VIOLENCE ON THE LAND, VIOLENCE ON OUR BODIES

1 VIOLENCE ON THE land , VIOLENCE ON OUR BODIESB uilding an Indigenous Response to Environmental ViolenceA partnership of Women s Earth Alliance and Native Youth Sexual Health NetworkLubicon Lake NationNorthern CaliforniaSites of Impact:This map shows the communities or territories of the people who shared their stories with this initiative. Their stories detail the impacts of living in communities plagued by industry and the environmental VIOLENCE it Nation(Grassy Narrows)Garden RiverFirst NationAkwesasneMohawk NationAamjiwnaangFirst NationBay of QuinteIhanktonwan Dakota Oyate (Yankton Sioux)OhkeyOwingehDin tah(Navajo Nation) CONTENTSE xecutive Summary.

2 2 Introduction ..4 The Seeds of This Work ..4A Dangerous Intersection ..7 About This Report and Toolkit ..10 Chapter 1: Connected to Body, Connected to land ..11 Legacies of a Movement Against Environmental VIOLENCE ..11 What is Environmental VIOLENCE ? ..13 Consent Over land and Body ..16 Chapter 2: When Relatives are Violenced ..20 Gendered Impacts on Indigenous BODIES ..20 Reproductive and Bodily Health ..20 Drugs and Crime ..28 Sexual VIOLENCE and MMIWG2S ..30 Chapter 3: The Health of Indigenous Nations ..36 Impacts on Self-Determination and Governance.

3 36 Impacts on Families and Communities ..42 Chapter 4: Responding to Environmental VIOLENCE ..47 The Importance of Healing ..47 Legal Tools and land /Body Defense ..52 Conclusion ..58 Acknowledgements + Thanks ..61 Glossary + Related Terms ..62 References ..642 | EXECUTIVE SUMMARYEXECUTIVE SUMMARYIn 2014, Women s Earth Alliance (WEA) and Native Youth Sexual Health Network (NYSHN) began a multi-year initiative to document the ways that North American Indigenous women and young people s safety and health are impacted by extractive industries.

4 We also aimed to support their leadership in resisting environmental VIOLENCE in their communities. WEA invests in training and supporting grassroots women to drive solutions to our most pressing ecological concerns water, food, land , and climate. NYSHN is a network by and for Indigenous youth that works across issues of sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice in the United States and Canada. This work stands upon the foundation of a movement begun by generations of Indigenous peoples who have long-recognized the intimate connection between land and body.

5 We recognize that there are many individuals, frontline struggles and movement leaders not included here, and acknowledge that this work is not a comprehensive list of all Indigenous-led environmental defense activities. Rather, it is intended to provide examples of both the issue and community-based strategies to support a larger movement of Indigenous women and young people taking action from a specific lens of sexual and reproductive health, rights and Problem For Indigenous communities in North America, the links between land and body create a powerful intersection one that, when overlooked or discounted, can threaten their very existence.

6 Extractive industries have drilled, mined, and frackedi on lands on or near resource-rich Indigenous territories for decades. Although the economic gains have been a boon to transnational corporations and the economies of the and Canada, they come at a significant cost to Indigenous communities, particularly women and young people . Many of these communities are sites of chemical manufacturing and waste dumping, while others have seen an introduction of large encampments of men ( man camps ) to work for the gas and oil industry.

7 The devastating impacts of the environmental VIOLENCE this causes ranges from sexual and domestic VIOLENCE , drugs and alcohol, murders and disappearances, reproductive illnesses and toxic exposure, threats to culture and Indigenous lifeways, crime, and other social stressors. The very health of Indigenous nations is threatened, but there has been little action by policy makers and international BODIES because of a lack of formal documentation of the ON THE land , VIOLENCE ON OUR BODIES | 3i Hydraulic fracturing by pressurized liquid, which is used to release natural gas from underground rock.

8 A high pressure fluid, usually made up of chemicals and sand suspended in water, is injected into deep rock formations to create cracks, making vast caches of natural gas, previously trapped in buried rock, accessible. Everything from the family to the Longhouse has been affected by industry and by the way it operates in our territories and on our BODIES . Iako tsira:reh Amanda Lickers (Turtle Clan, Seneca)Our SolutionThe VIOLENCE on the land , VIOLENCE on our BODIES initiative report and toolkit centers the experiences and resistance efforts of Indigenous women and young people in order to expose and curtail the impacts of extractive industries on their communities and lands.

9 Together, our team traveled to some of the most heavily impacted Indigenous territories in the and Canada to listen to frontline communities. From the American Southwest to Canada s tar sands region of Alberta, our team walked with Navajo youth across their sacred lands in New Mexico and witnessed First Nations women and young people bravely speaking up in defense of their land , their people , and future generations. Our goal was to detail through community interviews and research the environmental VIOLENCE suffered by community members.

10 We also sought to share their resistance efforts, and provide advocacy tools and strategies to support their work. In addition to heart-breaking stories, our interviews uncovered two important nuances: 1) healing and ceremony are crucial components to the work being done to respond to environmental VIOLENCE ; and 2) while local, federal, and international laws and policies serve as critical tools, Indigenous peoples are also designing more immediate solutions to reducing harm, which are culturally-safe and community-based. This report is paired with a toolkit for Indigenous communities that offers workshop templates for environmental VIOLENCE teach-ins, resources for healing and land -based medicines, and a community health assessment.