights to nonhuman relatives under Chippewa treaties.  A copper mine in Puerto Coloso, Chile. Sebastian Rojas Rojo / AFP via Getty Images One example came during the fight against the controversial Line 3 Pipeline proposed by the oil and gas company Enbridge in Minnesota. Bibeau listed manoomin, Ojibwe for wild rice, as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources, arguing that the rice had rights to clean water and habitat that would be jeopardized by the pipeline and the oil spill risks it would bring. Bibeau said the lawsuit is an example of how many tribes see the rights inherent in nature. But since most settler courts don’t, he argues that Indigenous treaties are a useful way to help protect nonhuman relatives.  Other ways to develop legal protections could involve tribal courts. And this year in Aotearoa, or New Zealand, the mountain Taranaki Maunga was recognized as a legal person because the Maori see it as an ancestor. The country also recognizes the rights of the Te Irewera Forest and the Whanganui River, so there is a developing global precedent for this sort of legal framework.  Protections like these could protect ecosystems in the examined cases of the tribunal, including in Brazil where a firm called Belo Sun has proposed the development of the country’s largest open-pit gold mine, and in regions affected by copper, silver, and other metals mining throughout Ecuador. One of the cases heard by tribunal judges related to a gold mine proposed in eastern Serbia by the Canadian company Dundee Precious Metals, and another centered on uranium mining within Canada.  In a presentation about heavy metals mining in Penco, Chile, Valerie Sepúlveda — president of a Chilean environmental nonprofit called Parque para Penco — criticized the Toronto-based Aclara Resources for opaque operations and a failure to engage with residents near its mines. “We must reevaluate what mining is really necessary and which is not,” she told the audience. One of the judges, in describing the 2015 release of millions of liters of cyanide solution from a gold mine in San Juan, Argentina, said mining companies are “sacrificing these towns so that Americans can have their Teslas.”  Another judge — Tzeporah Berman, international program director at the nonprofit Stand.earth — told attendees she was “horrified and embarrassed” by the practices of Canadian mining companies. “Canada must pursue human and environmental due diligence,” she added while delivering her verdict. “I hope that our recommendations will be used in future policy design and legal challenges.” This story was originally published by Grist with the headline In Canada, Indigenous advocates argue mining companies violate the rights of nature on Mar 10, 2025.

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Peru's Indigenous Leaders Raise Concerns Over Oil and Gas Projects at a Human Rights Hearing

Indigenous leaders from the Peruvian Amazon have urged the government to halt oil and gas projects that threaten their lands, presenting their case before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Indigenous leaders from the Peruvian Amazon who are calling for the government to stop oil and gas projects in their territory took their case to an international human rights body on Tuesday.The leaders presented evidence of the impact of oil and gas exploration at a hearing before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. They said the projects violate Indigenous rights by threatening their land, health and food security and are in breach of international obligations that require Indigenous groups to be consulted.The Indigenous leaders are represented by the Interethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest, or AIDESEP. The group argues that the projects also pose risks to uncontacted Indigenous groups and also noted specific impact on Indigenous women.During the meeting, the Peruvian government said it is a democratic state which respects law and guarantees human rights to all its citizens and that it is committed to strengthening it. But Julio Cusurichi Palacios, a member of AIDESEP’s Board of Directors from the Madre de Dios region of the Amazon said the government "have stated things that are not in accordance with what is happening in reality."“The rights of Indigenous peoples are not being respected, the contamination of our rivers and territories continues, there are threats to uncontacted Indigenous Peoples, more regulations that make environmental standards more flexible, and oil and gas lots continue to be promoted,” he told The Associated Press after the hearing. The government denied most of the claims made by the Indigenous groups and did not reply to AP’s requests for comment. Recent reports have found that the Peruvian government continues to auction Indigenous lands for oil and gas exploration. Approximately 75% of the Peruvian Amazon — home to 21 Indigenous groups — is covered by oil and gas concessions, many of which overlap with Indigenous territories, according to the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. “I believe this situation has been getting increasingly worse," Cesar Ipenza, an environmental lawyer who took part in the hearing, told AP. “There's a policy of promoting extractive activities in highly vulnerable areas, especially in the Amazon.”He added that the impact on the environment and the lack of communication with Indigenous groups is already evident, but “the Peruvian state claims that everything is fine and that there are no problems with oil and gas activities.”The commission has asked the Peruvian government to provide written responses to the claims, focusing on their protocols for handling oil spills and supporting affected communities. Joint data from several Peruvian organizations has documented 831 oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon.There are at least 20 uncontacted tribes in Peru that live in the most remote, uncontacted regions of the Amazon rainforest, according to Survival International, an advocacy group for Indigenous peoples. “Because they’ve failed to get redress in Peru, Indigenous organizations there have turned to international fora like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights,” said Teresa Mayo, Peru researcher for Survival International. “They want the Commission to force Peru to abide by the international laws and treaties it’s signed up to, rather than ignore those aspects which it finds inconvenient.” The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See - Feb. 2025

Indigenous
Government
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California tribe enters first-of-its-kind agreement with the state to practice cultural burns

After suppression of Indigenous cultural burning, the state agrees Northern California's Karuk Tribe may practice the burns more freely than it has in over 175 years.

Northern California’s Karuk Tribe has for more than a century faced significant restrictions on cultural burning — the setting of intentional fires for both ceremonial and practical purposes, such as reducing brush to limit the risk of wildfires.That changed this week, thanks to legislation championed by the tribe and passed by the state last year that allows federally recognized tribes in California to burn freely once they reach agreements with the California Natural Resources Agency and local air quality officials. The tribe announced Thursday that it was the first to reach such an agreement with the agency.“Karuk has been a national thought leader on cultural fire,” said Geneva E.B. Thompson, Natural Resources’ deputy secretary for tribal affairs. “So, it makes sense that they would be a natural first partner in this space because they have a really clear mission and core commitment to get this work done.”In the past, cultural burn practitioners first needed to get a burn permit from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, a department within the Natural Resources Agency, and a smoke permit from the local air district. The law passed in September 2024, SB 310, allows the state government to, respectfully, “get out of the way” of tribes practicing cultural burns, said Thompson.For the Karuk Tribe, Cal Fire will no longer hold regulatory or oversight authority over the burns and will instead act as a partner and consultant. The previous arrangement, tribal leaders say, essentially amounted to one nation telling another nation what to do on its land — a violation of sovereignty. Now, collaboration can happen through a proper government-to-government relationship.The Karuk Tribe estimates that, conservatively, its more than 120 villages would complete at least 7,000 burns each year before contact with European settlers. Some may have been as small as an individual pine tree or patch of tanoak trees. Other burns may have spanned dozens of acres.“When it comes to that ability to get out there and do frequent burning to basically survive as an indigenous community,” said Bill Tripp, director for the Karuk Tribe Natural Resource Department, “one: you don’t have major wildfire threats because everything around you is burned regularly. Two: Most of the plants and animals that we depend on in the ecosystem are actually fire-dependent species.” The Karuk Tribe’s ancestral territory extends along much of the Klamath River in what is now the Klamath National Forest, where its members have fished for salmon, hunted for deer and collected tanoak acorns for food for thousands of years. The tribe, whose language is distinct from that of all other California tribes, is currently the second largest in the state, having more than 3,600 members. Trees of life Early European explorers of California consistently described open, park-like woods dominated by oaks in areas where the forest transitions to a zone mainly of conifers such as pines, fir and cedar. The park-like woodlands were no accident. For thousands of years, Indigenous people have tended these woods. Oaks are regarded as a “tree of life” because of their many uses. Their acorns provide a nutritious food for people and animals. Indigenous people have used low-intensity fires to clear litter and underbrush and to nurture the oaks as productive orchards. Burning controls insects and promotes growth of culturally important plants and fungi among the oaks. Debris, brush and small trees consumed by low-intensity fire. Debris, brush and small trees consumed by low-intensity fire. This stewardship reduced the risk of devastating wildfires. Periodic clearing of underbrush and understory tree growth reduces ladder fuels that can channel flames into the treetops. Times reporting, USDA Paul Duginski LOS ANGELES TIMES The history of the government’s suppression of cultural burning is long and violent. In 1850, California passed a law that inflicted any fines or punishments a court found “proper” on cultural burn practitioners.In a 1918 letter to a forest supervisor, a district ranger in the Klamath National Forest — in the Karuk Tribe’s homeland — suggested that to stifle cultural burns, “the only sure way is to kill them off, every time you catch one sneaking around in the brush like a coyote, take a shot at him.”For Thompson, the new law is a step toward righting those wrongs.“I think SB 310 is part of that broader effort to correct those older laws that have caused harm, and really think through: How do we respect and support tribal sovereignty, respect and support traditional ecological knowledge, but also meet the climate and wildfire resiliency goals that we have as a state?” she said.The devastating 2020 fire year triggered a flurry of fire-related laws that aimed to increase the use of intentional fire on the landscape, including — for the first time — cultural burns.The laws granted cultural burns exemptions from the state’s environmental impact review process and created liability protections and funds for use in the rare event that an intentional burn grows out of control.“The generous interpretation of it is recognizing cultural burn practitioner knowledge,” said Becca Lucas Thomas, an ethnic studies lecturer at Cal Poly and cultural burn practitioner with the yak titʸu titʸu yak tiłhini Northern Chumash Tribe of San Luis Obispo County and Region. “In trying to get more fire on the ground for wildfire prevention, it’s important that we make sure that we have practitioners who are actually able to practice.”The new law, aimed at forming government-to-government relationships with Native tribes, can only allow federally recognized tribes to enter these new agreements. However, Thompson said it will not stop the agency from forming strong relationships with unrecognized tribes and respecting their sovereignty.“Cal Fire has provided a lot of technical assistance and resources and support for those non-federally recognized tribes to implement these burns,” said Thompson, “and we are all in and fully committed to continuing that work in partnership with the non-federally-recognized tribes.”Cal Fire has helped Lucas Thomas navigate the state’s imposed burn permit process to the point that she can now comfortably navigate the system on her own, and she said Cal Fire handles the tribe’s smoke permits. Last year, the tribe completed its first four cultural burns in over 150 years.“Cal Fire, their unit here, has been truly invested in the relationship and has really dedicated their resources to supporting us,” said Lucas Thomas, ”with their stated intention of, ‘we want you guys to be able to burn whenever you want, and you just give us a call and let us know what’s going on.’”

Indigenous
Animals
Food

The EPA weighed two LA beachfront sites for toxic waste sorting. These ‘hippies and hicks’ revolted

Residents in Topanga Canyon – an area of Indigenous heritage and artists – mobilized against the state’s decision to bring in hazardous materials after wildfiresTwenty years ago, it was called Rodeo Grounds – an eclectic neighborhood of artists, musicians and surfers living in beach shacks where Topanga Canyon meets the Pacific Ocean. In a bizarre agreement with the former owner some paid as little as $100 a month for rent, raising multiple generations of their families here since the 1950s. But that was before the state purchased the property and started evicting residents in 2001. Julie Howell, who once owned Howell-Green Fine Art Gallery further up in the canyon, says the bohemians were kicked out.“I actually had a show in my gallery 20 years ago for the group of artists who lived there at Rodeo Grounds, who they kicked out of that spot because it was so environmentally sensitive,” says Howell. Continue reading...

Twenty years ago, it was called Rodeo Grounds – an eclectic neighborhood of artists, musicians and surfers living in beach shacks where Topanga Canyon meets the Pacific Ocean. In a bizarre agreement with the former owner some paid as little as $100 a month for rent, raising multiple generations of their families here since the 1950s. But that was before the state purchased the property and started evicting residents in 2001. Julie Howell, who once owned Howell-Green Fine Art Gallery further up in the canyon, says the bohemians were kicked out.“I actually had a show in my gallery 20 years ago for the group of artists who lived there at Rodeo Grounds, who they kicked out of that spot because it was so environmentally sensitive,” says Howell.Whatever the bulldozers didn’t raze decades ago – including the shuttered Topanga Ranch Motel, a series of bungalow-style rooms originally built in 1929 by the media tycoon William Randolph Hearst and which closed in 2004 – is now decimated due to the Palisades fire that ignited on 7 January.Topanga Ranch Motel in Topanga, California, in July 2017. The building is now decimated due to the Palisades fire. Photograph: Jim Steinfeldt/Getty ImagesLeft behind is a scorched, flat parcel with a creek in back and the beach across the street. California state parks decided this was the perfect place to allow the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to construct a temporary staging area for household hazardous waste sorting, trucking in products like paints, solvents, bleach and insecticides, as well as EV lithium-ion batteries from destroyed Pacific Palisades properties some 8 miles (13km) away. About three weeks ago a brigade of EPA workers began sorting and bundling the hazardous materials to ultimately be taken en masse to appropriate recycling centers, according to Steve Calanog, EPA deputy incident commander for the Palisades and Eaton fires.As soon as word got out about plans to use the site, residents in the tightknit community of Topanga Canyon – often affectionately referred to as “hicks and hippies” though the median income and house prices in the canyon also suggests they are well-paid – went into action contacting officials, attending council meetings from Malibu to the Palisades to register their dismay, and protesting when the EPA workers showed up.Tears have been shed.“It’s heartbreaking,” says Howell. “Most of us here are environmentalists and we are just wondering how it makes sense to transport hazardous materials down to the water?”The name Topanga comes from the Indigenous Tongva people and is said to mean ‘where the mountain meets the sea’. Photograph: Courtesy of Topanga ResidentsThe name Topanga comes from the Indigenous Tongva people and is said to mean “where the mountain meets the sea”. Topanga resident Deb Rivera says she’s upset because Lower Topanga, where the EPA site sits, and Topanga Canyon are important sites of Native American heritage: “Doing this here is disrespectful.” She also points out that Topanga lacks representation. “We are unincorporated LA. We have no mayor; we have no city councilperson fighting for us.” Residents say through their countless meetings they learned the EPA wanted to use the paved parking lot of Will Rogers state beach, which is far closer to Pacific Palisades. Rivera and others believe this plan was nixed because Palisades and nearby Santa Monica had representatives pushing back for them, but EPA’s Calanog says decisions were made entirely for practical purposes and to get the job done quickly.“At the time we got mobilized, the Palisades fire was less than 50% contained,” Calanog explained. “There were a lot of firefighting personnel still actively fighting the fires and there’s not a lot of flat land of considerable space.” He said firefighters, National Guard, utility trucks and more all needed space –including at Will Rogers. “We were limited in terms of what was available.”Still, residents begged decision makers to reconsider, arguing that the debris should ideally be sorted in place, miles from the water. The Topanga mom, actor and environmentalist Bonnie Wright, who played Ginny Weasley in the Harry Potter movies, has had regular strategy meetups with neighbors at the Topanga library and is collecting signatures on a petition to stop EPA’s use of Topanga. So far, she has some 13,000 signatures. Residents have been most concerned about the EV lithium-ion batteries, which contain toxic metals and are highly flammable.“This is a public health thing but it’s also about the economy. So many communities around here rely on tourism that the coastline brings. You don’t sort toxic debris at the beach,” says Wright.Though the activists say EPA staff have been respectful and willing to talk, they have also been unwavering.Calanog, an EPA veteran who has headed wildfire response for Hawaii and the west coast for the past 15 years, says he empathizes yet is confident in his agency’s safety protocols. “One of the misconceptions with all of this work is that somehow there’s some exotic chemical that’s being brought into the community,” he said. “What we’re pulling out of the homes are things that every homeowner buys for themselves to use in their day-to-day life.”Calanog says the chemicals are placed in containers upon pickup by one of the 50 teams working in the Palisades. “There are no errant fumes.” At the Lower Topanga worksite, EPA has also taken many precautions, including placing commercial, industrial grade barriers on the unpaved ground, surrounding the site to prevent any potential runoff, and installing air monitors. In addition, the agency soil tested before beginning work and will do so again after completion. The data will be given to the department of public works to release to the public. “In all my years of doing this, we’ve never impacted a property,” Calanog said.‘This is an incredibly well-organized community,’ says Woodland Hills resident Cara Kinkel, who learned of Topanga Canyon resistance efforts from a WhatsApp group with around 500 users. Photograph: Courtesy of Topanga ResidentsThe California state parks spokesperson Jorge Moreno also said Gabrieleño Band of Mission Indians – Kizh Nation and the Gabrielino-Tongva Indian Tribe of California have been involved with the monitoring at the site.But when last week’s rainstorm loomed, Topanga Canyon activists went from high gear to ultra-high. Residents have a WhatsApp group specifically for air and water quality. Some 500 residents have joined, including Cara Kinkel, who lives in nearby Woodland Hills and whose daughter attends Topanga elementary school. WhatsApp lit up with information and ideas about appealing to officials. “This is an incredibly well-organized community,” says Kinkel. Bonnie Wright took to Instagram and blasted out information to her almost 4m followers.The hillside behind the creek and the entirety of Topanga Canyon and Pacific Coast Highway is known for its fragile hills. In one epic rain, a 300-tonne boulder rolled down a hill and closed Topanga Canyon boulevard – the one road in and out of the canyon – for more than a week. PCH often has weather-related debris slides. The residents were concerned the EPA site, which is now often referred to as Lower Topanga, could get slammed and hazardous waste would end up in the creek and ocean. Already, ash has been detected 100 miles (161km) off shore and scientists who were onboard a research vessel at the time of the fires have said the water smelled like burned electronics.On the eve of the storm, residents got heartening news: EPA had packed up the lithium ion battery sorting station and moved it from Lower Topanga to the Will Rogers beach parking lot. Calanog says now that the national guard and others have moved out, it simply became a better choice. “For the team that is handling the batteries, it was just easier to stage their equipment and their vehicles there.”For the “hippies and hicks”, though, it’s a mini win. One resident called it a heroic move on the EPA’s behalf. Phase one cleanup will be done by the end of the month and Calanog says Topanga will continue to be used for the rest of the household hazardous waste until then.But residents now worry that the site will not be closed when the EPA’s work is complete. “There’s still a chance that Topanga could be used for phase two cleanup when the Army Corps of Engineers take over,” says Howell.Calanog says though no decisions have been made, it’s a possibility. “I would caveat that their work is vitally important and I’m sure that they’re going to explore all areas from which to base their operation so they can do their work just as fast.”

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