Earth First! Round River Rendezvous 2019 – Colorado Plateau

The Earth First! Round River Rendezvous (RRR) is an annual convergence of folks from around the continent involved in direct action campaigns and other projects in defense of land, water, and all living creatures. At this week-long gathering, our loose network comes together to make new friends, up our skills, attend workshops and discussions, have fun, and take action.

The RRR typically takes place somewhere in the wild (on stolen, federally-managed “public land,” such as National Forest). Everyone who believes in fighting for the Earth, for life, and for justice is welcome to attend. We ask for a sliding-scale donation ($25-$100) from everyone to help us cover the cost of hosting the gathering, and to go to support next year’s RRR and Earth First! Organizers’ Conference, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

This year, the Rondy will take place somewhere in or around what is colonially known as the State of Utah—occupied land of the Shoshone, Goshute, Paiute, Ute, and Diné peoples. Over the years, organizers throughout the Colorado Plateau bioregion–from the briny flats of the Great Salt Lake to the southern reaches of Dinétah–have joined together in a slow process of movement building through cross-struggle collaborations that we hope this year’s RRR can serve to strengthen and multiply

Often, the post-Rendezvous action targets destructive extraction practices like mining, drilling, and logging. Last year, Earth First! joined Mijente and the American Indian Movement to shut down an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in Ohio.

As usual, there will be tons of rad workshops and presentations–direct action, climbing, blockades, ecology walks, campaign strategy, local land and water struggles, and more—as well as plenty of time to chill and also to throw down and take action. We want art, theater, and all kinds of radical creativity to take center stage. There will be a kids space with workshops and activities for kids (like hatchet throwing and bug eating)!

On the eve of the 40th anniversary of the founding of Earth First!, it seems appropriate that the 2019 national gathering will take place near the site of the very first EF! Rondy, which was held near Moab, Utah in 1980. This year, we want the Rondy to be a space where we can honor the inspiring and instructive stories from our past, while building on the work done over the decades to challenge oppression within our often transient and ever changing movement community.

We are raising funds to offer travel support for Black, Brown, and Indigenous organizers and folks in frontline struggles for land and water defense, indigenous self-determination, migrant justice, prison/police abolition, and other work that puts the justice back in environmental justice and the war back in eco-war. As an organizing team, we hope the RRR can reflect and amplify the work we’ve done regionally to connect struggles and build power within and across identities, cultures, and communities. If you would like help with travel expenses, please get in touch and talk to us about it beforehand. We hope to be able to cover all requests, but we are a scrappy grassroots organizing crew doing the best we can with limited resources.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or contributions, please get in touch.

No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth!

Wild Roots Feral Futures 2016

(Don’t miss the coverage of last year’s event from Unicorn Riot!)

“The whole earth is in jail and we’re plotting this incredible jailbreak.”

Online fundraiser live!

We are very happy to announce that, for the 8th year running, the Wild Roots Feral Futures (WRFF) eco-defense, direct action, and rewilding encampment will take place in the forests of Southwest Colorado this coming June 18-26, 2016 (exact location to be announced). WRFF is an informal, completely free and non-commercial, and loosely organized camp-out operating on (less than a) shoe-string budget, formed entirely off of donated, scavenged, or liberated supplies and sustained through 100% volunteer effort. Though we foster a collective communality and pool resources, we also encourage general self-sufficiency, which lightens the burden on communal supplies, and which we find to be the very source and foundation of true mutual sharing and abundance.

We would like to begin by acknowledging that Wild Roots Feral Futures takes place on occupied/stolen indigenous territory, primarily of the Nuutsiu (occasionally spelled Nuciu or Nuchu, aka “Ute”) people, as well as Diné [“Navajo”], Apache, and others. In recognition of this reality and as a first step in confronting it, we seek to establish proactive working relationships with those whose stolen land we gather upon, and open the space we temporarily gather in to the centering and amplification of indigenous voices and struggles. Our understanding is that any community of resistance that doesn’t center the voices of indigenous people and put their leadership in the forefront is a movement that is part of the problem. [Read more here…]

We would like to invite groups and individuals engaged in struggles against the destruction of the Earth (and indeed all interconnected forms of oppression) to join us and share your stories, lessons, skills, and whatever else you may have to offer. In this spirit we would like to reach out to frontline community members, local environmental groups, coalitions, and alliances everywhere, as well as more readily recognizable groups like Earth First!, Rising Tide North America, and others to come collaborate on the future of radical environmentalism and eco-defense in our bio-regions and beyond.

We would also like to reach out to groups like EF!, RTNA, and the Ruckus Society (as well as other groups and individuals) in search of trainers and workshop facilitators who are willing to dedicate themselves to attending Wild Roots Feral Futures and sharing their skills and knowledge (in a setting that lacks the financial infrastructure to compensate them as they may have come to expect from other, more well-funded groups and events). We are specifically seeking direct action, blockade, tri-pod, and tree climbing/sitting trainers (as well as gear/supplies).

Regarding the rewilding and ancestral earth skills component of WRFF, we would like to extend a similar invitation to folks with skills, knowledge, talent, or specialization in these areas to join us in the facilitation of workshops and skill shares such as fire making, shelter building, edible and medicinal plants, stalking awareness, tool & implement making, etc. We are also seeking folks with less “ancestral” outdoor survival skills such as orienteering and navigation, etc.

Daily camp life, along with workshops, skill shares, great food, friends, and music, will also include the volunteer labor necessary to camp maintenance. Please come prepared to pitch in and contribute to the workload, according to your abilities. We encourage folks who would like to plug in further to show up a few days before the official start of the event to begin set-up and stay a few days after the official end to help clean up.

Site scouting will continue until early June, at which point scouts and other organizers will rendezvous, report-back their scouting recon, and come to a consensus regarding a site location. We are also planning on choosing a secondary, back-up site location as a contingency plan for various potential scenarios. Email us for more info on getting involved with scouting and site selection processes.

WRFF is timed to take place before the Earth First! Round River Rendezvous, allowing eco-defenders to travel from one to the other. Thus we encourage the formation of a caravan from WRFF to the EF! RRR (caravans and ride shares can be coordinated through our message board at feralfutures.proboards.com.

We are currently accepting donations in the form of supplies and/or monetary contributions. Please email us for details.

Please forward this call widely, spread the word, and stay tuned for more updates!

For The Wild,

~The Wild Roots Feral Futures organizers’ collective

Email: feralfutures(at)riseup(dot)net

For the sake of comprehensiveness, we are including below our original call-out as used in years past, which is a living document, changing and evolving as we ourselves learn and grow:

We are looking for folks of all sorts to join us and help facilitate workshops, talks, discussions, skill shares, direct action and medic trainings, wild food walks, conflict transformation, and much more! We will be focusing on many things, including but by no means limited to anarchist theory and praxis, unpacking privilege, decolonization, rewilding, ancestral skills, indigenous solidarity, direct action, forest defense, earth liberation, animal liberation, security culture, civil disobedience, hand to hand combat, survival skills, evasion tactics, green anarchism, anti-civ, post-civ, star watching and navigation, maps and orienteering, shelter building, permaculture, and whatever YOU care to bring and provide. But we need everyone’s help to make this as safe, positive, and productive a space as it can be. Our own knowledge, skills, and capacities are limited. We need YOUR help!

Black Mesa February Updates

From Black Mesa Indigenous Support

Greetings,

We hope that this finds you well and enjoying the winter months. We are writing with updates about Black Mesa, a new group Indigenous Youth for Cultural Survival, and BMIS.

From the Land:

On Monday January 4th Hopi Rangers and BIA Impounded 21 cattle on the so-called “Hopi Partition Land”. The cattle were of Betty, Billy, and Emerson Begay and Trudy Johnson’s herd.

From Trudy Johnson Begay:

“While we (my brother and I) were out looking for our cattle we found them on ‘HPL’ I proceeded to push them back over the fence on foot, to NPL. I had to walk about 200 yards when a Hopi Ranger (BIA) drive up and call me over to his vehicle. When I approached him, he asked ‘what are you doing?’ I answered I’m getting my cattle. He told me to leave the area because they were in the middle of impoundment in the area. He stated, ‘If you don’t leave you could be arrested for interfering with impoundment.’ (All this in a harsh and argumentative tone of voice). He insisted that the animals were trespassing and impounded twenty one of them. We are tired of this kind of harassment on our ancestral homeland.”

Please donate here to a fund dedicated to releasing impounded sheep and cattle from holding.

There is a fierce new Diné youth organizing project that is working on Black Mesa! They are called Indigenous Youth for Cultural Survival (IY4CS)–check out their statements:

Action Statement: Indigenous youth for cultural survival is currently a volunteer based collective led by young Diné and supporters. Our purpose is to empower indigenous youth through education, to reconnect to our traditional ways of life, and inspire action that addresses environmental and human rights issues, indigenous sovereignty, and the protection of sacred sites.

Vision statement: From inspiration within our own communities and resisting families of Black Mesa, we seek to protect Nímá Nahasdzáán (mother earth)  and regain Hózhó (harmony) within ké (kinship) relations.  With each passing generation, our traditional knowledge is being lost due to colonialism,genocide, and desecration of sacred sites. We remain resilient in the teachings passed down from our elders to maintain our cultural survival for the generations to come.

IY4CS is planning a cultural survival gathering this spring on Black Mesa. This will be a time focused on Diné youth connecting with Big Mountain elders and sharing cultural practices. Please help make this gathering happen by donating. You can donate to BMIS and designate IY4CS in the memo.

A word about BMIS. The BMIS collective is shifting roles and is once again focused primarily on running the volunteer sheepherder/human rights observer program.  We also will continue to fundraise for projects and gatherings on Black Mesa/Big Mountain, for IY4CS, and for impoundment funds, among other things.

Tree will continue to live in Virginia and come back and forth to Black Mesa with her family. Berkley will be back and forth between Flagstaff and Tucson as of early 2016. Liza and Derek recently had a baby and have just moved back east to Asbury Park, NJ and aim to be back on Black Mesa annually. Since we are no longer a locally-based collective, we are stepping back from organizing or co-organizing gatherings on the land and instead hope to move resources and help make connections between local organizers.  And we are thrilled to be able to work with and support the work of IY4CS as they are central to the future of this resistance!

A note about getting involved:

There are always requests for sheepherder / human rights observers, so fill out the registration form and get in touch.

Additionally, we are looking for collective members interested in helping with the volunteer sheepherder program, media/ social media updates, and fundraising. We are excited to support folks who want to organize their own small gatherings on Black Mesa by putting you in touch with community members and playing an advisory role with logistics, preparation, and political education. We will continue working to connect the larger network to community members for speaking engagements, attending protests, action camps, gatherings, etc.

Thanks!
The BMIS Collective: Berkley, Liza, Tree, & Derek

Black Mesa Indigenous Support (BMIS) is a currently non-Native all volunteer, grassroots collective committed to working with the resistance communities of Black Mesa/Big Mountain.

Fracking Boom Expands Near Chaco Canyon, Threatens Navajo Ancestral Lands and People

A group of Diné on the first day of a 200-mile walk through their ancestral homeland. (Photo: ©2015 Julie Dermansky)

By Julie Dermansky, DeSmogBlog

Beneath a giant methane gas cloud recently identified by NASA, the oil and gas fracking industry is rapidly expanding in northwestern New Mexico. Flares that light up the night sky at drilling sites along the stretch of Route 550 that passes through the San Juan Basin, which sits on top of the oil rich Mancos Shale, are tell-tale indicators of the fracking boom.

Much of the land being fracked belongs to the federal government. The rest is a mixture of state, private and Navajo Nation land.

The region is known to the Diné (Navajo) as Dinétah, the land of their ancestors.  It is home of the Bisti Badlands and Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a World Heritage Site.

Click here to read the full article…

Un-Fracking Believable: Smog in the Rural West

Drilling in the Uinta Basin near the town of Ouray. Drilling locations appear as bright spots and are connected by a network of roads and pipeline corridors. / Photo courtesy of Skytruth

By Robin Cooley, Earth Justice

The people living in the Uinta Basin in eastern Utah are the unwitting participants in a massive scientific experiment.  What happens when you put more than 11,000 oil and gas wells in a geologic basin and then seal off the air for days or weeks on end?  And the initial results are alarming—smog pollution that exceeds the federal standard set to protect public health by a whopping 89 percent.

During wintertime inversions, when cold air is trapped near the ground by warm air above, the Uinta Basin suffers from a thick blanket of smog that rivals Los Angeles on a bad day. In its recent State of the Air Report, the American Lung Association gave Uintah County an “F” for ozone pollution, the key ingredient of smog. Scientists have compared the effects of ozone pollution to getting a sunburn on your lungs. It is most harmful to children, seniors, and people with heart and lung problems.

In the Uinta Basin, fracking is the primary culprit. A recent study shows that oil and gas development in the Uinta Basin is responsible for smog-forming emissions (volatile organic compounds) that are equivalent to the amount coming out of the tailpipe of 100 million cars and trucks.

The EPA, the state of Utah, and the energy companies are spending millions to study the problem. The Utah Department of Health is also investigating after a local midwife raised concerns about a possible increase in infant death rates.

But studying this problem is not enough to protect people living and working in the Uinta Basin. EPA must take the steps necessary to ensure that the air is clean. In 2012, the EPA refused to designate the Uinta Basin as a “nonattainment area” for ozone, which would trigger the state’s obligation to develop a clean-up plan under the Clean Air Act. On October 21, 2014, Earthjustice went to federal court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment, WildEarth Guardians and Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, to argue that it is time for the EPA to stop dragging its feet and start protecting public health. Given the ongoing oil and gas boom in the Uinta Basin, there is no time to waste.