Afeni Shakur is best known as the mother of the hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur. What is less well known is that she was a member of the Harlem chapter of the Black Panther Party, a dedicated revolutionary who served time in jail for her political activities. Freedom Archives says her work “shaped the political discourse of Black Liberation movements in the 70s.” Visit their article on Afeni to hear excepts of her speaking.
In 1968, 21 members of the Harlem Chapter of the panthers were arrested on alleged bomb conspiracy charges, with bail set at $100,000. The following is part of a letter that Shakur wrote from prison in January 1970, decrying the colonial jail system and the entire U.S. state apparatus that has oppressed people of color since colonization arrived on this continent, and brought the first enslaved Africans shortly thereafter.
Featured image: Afeni Shakur speaks at a Black Panther Party Rally. Image via Freedom Archives.
By Afeni Shakur
We know that you are trying to break us up because we are the truth and because you can’t control us. We know that you always try to destroy what you can’t control. We know that you are afraid of us because we represent a truth of the universe. We are not being tried for any overt act nor for [the] attempt to commit any overt act–we are being tried for bringing within our minds the focusing of the ideas of centuries and trying to bring this knowledge into a workable plan to liberate our people from oppression. We are being tried only because we know you and because we are not afraid of you. We know of your history of lies, deceit and slavery. We know that you now have 80% of the world in slavery. We know how you turn nation against nation, tribe against tribe, brother against brother. We know that you are blood-thirsty, pitiless and inhuman. We have seen you justify the most inhuman crimes–the worst of which was the destruction of men’s hearts and minds. We know of your greed. We know that 10,000 army bases does not make this a “free world” except free for your exploitation and imperialism. How many civilizations have you destroyed?
In this country we know that we are not 2nd class citizens–we know that we are not citizens at all. We know that the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments did not liberate us–that they only legalized slavery and expanded the Dred Scott decision to include the Indians, Spanish speaking and poor whites. We know that things have not gotten any better–but only progressively worse. We know that this is the rich man’s courts, laws, and justice. It is his skies, and air–we can only look at it and breathe it if he says so. We know that wealth is not the fruit of labor but the result of organized protected robbery. But you teach the poor workers to be honest. We know that the Almighty dollar which everyone is taught to revere is only guaranteed by slavery and exploitation. We know that we live in a world inhuman in its poverty. We know that we are a colony, living under community imperialism. The U.S. that we see is not one of freedom, beauty, and wisdom, but of fear, terror, and hate. This is a nation of your laws, run by your police, and based on protecting your economic strength. The poor are politically, economically and legally non-existent that is why in jail, 80% of the inmates are non-white and all are poor. Yet even your sociologists and criminologists admit that 80% of these are innocent.
We see that inhuman treatment but are told that we do not. We see men beaten to death in jail but are told that they died of “natural causes” but we are liars. Just as we are always presumed guilty. We heard the judge tell us that “The law didn’t apply to us,” but it isn’t in the record–and of course we lie. We are born criminals and liars. We know we are innocent but we are liars. The people know we are innocent but they don’t count. The prisoners know we are innocent but they too are liars. The guards and even the captains of the guards know we are innocent but they can’t testify. They will lose their jobs. We can prove we are innocent. But we wonder does it really matter. We can prove it in detail and we will, but just in general the charges against us in this indictment are ridiculous and are contradictory to our basic beliefs. We have never been asked as a people whether we wanted to be governed by your God, your laws, your justice, your customs, your speech, dress, and ethics. We do not. We have no respect for them. We have no respect for your laws, taxes, your gratitude, sincerity, honor and dignity–you have no respect for them yourself. You don’t respect us–thus we don’t respect YOU…
This interview between Derrick Jensen and Christoper Ketcham examines the U.S. government’s taxpayer-funded wildlife slaughter program. Ketcham exposes Wildlife Service’s use of poisoned bait, aerial gunning, neck snares, leghold traps (banned in 80 countries), and cyanide traps to kill millions of wild animals each year in the United States. This conversation originally aired on the show Resistance Radio.
Featured image: Wildlife Services employee or contractor holds a wolf killed by aerial gunning in Idaho. USDA photo.
Derrick Jensen:
My guest today is Christopher Ketcham. He’s a freelance writer for Harper’s, The New Republic, Vice, and many others. Today we discuss Wildlife Services – but before that – he has a new book out, a very good book, called This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West. That book is a product of 10 years of research and travel across the public lands of the west.
Chris, first off, thank you as always for your tremendous work in the world and second thank you for being on the program.
What is ‘Wildlife Services’?
Christoper Ketcham:
I devote two chapters in my book to Wildlife Services because they are such a heinous operation of the federal bureaucracy. Basically, Wildlife Services is a branch of the US Department of Agriculture. Specifically, a branch of the Animal, Plant and Health Inspection Service at the USDA; whose purpose is to slaughter wildlife to protect industry.
Now on western public lands most of that slaughter is conducted to benefit one industry; the livestock industry. What we’re talking about here is a killing machine of: aerial gunships, helicopters, airplanes, cyanide landmines distributed across the landscape, poison collars placed on sheep, and all sorts of traps designed to kill those animals deemed predators and pests by the livestock industry.
What do they mean by predators and pests? Well, the livestock industry generally asks Wildlife Services to kill out wolves by the tens of thousands, when the wolves threaten cows and sheep. Coyotes are slaughtered every year to protect livestock. Black beers, grizzly bears, cougars, and then a host of other animals that you wouldn’t think would make the death list for the livestock industry but do. Animals like beavers and prairie dogs.
You know both of these are keystone species in western ecosystems. Beavers because obviously they dam water, they create meadows, and they are incredibly important in arid land ecosystems for the simple fact of creating water retention in the uplands. Prairie dogs create habitat for many other species. Their burrows are said to allow water to more efficiently percolate into aquifers. Generally, when you see prairie dogs on the landscape in the west, you are looking at healthy grasslands.
The livestock industry wants to kill out beavers because beavers dam up water that stockman want to use to water the cattle and grow hay. Prairie dogs have to be eradicated in massive numbers because the prairie dogs are considered competitors for forage with cows.
And on, and on and on.
During the 20th Century it is estimated that Wildlife Services killed something like tens of millions of animals across the west to benefit this one industry: the livestock industry. It is a campaign of destruction, poisoning, and bloodshed that is paid for by the US taxpayer, to the tune of something like 150 million dollars a year.
04:55
DJ:
To be clear, taxpayers pay 150 million dollars a year to slaughter wildlife?
CK:
Yes. It is very efficiently done. We often castigate the US government for being inefficient. This is a well-run program, a smoothly-oiled machine of mayhem.
DJ:
You’ve talked about wolves and coyotes. I want to come back to that, but something I think about every time I throw out birdseed is that they also kill birds. It’s extraordinary to me that they kill birds who are feeding on the farms where they grow birdseed so I can have a bird-feeder in my back yard.
They kill lots and lots of, say for example, red-wing black birds, or is that a different organization?
CK:
That’s Wildlife Services. The bird kills are often done to protect agriculture. Not to protect livestock but cropland operations of all types. But they also slaughter birds that threaten air traffic. If you have large flocks of starlings or sparrows (whatever it might be), they may get caught in the engines of jets. Well, Wildlife Services will go in and make sure that those birds do not pester air traffic.
DJ:
Before we get back to wolves, coyotes etc., can we talk for a second about 1984 and just the name Wildlife Services? Is this not a beautiful name?
CK:
It is the perfect Orwellian name. Wildlife Services has its origins in the 1890s when it’s predecessor, called the Bureau of Biological Survey, would go around and identify, specifically wolves, that were considered a threat to stockman in the west.
The Bureau of Biological Survey really got its teeth into this business in Colorado, where the stock industry and wolves had gone head to head for many years. The stockman could not successfully eliminate the wolves. They turned to the US government for help to kill these wolves. So from 1905, we see the Bureau of Biological Survey is aiding the US Forest Service so that the forest rangers can go out and kill the wolves.
After 1931 Congress passed the Animal Damage Control Act that basically established the Bureau of Animal Damage Control – a far less Orwellian name right. That name at least sort of says what the agency does – controls animal damage, controls the animals.
In the 90s (I believe) Animal Damage Control got its name changed to Wildlife Services via some inventive bureaucrat who figured, “hey we are going to service the wildlife with a shotgun!”. So that’s the history in brief of the naming of Wildlife Services.
08:48
DJ:
Right now when I look out the window and I see a couple of bears, literally at this moment, and I know bears get killed a lot.
How does it actually work that an animal gets targeted for killing? Is this just routine, or does it usually take a request by the rancher? Are they basically acting as taxpaid servants of individual ranchers, or do they go out and kill the wolves, coyotes etc. prophylactically?
09:32
CK:
What happens is yes you can have an individual rancher who determines, through questionable means, that some of his livestock have been killed say by a pack of wolves ranging locally on the public lands nearby, or even on private lands. So, he calls up Wildlife Services, “I’ve got a problem. You’ve gotta come in an investigate”.
A Wildlife Services trapper will come in and do a quote “investigation”. Now I’ve written in my book about what these investigations amount to. They are in fact usually cursorily, incompetently done, and designed almost always to substantiate the initial claim of the rancher regardless of the evidence.
The rancher can say these cows died by wolves and the trapper will look around and say, “well it doesn’t look like there’s any evidence of a wolf attack, but we’ll call it a wolf attack anyways”. Thereafter, the whole machine starts going into gear and after that you’ve got aerial gunships prowling the area and you’ve got traps laid out.
These are steel leg-hold traps. They are extremely painful. When an animal gets trapped in these things there’s incredible suffering that goes on. Especially given that the trap-shut-times for Wildlife Services are not regulated. You can leave a trap out and just check it every week instead of every day or every other day as required by a certain federal statute.
This rancher who called in Wildlife Services usually gets satisfaction in that Wildlife Services is generally pretty good at tracking down and killing the wolves who supposedly did the crime. Even though, as I mentioned earlier, there’s often not much proof of that (so called) crime.
13:01
On the other hand, you have what’s called prophylactic killing. In which Wildlife Services will go out and just start hammering local populations, say of coyotes. This involves flying around, usually in an airplane, and just gunning down coyotes on sight. They call this prophylactic killing “preventative”. Whereas, killing that occurs after there is evidence, that’s called corrective. So, you’ve got preventative and corrective.
Most of the killing by Wildlife Services is preventative. In that there is no actual evidence of the pack of coyotes in question say having actually attacked anything. They are just killed preemptively. Because they might go after livestock some day in the course of their life.
At this point, you get, you understand, that this absurd. This is crazy. But this is how the system operates.
14:14
DJ:
That reminds of that famous line from a slaughter in France many hundred years ago. A town in France was going to wipe out a certain radical sect of Christians. They couldn’t figure out who was which sect and the person who ran the town commanded his troops, ‘kill them all and let God sort them out’.
It’s the same sort of thing.
CK:
Yup that is exactly the mentality.
DJ:
I want to go back to the wolves, but I want to comment something; when it is shown that the wolf killed a cow or a sheep, the ranchers get paid. Can you talk abut that?
CK:
Right, that is the depredation compensation program for want of a better phrase. Yes, the federal government will reimburse a rancher for the dead cow if it is proven that the cow was preyed upon by say a wolf or a cougar, or whatever predator, might be a grizzly bear or a wolverine. This incentivizes cattlemen to falsify their claims of depredation.
Cows and sheep are open-range animals. They are subject to all sorts of inclement weather conditions, rough terrain, and accidents: a cow falls off a cliff, gets caught in a slot canyon or struck by lightning, or just lost; a baby ewe gets lost and dies. There are many, many ways for livestock to perish on open range. But if you can show they perished from predators then you get paid. This is obviously a recipe for corruption of the system because of that incentivizing.
17:11
DJ:
Don’t they also get paid higher than market value for ones that have been shown to be a predator kill or purportedly shown?
CK:
No, I think they get paid full market value. For example, this could be a calf that was killed, but I think they would get paid for the full market value of the calf as if it were to have grown to full maturity for sale.
DJ:
My point on this is ultimately, this is something I’ve never understood. The only way I can understand this is a hatred of nature. That honestly if I were running cows, I don’t care if I sell it to a slaughterhouse of if I get money [from the government]. It doesn’t matter. It seems like it would be just a fine business. I wouldn’t care if my cows got eaten as long as I got paid. I don’t understand why the ranchers get to cry victimization when they’re getting paid for the dead cow anyway. That’s what I’m getting at. It makes no sense to me. From the rancher’s perspective it’s like, “yea I don’t care if wolves eat all of them. That means I just sold my entire crop of cows”.
18:32
CK:
Yea now look what we are talking about is not a cost-benefit analysis. There is a cultural ground from which these ranchers are reacting to predators. That culture is about domination of the natural world. The livestock industry’s always been about domination and control of nature, and subjugation of the western landscape: so that cattle can be safe in a place where it’s to arid really for this invasive species (Bos Taurus) that evolved in humid Europe. And where there are tons of predators that will kill the cows as they naturally should, because you know, wolves are going to prey on sheep. Always, it’s always been done.
When they see this predator come in and kill their cows and their sheep, it’s an offense to the moral order. To the cultural moral order of their universe. That, to a certain extent, explains the level of hysteria on the part of stockman when confronted with the presence of predators on the western landscapes.
20:08
DJ:
When we talk about ranchers on the western landscape, we are not generally talking about some homesteader running three cows. This is actually big business, right?
CK:
If you look at the number of permittees who take out a permit to run cows on public lands, most of the permittees are either corporations looking for tax breaks, hobbyists like Ted Turner (so rich people who view these cows as playthings), or mining companies that run cattle in order to also secure the water rights that come with cattle permits. So, for the for the most part we’re not talking about hard scrabble range clans, the little guy eking out survival on the public lands. Those people do exist, but for the most part, public lands ranching is corporate business or is the stuff of rich people.
Rich people who do own herds will contract with local cattlemen, local cowboys, to manage the range, the herd and the public land. These guys aren’t the real owners of the property, they’re just servants for the wealthy who actually own the cattle. It’s the ranch hands and ranch managers who’ll be the most pestiferous and most angry when confronted with predators on the public lands, because they grew up with the culture (public lands ranching culture) and in order to keep a job, while they serve the absentee gentry, the aristocracy who owns most of the cattle on public lands.
DJ:
You keep saying public lands and I think a lot of people in the west know this but maybe people in the east don’t, maybe even in the west don’t. We are not talking about a wolf or grizzly bear crawling up onto your porch and taking the sheep that is sitting two feet from your door. We are actually talking about people who are making a living off of grazing their cows or sheep on land that actually belongs to the public and is rented out to these corporations at sub-market values. We are talking about a huge subsidy even if they weren’t given the additional subsidy of killing predators.
23:33
CK:
Yea that’s right. Let’s make this clear, we are talking our land, the common land. Owned by every American citizen. In fact, a co-sovereign on these lands, for determining how they should be used, or not be used. How they should be protected and preserved. A lot of the so-called depredation on livestock does occur on public land in very wild places in the back country, far from people’s homes, far from people’s private land. And yes, Wildlife Services is yet another subsidy extended to the public lands ranching industry.
The total value of that subsidy, with all the inputs accounted for – everything from road maintenance, fence building, water diversions, to sub-market leasing rates for cows, to the operation of Wildlife Services – one estimate has the total subsidy for public lands ranching coming out to something like a billion dollars a year. One billion dollars. And the remarkable thing here is that public lands ranching only accounts for two percent of all the beef produced in this country. So, a billion dollars for two percent of the beef nationally.
At the same time, you have a regime of incredible waste and destruction to protect public lands ranching producing that meager two percent of beef. Wow, again this is just crazy when you think about it. But there it is, it is the fact of American life and it has been so for a long, long time.
25:38
DJ:
I want to mention something that happened I believe a year or two ago that has just horrified me even more than all the wolf killings. A grizzly bear killed some chickens in somebody’s ranchette in Montana and so they shot the grizzly bear. It blew me away because chickens are one of the most common creatures on the planet and grizzly bears are endangered. I used to raise chickens when I lived in Spokane and coyotes would get them once and a while. That’s the cost having chickens run free in coyote territory. It offended me on a whole other level that you would kill an endangered species because it killed a couple of pet chickens of somebody who’s wealthy enough to own a ranchette. To kill an endangered species, especially under those circumstances, seems horrific to me.
CK:
I agree. It’s a reflection of the deranged values of our society. No other way to put it.
DJ:
In Washington state, there has been every year multiple members or entire packs wiped out, and it is all to serve one ranching outfit. I’m sure there are others to serve as well, but every year for the last six or seven years, there’s a guy [Len McIrvin] who absolutely refuses to take any payment for any wolf kills and any time a cow dies, he wants the entire wolfpack wiped out. You’ll see sympathetic articles about him in the newspaper saying it is driving him out of business etc.
But I did a little research and the guy only claims to lose like two or three cows a year and he runs 4,000 cattle. Honestly if you can’t survive two cows out of 4,000 lost then you’re doing something wrong. In this particular case, they’re serving one guy who is wealthy enough to run 4,000 head of cattle.
Take any of that any direction you want to go.
Note: there’s less than 125 wolves total in Washington state according to news media.
CK:
One comment I can make among several that can be made, there is a simple fact that public lands ranchers are constantly promoting themselves to be the paragons of self-reliant business: that they are the hard-scrabble individual who is out on the range. Yet, they are constantly whining and complaining and calling in the federal government to help them out with the slaughter of these evil wolves or the other subsidies that we mentioned earlier.
Meanwhile, the actual rates of depredation are very low compared to the total number of cows going out on the range. For example, a former Wildlife Services tracker named, Carter Niemeyer, told me something like you have millions of beef cattle going out in the northern Rockys Range and something like a quarter of a percent of them are lost to predators. A quarter of a percent.
Again, the hysterical reaction of this Washington rancher [Len McIrvin] can be explained by a cultural background in which these wolves are seen as an offence against the order of things. And conveniently at the same time he can trick unwary journalists into believing that this is not just a threat to the moral order but an economic threat to his very survival. But both are just lies, convenient lies.
It is incredible to me that this tiny minority in the west, public lands ranchers, exercise such outsized influence on how we manage our lands. It’s really incredible. Talk about capture by a tiny minority against the interests of the broad majority.
31:51
DJ:
The people you talk to, in your experience, do the frontline workers at Wildlife Services, are they fueled by ‘it’s just a paycheck’ and the Upton Sinclair ‘it’s hard to make a man understand something when his job depends on him not understanding it.’?
Or do they think they’re doing a great thing, have a claim to virtue, or do they feel bad about killing so much wildlife?
CK:
I think it depends on the trapper. I’ve interviewed a number of ex-trappers and read documents and media coverage of trappers in the past, who had quit the agency in horror at what they had done. There’s as incredible variety of experience out there.
There are some trappers I think who are passionately engaged in killing predators to protect the livestock industry. Which is what they believe, they believe they are protecting the livestock industry. Hence their passion. These are people who grew up in small rural communities where livestock ranching was a way of life.
I interviewed a guy in Wyoming for my book. I just called him ‘Bob’ because he was very much afraid of being outed in his community and being even physically threatened if he spoke out against the ranching industry. He wrote a letter to Brooks Fahy, who is an activist who has for many years worked to expose Wildlife Services.
Bob wrote that he, “quit because of the unethical and brutal methods I was required to do as a trapper. A lot of stock people are the most bloodthirsty, animal-abusing people you could ever find.” Bob also said that he was, “all for defunding Wildlife Services as it is nothing more than a government subsidy for a bunch of murderous ranchers.”
When you hear that, that’s a guy who was a trapper for many, many years.
He goes on, “it’s the sheep men I can’t tolerate. They’re just bloodthirsty rotten. A coyote or wolf to them, just something to be killed. In the county I’m in (that is in Wyoming), the sheep men are brutes, bullies, either you do what they want, you kowtow to them or you quit or get fired. The ranchers think they’re your boss and they are. It’s a dirty deal and it’s been going on for a long time. Most of the guys at Wildlife Services aren’t as bad as they’re made out to be. But they’re pushed into a lot of things they don’t want to do.”
So, there you have it, I think that answers your question.
There are the guys who are themselves as bloodthirsty as the ranchers. There are others who are just getting a paycheck, and they’re like ‘goddam I don’t want to do this, but I need the money’.
DJ:
We have talked about the horrors of the cyanide, landmines and everything else. We are not simply talking about adults, but I have heard about denning. Killing entire dens of pups of various wildlife species.
CK:
Oh yes. The practice, I’m not sure if it’s still ongoing, but the practice for many years was to track down a coyote den where the pups were holed up and smoke them out. Set a fire around the mouth of the den and as the pups come out, they get clubbed or they themselves burn up. They also used a phosphorus compound called a den smoker.
Dick Randel was a Wildlife Services trapper in Wyoming, like the aforementioned Bob who I also interviewed. Dick Randel used this den smoker, “suffocating the pups was the theory” he wrote. “But they’d often scramble for cracks of light at the entrance. You could hear them howling when they hit the flames and burned alive. The pups ran into the chemical fire trying to get out and it would eat through their tissue, hiss and smolder right into their guts. And they were still clawing at the blocked entrance.”
That’s one of the practices, again paid for by the US government. Our government on our land. Guess we should be proud right?
37:27
DJ:
Just last week Wildlife Services was poisoning prairie dogs in Colorado. I’m presuming that where they kill blackbirds, they also use poison? How do we convey to people the utter horror of what is happening at public expense on public lands?
CK:
Think of those coyote pups having their guts burning from phosphorus compounds, and just think of that over and over and over again.
Then do you want to do something about it, call your congressperson and ask, “are you voting to allocate money to Wildlife Services operation year after year?” Because most congresspeople are. Call up the USDA and call up the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) that runs and oversees directly the Wildlife Services program.
Call up congressman Peter DeFazio of Oregon, who is one of the few representatives in Congress who has stood up to Wildlife Services. He has attempted to pass legislation to defund their programs and to substantially change the congressional mandate that Wildlife Services got with the Animal Damage Control Act 1931 – basically revise it if not repeal it.
I think the thing here is you have stockmen who are very politically engaged. They are constantly complaining to local officials, country officials, the county commissioners, their state elected officials, and their congressionals that, “these goddam predators are a problem”. You have a lot of people in officialdom listening to this very vocal constituency. What you don’t have opposing that vocal minority is the great majority of Americans who are aghast at these very cruel practices.
What you need is civic engagement. I repeat this over and over again in my book. You need a citizenry that is enraged and engaged. Until that happens, Wildlife Services will continue on and on slaughtering and killing with your money and with not much scientific basis for the killings. This is irrational killing.
41:10
DJ:
I have heard that killing coyotes paradoxically leads to coyote population explosions because they reproduce. Is that correct?
CK:
That’s in my book as well. I interviewed a guy, Robert Wilgus, of Washington State University, who looked into that. He found that if you disrupt pack structures of wolves and coyotes, you actually increase the amount of attacks on livestock. That is quite helpful to Wildlife Services right, so they kill more coyotes, that produces more depredation on livestock, meaning you have to come pack and kill more coyotes, which produces more depredation of livestock. It’s a closed circle where they always get more funding and there’s more killing to be done.
42:30
DJ:
It destroys local social structures and often older members of the predator community will keep crazy younger members in check. A great example happened earlier this year. I mentioned earlier that I see bears all the time, well there was a mother bear who showed up with a baby and she was around for a while and then the baby disappeared. Sometimes males will kill babies to bring the female into heat.
That was seeming kind of weird to me. Someone did some research for me and it ends up normally there will be females who have territory and then males have sort of a meta territory. A big male will make sure that other younger males don’t kill the babies. He’ll basically keep the youngsters in check. But if somebody shoots the old male, and then there’s chaos for a while, you’ll end up with younger males killing the babies.
So, the point is that if you had Wildlife Services come in and kill a pack leader or disrupt a pack, I’m just validating what you just said, it’s going to create chaos, which is going to create some more strange behavior that’s harmful to everybody around.
CK:
Well that’s exactly right. That is what Rob Wilgus found out. That the social structure disruption of predators – whether it be coyotes, wolf packs, local mountain lion populations, or as you remarked also black bear populations – leads then to all sorts of behavior that wasn’t occurring previously. For example, the adult mountain lions will indeed prevent younger mountain lions from going after livestock.
If you were going to approach all the slaughter with a scientific method, that doesn’t justify the slaughter, but it would at least make sense from a bureaucratic perspective. But they’re not even approaching it with a scientific method. It is just randomized violence meted out against predators without any ecological or behavioral understanding.
45:45
DJ:
Let’s pretend that you are able to do one thing and but not another. The thing you’re not able to do is eliminate public lands ranching on the west. You don’t get to do that. But you do get to completely defund Wildlife Services. What do you think would happen? What would that lead to?
CK:
I think you would have a lot of vigilantism. A lot of ranchers going out and killing these predators themselves.
The three S’s: shoot, shovel and shut up. I think you’d have widespread illegal distribution of poisons, such as banned thallium sulphate and sodium fluoroacetate (1080). I think you’d have a lot more sodium cyanide spread across the landscape. I think you’d find more carcasses of animals poisoned with those compounds. I don’t think that would accomplish much frankly, just getting rid of Wildlife Services.
You get rid of Wildlife Services then you also have to have an accompanying regime of enforcement for protection of predators. We don’t have that.
DJ:
You want people to call their congressperson and get engaged. If it’s not merely to dump Wildlife Services, are you suggesting this problem won’t be solved until public lands ranching is also eliminated in the west?
CK:
Yea that’s ultimately where we have to go with this. You really have to eliminate public lands ranching if you want to protect predators on a widespread scale in big ecologically-relevant landscapes. It begins with searing into your consciousness that image of the coyote pups’ guts burning with that phosphorus compound and go from there. Use that as your inspiration, because that’s what we’re really talking about when we talk about the livestock industry in the west.
DJ:
Thank you for that. I want to reiterate something you said earlier. Even if you got rid of all public ranching in the west, that’s only two percent of beef production in the US.
CK:
If you’re a meat eater, it’s not going to affect the price of steak. OK, you still get your hamburger.
DJ:
Which probably came from Georgia anyway.
CK:
Right [laughs]. One of the biggest public lands ranching states if Nevada. The little state of Maryland produces like five-ten times as much beef, some incredibly big figure I forget exactly. That much more beef than all the expanses of Nevada.
DJ:
This is as they say, really low-hanging fruit in terms of environmental reward for economic cost.
Is there anything else you want to say about Wildlife Services?
CK:
Just that they need to go. The only way to get them to go is for the public to make them go.
DJ:
Thank you so much for your constant advocacy for wild nature.
Editor’s note: this piece began circulating in the wake of the raids on Wet’suwet’en territory. We have covered these topics and discussed strategic approaches to escalation in recent weeks. This piece contributes to this ongoing discussion. Featured image via Unist’ot’en Camp. #ShutDownCanada #ReconciliationIsDead #RevolutionIsAlive. As with all cross-posts, sharing this does not imply that Aphonika Distro endorses Deep Green Resistance.
By tawinikay (aka Southern Wind Woman)
If only one thing has brought me joy in the last few weeks, it began when the matriarchs at Unist’ot’en burned the Canadian flag and declared reconciliation dead. Like wildfire, it swept through the hearts of youth across the territories. Out of their mouths, with teeth bared, they echoed back: reconciliation is dead! reconciliation is dead! Their eyes are more keen to the truth so many of our older generation have been too timid to name. The Trudeau era of reconciliation has been a farce from the beginning. It has been more for settler Canadians than natives all along.
“Reconciliation is dead” is a battle cry.
It means the pressure to live up to our side of the bargain is over. The younger generation have dropped the shackles to the ground. Perhaps we are moving into a new time, one where militancy takes the place of negotiation and legal challenge. A time where we start caring less about what the colonizer’s legal and moral judgement and more about our responsibilities.
Criticizing reconciliation is not about shaming those elders and people who participated in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, it’s about attacking a government that used that moment of vulnerability to bolster it’s global image. I have said it before and I’ll say it again, I do not blame our older generation for being hopeful about a more peaceful future. Those who lived through the horror of residential schools and the 60s scoop and the road allowance days and the sled dog slaughters could only have wanted a better life for the coming generations. It is the responsibility of those younger generations to stand up and say that what is being offered is not good enough. It is up to us to say that we would rather another hundred years of struggle than to accept the gentle assimilation being offered. It is up to us to give thanks to our elders for their service and then to turn to the frontlines with our feathers and drums and fists.
Because ideas on their own don’t make change. That is a liberal lie. It takes action behind words to make a difference. That action needs to be undertaken together. Neither ideas or practice are created by individuals. Everything written here is the result of discussion and interaction with other land defenders, lovers, anarchists, mothers, children, and resistors. We need to be accountable to the things we say while also recognizing that knowledge is created by communities. It has to always be seen that way in order to subvert hierarchy, to never allow one person to be elevated over any other.
So what is written here is all of yours. Take it and do with it as you please.
Argue it. Defend it. Decry it. Make it your own.
Forget the rules.
Canada is a colonial state. It exists to govern territory and manage the resources of that territory. It is nothing less and nothing more. It has done an excellent job convincing its citizens that it stands for something, something good. This is the way it maintains its legitimacy. The national myth of politeness and civility wins the support of its constituents. This has been carefully constructed over time and it can be deconstructed. In fact, the rules of Canada change all the time. I would write more about this but the truth is I could not do a better job than something I recently came across online. @Pow_pow_pow_power recently wrote the following:
Settler governments have been making up the rules as they go from the beginning of their invasions. While each generation of us struggles to educate ourselves to the rulebook, they disregard it and do what they want when they want. This should not be a surprise. It has always been this way because they prioritize themselves about all – above other people, above animal relatives, above the balance of Nature, and certainly above “what is right”. Laws have always been passed to legitimize their whims and interests as the intentions of seemingly rational rulers, and to keep us in compliance with their needs.
We currently live in a time where our Imperialist structures have been deeply concerned with appearing ordered and civilized to fellow regimes of power to cultivate a sense of superiority. This is why the violence we have become accustomed to is no longer mass slaughters and public torture and exiles but night raids and disappearances, criminalizations and being locked into systems of neglect. It has become more reliant on structural violence & erasure than direct violence, and therefore more insidious. Insidiousness is more tidily effective and harder to pinpoint as a source of injustice.
This is why when we approach them, lawful and peaceful and rational and fair minded and smooth toned, as gracious and calm as can be, we are easily dismissed with polite white smiles of “best intentions” “deepest regrets” and “we’re doing our best”, in fact “we’re doing better than most”. And when we insist, more firmly, more impassioned, more justified, the response from Settler Governments is as clear as we see now: “Why can’t you people just obey?”
Canadians want to believe that colonial violence is a thing of the past, so the government hides it for them. That is why the RCMP doesn’t allow journalists to film them as they sick dogs on women defending their land. That is why they will get away with it.
The time has come to stop looking for justice in settler law.
For Indigenous people in Canada, it is impossible to avoid the violence inflicted on us by the state. When we raise our fist and strike back, it is always an act of self-defense. Always. Committing to non-violence or pacifism in the face of a violent enemy is a dangerous thing to do. Yet, attempting to avoid using violence until absolutely necessary is a noble principle. One which carries the most hope for a new future. But what does violence mean to the settler state?
They don’t consider it violent to storm into a territory with guns drawn and remove its rightful occupants. They don’t consider it violent to level mountaintops, or clearcut forests, or to suck oil out of the ground only to burn it into the air. They don’t consider it violent to keep chickens and pigs and cows in tiny crates, never allowing them to see sunlight, using them like food machines.
But smash a window of a government office..
Well, that goes too far.
It is time we see their laws for what they are: imaginary and hypocritical. Settler laws exist to protect settlers. We are not settlers. We are Michif. We are Anishinaabek. We are Onkwehón:we. We are Nêhiyawak. We are Omàmiwininì. We are Inuit. We are Wet’suwet’en. So why are we still appealing to their laws for our legitimacy?
Time after time, communities spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal challenges to land rights. Chippewa of the Thames First Nation used money won in a land claim to launch a legal challenge against Canada to say they were never properly consulted, nor did they consent to, the Line 9 pipeline through their territory. The Supreme Court ruled against them, saying that Indigenous peoples do not have the right to say no to industrial projects in their territories. Line 9 is still operational. The Wet’suwet’en won probably the most significant legal challenge in Canadian history. The Delgamuukw verdict saw the courts acknowledge that the We’suwet’en territory is unceded, that they hold title and legal jurisdiction, and yet look at how Canada honours that. Legal victories are not the way we win our land and dignity. Canada cares as little about Canadian law as they do Indigenous law.
The same goes for the United Nations and their precious UNDRIP. We have seen that the state will adopt United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) principles and interpret them to suit their needs. That document says that governments and companies need free, prior, and informed consent to engage in projects in their territories. BC adopted it and, yet, says that it does not mean they have to gain consent from the Wet’suwet’en. Consent will never actually mean the right to say no. And the UN has no way to enforce it.
The time has passed for legal challenge in their courts that does nothing but drain our resources and slow us down. I honour those relatives and ancestors who attempted the peaceful resolution, who trusted in the good intentions of other humans. But the settlers have proven that the peaceful options they offered us are lies. Fool us once, shame on you.
This is not only about Unist’ot’en anymore.
This is about all of us. Any day now the RCMP could attempt to move in and evict the rail blockade at Tyendinaga. I stand in solidarity with them as much as I do with the Wet’suwet’en. This moment is not just about getting the government and their militarized goons to back down at Unist’ot’en and Gitdum’ten, it’s about getting them to loosen their grip around all of our necks. This moment is about proclaiming reconciliation dead and taking back our power.
This is not to say that we should forget about Unist’ot’en and abandon them when they need us most. It is a proposal to widen our scope so that we don’t lose our forward momentum if what happens out west doesn’t meet our wildest dreams. This is about crafting a stronger narrative.
This means that we should think before claiming that the Wet’suwet’en have the right to their land because it is unceded. Do we not all have a right to the land stolen from our ancestors? For land to be unceded it means that it has never been sold, surrendered, or lost through conquest. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 urged Canada and the dominion to only take land through the making of treaty. And so agents of Canada set out to do so. They continued to make treaties across the continent, sometimes lying about the content of the treaties to ancestors who didn’t speak english, sometimes finding whoever the hell would sign the treaty without much concern for if that person was acting with the support of the community. After the signing of the last treaty, Canada made it illegal for Indians to hire lawyers to challenge land claims. And then they stole the rest of what they wanted. They continued to flood the land with settlers until native peoples had only 0.2% of the land they once protected and lived on.
I don’t care about appealing to the legitimacy of unceded territory. All land is stolen land. Canada has no jurisdiction on any of it because they have broken any agreements they ever made in the process of taking it.
The same critique rings true for holding up hereditary governance as the only true leadership of Indigenous peoples. I am not advocating for band council. But it is important to understand that many of our relations have lost the hereditary systems that once helped them live good lives. We are going to have to rekindle our governance. Some we can pull from the past, some we will have to make anew. All freely chosen forms of Indigenous governance are legitimate. Our legitimacy does not flow from the mouths of our leaders, but from our connection to the land and water and our commitment to our responsibilities to all life today and generations to come.
This is a good thing if we let it be. It is foolish to think we would not have changed and grown in 300 years. Our systems would look different today no matter what. This is an opportunity to combine new and beautiful ideas with the time-honoured traditions and ceremonies of our ancestors, spiritual communities where hierarchy is subverted and gender is liberated!
It is time to shut everything the fuck down.
Canada has always been afraid of us standing in our power. Reconciliation was a distraction, a way for them to dangle a carrot infront of us and trick us into behaving. Now is the time to show them how clear our vision is. Being determined and sure is not the same as being unafraid. There are many dangerous days ahead of us. It is dangerous to say, “I will not obey.”
The first thing we need to do is stop stabbing each other in the back. Take a seat on band council if you want, but stop letting it go to your head. Don’t ever see yourself as more than a servant, a cash distributor, a rule enforcer. Being elected is not the same as earning a place of respect in your community. It does not make you an elder. Let me take this time to say a giant “fuck you” to the Métis nations who sign pipeline agreements because they are so excited the government considered them Indigenous. The Métis have no land rights in Ontario and yet they continue to sign agreements as if they do, throwing the Indigenous nations with actual territory under the train. Let me extend that “fuck you” to the Indigenous nations who signed pipeline agreements and stand by in silence as their relations are attacked for protecting the water. Or even worse when they do interviews with pro-oil lobby groups and conservative media decrying the land defenders in their midst. Can’t they see the way Canadians eat up their words, drooling over the division amongst us, using it to devalue our way of life? I do not condone attacking our relatives who have lost the red path, but we need to find a way to bring them back home. Not everybody has to take up a frontline in their community, but at the bare minimum they should refuse to cooperate with the colonial government and their corporate minions.
The second thing we need to do is act. But we do not have to limit ourselves to actions that demand the withdrawal of forces from Wet’suwet’en territory. The federal government is the one calling the shots, not just at Unist’ot’en but at every point of native oppression across all the territories. Any attack on the state of Canada is in solidarity. Any assertion of native sovereignty is in solidarity.
It’s time to start that occupation you’ve been dreaming up.
Is there a piece of land that has been annexed from your territory? Take it back. Is there a new pipeline being slated through your backyard? Blockade the path. Are their cottagers desecrating the lake near your community? Serve them an eviction notice and set up camp. Sabotage the fish farms killing the salmon. Tear down the dam interrupting the river. Play with fire.
When we put all of our hopes and dreams into one struggle in one spot, we set ourselves up for heartbreak and burnout. Let’s fight for the Wet’suwet’en people, yes! But let’s honour their courage and their actions by letting them inspire us to do the same. Let’s fight for them by fighting for the manoomin and the wetlands and the grizzlies.
Choose your accomplices wisely. Liberals who read land acknowledgments often have too much invested in this system to actually see it change. Communists envision a system without a capitalist Canada, but they still want a communist state. One that will inevitably need to control land and exploit it. Find common heart with those who want to see the state destroyed, to have autonomous communities take its place, and to restore balance between humans and all our relations. Choose those who listen more than they talk, but not those who will do whatever you say and not think for themselves. They are motivated by guilt. Find those who have a fire burning in them for a more wild and just world. Most of them will be anarchists, but not all, and not all anarchists will come with a good mind.
Creating a battlefield with multiple fronts will divide their energies. The rail blockades are working! If the night time rail sabotage and the copper wire and the blockades keep coming, it will shut down all rail traffic across this awful economy. More is better. But do it not just for the Wet’suwet’en, do it for the rivers and streams that weave themselves under the rails. Do it for the ancestors who saw the encroaching railroad as their coming demise.
And as a critique out of Montreal wrote: don’t settle for symbolic and intentional arrest.
When they come to enforce an injunction, move to another part of the rail.
When they come with a second injunction, block the biggest highway nearby.
When they come with a third injunction, move to the nearest port.
Stay free and fierce. The folks at Unist’ot’en and Gitdum’ten didn’t have the option to, but you do. Anticipate their next move and stay ahead of them.
This is a moment among many moments. Our ancestors have been clever, sometimes biding their time quietly, sometimes striking, always secretly passing on our ceremonies and stories. I honour them as I honour you now. We are still here because of them and our children and our children’s children will still be here because of us. Never forget who we are. Fight in ceremony.
I suppose this is a proposal for adopting a strategy of indigenous anarchism here on Turtle Island. A rejection of tactics that demand things from powerful people and a return to building for ourselves a multitude of local, diverse solutions. This is a rejection of Idle No More style organizing, let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past (for a detailed critique of INM, see https://warriorpublications.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/idle-no-more-speak-for-yourself/ and while you’re there read everything else). It is a plea for us to choose our own leaders and create governance that refuses hierarchy. An ask for us to reject reconciliation and move towards a militant reclamation. The idea of indigenous anarchism is still in its infancy. Write me about it.
This is one of our moments. Let’s make it not about demanding for them to leave Unist’ot’en alone, but about demanding that they leave the land alone. Don’t make it about stopping CGL from making money, make it about denouncing the idea of money. This is about colonization everywhere. This is about all of us.
To the settlers inevitably reading this zine.
What is written here is meant for you too. Not in the “rise up and take back your land” kind of way. Been there, done that.
But I have been reading the messaging on the reportbacks and in the media and I see you falling into all sorts of tired traps. You are not just cogs in the solidarity machine, you too can take up struggles in the cities you live. Remember the Two Row: you can fight parallel battles towards the same goals.
I have heard many an elder say that we will not win this fight on our own, and that is most certainly true. Thank you for the ways you have attacked the economy and the state. Thank you for answering the call. Now take this and run with it.
You too should look for ways to defend the land and water in the places you live. You too should look for ways to undermine and weaken the power of the government over these lands. Don’t let yourself be disheartened if the RCMP don’t leave Unist’ot’en. That is only one fight of many. That is only the beginning. Don’t fall into the traps of appealing to Canadian or international law.
See yourself for what you are, for who your community is. Act in ways that bring about a world where reconciliation is possible, a world in which your people give back land and dismantle the centralized state of Canada. Don’t romanticize the native peoples you work with. Don’t feel that you can’t ever question their judgment or choose to work with some over others. Find those that have kept the fire alive in their hearts, those who would rather keep fighting than accept the reconciliation carrot. Don’t ever act from guilt and shame.
And don’t let yourself believe that you can transcend your settlerism by doing solidarity work. Understand that you can, and should, find your own ways to connect to this land. From your own tradition, inherited or created.
In this episode of The Green Flame podcast, we speak with Sakej Ward. Sakej (James Ward) belongs to the wolf clan. He is Mi’kmaw (Mi’kmaq Nation) from the community of Esgenoopetitj (Burnt Church First Nation, New Brunswick). He is the father of nine children, four grandchildren and a caregiver for one.
Sakej is a veteran of both the Canadian and American militaries. During his military career, he volunteered and excelled at some of the most demanding leadership courses in the military, including the Special Forces Infantry Leader’s Course. He finished his military career at the rank of Sergeant.
Wanting to pursue academics, he immediately went to university and immersed himself in politics where he graduated from the University of New Brunswick from the Honour’s program with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science with a specialization in International Relations.
Recognizing the value of an academic background, he continued to advance his studies and attended the University of Victoria where he successfully completed the Master’s of Arts Degree in Indigenous Governance.
Sakej has a long history of advocating and protecting First Nations inherent responsibilities and freedoms, having spent the last 21 years fighting the government and industry. This deep desire to bring justice to all Indigenous people has given Sakej experience in international relations where he spoke on behalf of the Mi’kmaq Nation at the United Nations Working Group for Indigenous Populations (WGIP). For his efforts in protecting Indigenous people, freedoms and territory he has received the National Aboriginal Achievement Award.
Having taught, organized, advised and led various warrior societies from all over Turtle Island down into Guatemala and Borike (Puerto Rico) Sakej has made warrior-hood his way of life. He has been on over a dozen warrior operations and countless protest actions. He dedicates all his time to developing warrior teachings and instructing warrior societies from all over.
This show features poetry by the Chickasaw poet, playwright, and novelist Linda Hogan, and the song “Zabalaza” by South African political music collective Soundz of the South (SOS).
The Green Flame is a Deep Green Resistance podcast offering revolutionary analysis, skill sharing, and inspiration for the movement to save the planet by any means necessary. Our hosts are Max Wilbert and Jennifer Murnan.
Featured image: solidarity actions initiated by Deep Green Resistance in Eugene, Oregon shut down multiple Chase Bank locations in the area on February 13th. Photo: Max Wilbert.
Solidarity actions in the wake of a Canadian government raid on an indigenous community resisting pipeline construction are paralyzing the Canadian economy, shutting down factories, leaving hundreds of trains idling, and leading to shortages of propane, construction materials, and grain.
Over the past week, dozens of solidarity actions have been held across Canada, as well as in the U.S. and Europe. Significant train blockades in New Hazelton and in Tyendinaga Mohawk territory have stranded tens of thousands of travelers and led CN Rail corporation to “discontinue service in key corridors.” Occupations and demonstrations have disrupted key ports, political offices, banks, and transit corridors in more than 25 Canadian cities and towns.
Coastal Gaslink Pipeline
These solidarity actions are happening around the issue of the Coastal Gaslink pipeline, or CGL. CGL is in pre-construction and is a key component of “LNG Canada,” a $40-billion project which would export “fracking” gas from Canada to international markets, running through British Columbia. The project is expected to generate 13% annual profits. It has been given billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies by the Canadian government.
Five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation have opposed the CGL pipeline for over a decade. The Unist’ot’en Clan (Chief Freda Huson) and other Wet’suwet’en clans including the Gidimt’en and Likhtsamisyu have re-occupied their traditional land, built a healing center for indigenous youth, and now practice traditional medicine, hunting, gathering, & ceremonies. They have also evicted pipeline construction crews and surveyors regularly over the past five years. The pipeline is a major threat to their clean water, salmon runs, and the land which is the foundation of their culture.
Raid and Police Occupation
Last Thursday, after CGL corporation secured an illegal court injunction, Canadian federal police (RCMP) began a militarized raid on the indigenous land of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. Over the course of four days, RCMP arrested dozens of land defenders at gunpoint, including Freda Huson and Dr. Karla Tait, clinical psychologist at the Unist’ot’en Healing Center, and forcefully removed them from their land.
This is despite the 1997 “Delgamuukw” Canadian Supreme Court case which recognized title of the traditional leaders. The Canadian government, Coastal Gaslink, and funders like JP Morgan Chase (Chase Bank) are ignoring Canadian Law, indigenous law, and the danger to future generations, and are using violence to maximize their profits.
Deep Green Resistance Solidarity Action in Oregon
Deep Green Resistance stands with the Unist’ot’en. Our community has participated in solidarity actions in Canada, and this evening (February 13th) we organized disruption of three Chase Bank locations in Oregon to demand Chase cease funding the project, create additional political pressure, encourage customers of Chase to divest their funds, and to build awareness of the situation.
Led by Illahee Spirit Runners drumming to break up the humming monotony of these corporate offices, we took this action to disrupt business as usual, build strength in our community and in ourselves, and show our solidarity with the land and water defenders in Wet’suwet’en Territory. Our actions led to initiation of “lockdown procedures” at multiple Chase bank locations across the Eugene/Springfield area.
Night sky and forest overlooking the Wedzin Kwah (Morice River) at Unist’ot’en Camp. Photo by Max Wilbert.
Strategic Analysis
(Note: we do not represent the Wet’suwet’en or speak on their behalf in any way, shape, or form. This is an independent, outside analysis. While we support their struggle, this does not imply that they agree with our analysis or support our strategy.)
The resistance of the five Wet’suwet’en clans to Coastal Gaslink, and to previous pipeline plans that were modified or canceled at least partially as a result of their work, has been successful thus far. This has been achieved by leveraging tactical and strategic advantages, by gathering a broad alliance of supporters, and through tenacity and hard work. Solidarity actions remain a powerful arsenal capable of causing millions or billions of dollars in economic damage to the Canadian state, and disrupting political operations. These actions can create a more favorable climate by increasing pressure on fence-sitting politicians, media, and populace, but could also backfire by empowering right-wing politicians and pro-state forces calling for increased repression.
It remains to be seen what will come next. Strategic options are relatively limited. It is clear that the pipeline company and Canadian government can and will bring force and money to bear, and with $40 billion on the line they are determined. However, they are also constrained by the court of public opinion, at least to some degree. Talk of reconciliation in Canada has created a political climate that limits the level of brutality which the government can bring to bear. However, as we have seen, they have attempted to bypass this by limiting the access of journalists, blocking people from filming, detaining and threating media with arrest, and otherwise limiting press freedoms. Grassroots people’s media has been important in partially bypassing these restrictions.
The Canadian government is unlikely to give up, and this fight may continue to be a long one. The Wet’suwet’en will not give up either. They are defending their ancestral land and the land of their children. It is unclear what the outcome will be. Broader political shifts in the Canadian government may present a large danger. Like neoliberal politicians in the U.S., the Trudeau administration’s two-faced language of reconciliation paired with violent escalation of repression and pro-industry wrangling will enable more openly conservative politicians to justify much more repressive measures. This parallels Obama’s responsibility for a massive increase in deportation and militarized repression of the uprising at Standing Rock, which in a sense paved the way for Trump’s increased escalation of racist rhetoric and policies.
More broadly, this fight is only one of countless fights globally. To reverse the existential threats of species extinction, global warming, desertification, ocean acidification, and the increasing corporate takeover, commodification, and destruction of the entire planet will require not just stopping new projects like Coastal Gaslink, but dismantling and shutting down the existing industrial infrastructure of the colonial extraction economy.
At Deep Green Resistance we believe the struggle of our time must be fundamentally revolutionary in character—that it will require the “forcible overthrow of the current social order, in favor of a new system.” Like slavery in the Antebellum south, colonialism is so deeply embedded in the Canadian and American systems that some form of warfare is likely to be necessary to uproot it. We do not believe in random acts of violence. A true revolutionary movement is built aboveground and underground, and consists of legitimate organizations coordinating struggle and seizing moments of opportunity without compromise. There are many possible ways this could play out, and we have our own ideas of what proper strategy may look like. We urge our readers to study and consider our strategy and other revolutionary strategies and historical case studies in detail, since victory will require a variety of perspectives working in parallel.
As the following stories illustrate, land defense is dangerous. When we speak about the war being waged on the planet, we do not speak of a metaphor. With guns and machetes, with chainsaws and poisons, with nuclear waste and bulldozers, the living world is being dismembered, and those who fight to defend it often find themselves risking life and limb. We must become aware of this war in order to better participate on the side of the forests and of life. Be careful, be prepared.
Featured image: Monarch butterflies in the El Rosario reserve, home to fir forests whom monarchs visit each winter after their multi-generational migration from the north. Photo by Charlie Marchant, cc-by-2.0.
Six Murdered, Ten Kidnapped in Armed Attack on Nicaragua’s Bosawás Biosphere Reserve
About 80 armed men killed six indigenous people on an isolated Nicaraguan nature reserve in an attack linked to raging land disputes, the indigenous Mayagna community said on Thursday, with 10 other Mayagnas kidnapped in the raid.
The men stormed a Mayagna commune about 500 kilometers (310 miles) north of capital Managua, deep in the north-central Bosawas Biosphere Reserve, the second-largest rainforest the Americas after the Amazon.
The raiders were part of a group of “settlers” in the area who do not belong to the indigenous communities that make up about 14% of Nicaragua’s 6.2 million people, according to a Mayagna lawyer from the region.
Missing Mexican Monarch Butterfly Defender Homero Gómez González Found Dead
Mexican conservationist Homero Gómez González was found dead Wednesday, about two weeks after he was reported missing, provoking a wave sorrow from allies and advocates worldwide as they honored his work running a butterfly sanctuary in the state of Michoacán.
As Common Dreamsreported last week, human rights advocates have expressed fears that Gómez González may have been targeted because of his activism by those involved in the local illegal logging industry, and the 50-year-old butterfly defender’s family told the media that he had received threats from a criminal organization.
A Global Witness report from last year named Mexico the world’s sixth-deadliest country for eco-defenders, part of “a worrying global trend” of environmentalists risking their safety by facing off against “governments, companies, and criminal gangs [that] are routinely stealing land and trashing habitats in pursuit of profit.”
Human Rights Advocates Call for Investigation Into Death of Second Monarch Butterfly Defender in Mexico
The body of Raúl Hernández Romero was found at the top of a hill in the El Rosario butterfly sanctuary on Saturday, one day after the manager of the preserve, Homero Gómez González, was buried. Gómez’s body was found last Wednesday after a two-week disappearance.
El Rosario sanctuary provides a home for millions of migrating monarch butterflies each year and draws thousands of tourists annually. But the reserve has also drawn the ire of illegal loggers in Mexico, who are banned from cutting down trees in the protected area.
Hernández’s family told the BBC that before he disappeared on Jan. 27, he had been receiving threats warning him to stop campaigning against illegal logging. Forensic experts said the activist appeared to have been beaten with a sharp object and had a deep wound in his head.
In this episode of The Green Flame podcast, we speak with Sakej Ward. 
