The Indigenous Peoples Working Group was established by NGOs attending the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference and the Indigenous Peoples Forum in May 2005. The working group serves as a forum for the exchange of information, research and news on nuclear issues affecting indigenous communities across the globe. It is an effort to make visible the work of indigenous activists, communities and groups advocating for a more just, sustainable and nuclear free world.
The Navajo Nation’s Ongoing Battle Against Uranium Mining
The report looks at the ongoing battle over uranium mining in the Navajo Nation. Mining has occurred on Navajo territory for over fifty years and the impact is still being felt. Includes interviews with the directors of the Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining and the Southwest Research and Information Center.
Bush refuses to give Bikini victims more money
Report Evaluating the Request of the Government of the Republic of the Marshall Islands Presented to the Congress of the United States of America.
From the Islands to the Ozarks
A new program for National Public Radio (NPR) details the nuclear leagcy of the Marshall Islands and how the ripples of those Cold War tests are being felt in northwest Arkansas. With interviews and Marshallese music, producer Jacqueline Froelich presents a concise history of nuclear testing in the islands, and the disease and displacement that followed. Tony deBrum of the Lolelaplap Trust, and a former Republic of the Marshall Islands’ Minister, describes the horror of the BRAVO shot and the lasting impact of the tests. Marshallese Northwest Arkansas leaders Carmen S. Chong Gum and Lumon Benjamin relate why over 6,000 Marshallese have moved to Arkansas and their unique position as nuclear testing survivors.
LISTEN: NPR’s Living on Earth Website
VIEW: Album – U.S. Nuclear Detonations in the Marshall Islands
The Nuclear History of Micronesia and the Pacific
Report by Richard N. Salvador, Republic of Belau, August 1999
Nuclear Risk Management for Native Communities
The Nuclear Risk Management for Native Communities is a project to strengthen community-based capabilities in addressing and managing the environmental health impacts of nuclear contamination. Now in its 7th year it has projects at three sites:
1) Southern Paiute and Western Shoshone communities affected by fallout from nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site; 2) Cherokee and other Native American communities in the vicinity of the Sequoyah Fuels nuclear fuels facility; 3) The Village of Paguate in Laguna Pueblo in close proximity to the Jackpile open pit uranium mine.
The Rarotonga Treaty for a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone
The Rarotonga Treaty for a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone was forged in the 1980s as an expression of Pacific peoples’ opposition to nuclear testing and the growing nuclear arms race. Protocols of the treaty prohibit the use, or threat of use, of any nuclear devices within the treaty zone. The treaty also prohibits the testing of nuclear weapons within the zone. It represented the first significant arms control agreement in the South Pacific region and provided a symbolic and practical precedent for other regions.
Southwest Research and Information Center
Southwest Research and Information Center is a multi-cultural organization working to promote the health of people and communities, protect natural resources, ensure citizen participation, and secure environmental and social justice now and for future generations. SRIC provides various services — technical assistance, networking, public information, policy analysis, environmental analysis, and skills development and integrates them into five active, ongoing programs: Uranium Impact Assessment Program; Community Development and Economics; Energy and Natural Resources; Environmental Information and Education; Nuclear Waste Safety.
Talking Straight Out – Stories from the Irati Wanti campaign
In February 1998 the Federal Government announced its plan to build a national radioactive waste dump in the South Australian desert. In March a council of senior Aboriginal women from Coober Pedy, the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, made an announcement of their own. We say no radioactive waste dump in our ngurain our country. For six years the women traveled the country, talking straight out. They called their campaign Irati Wantithe poison leave it. They explained, they demanded, they marched and sang. They told of extraordinary personal histories. They worked with greenies and wrote passionate letters to politicians. They won. Now they want to share their stories with you.
Funding Opportunities
Environmental Justice: Partnerships for Communication
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
The primary objective of this program is to establish methods for linking members of a community, who are directly affected by adverse environmental conditions, with researchers and health care providers. (Grants for groups/projects based in the USA)
Honor the Earth
Grants available to Native Groups/Organizations working in one of Honor the Earth’s three program areas: environmental justice; building sustainable communities; nuclear waste/safe clean energy.
Organizations
Australian Aboriginal Groups
Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action
The Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action (FAIRA) is a community organization owned and managed by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation
Organization established by the Mirrar, an Aboriginal clan located in the Kakadu region, Northern Territory, Australia. Uranium mining has operated on Mirrar land for the last 20 years. The Mirrar oppose the development of the proposed Jabiluka mine in Kakadu, Northern Territory, Australia.
Irati Wanti
Campaign organized by the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, the Senior Aboriginal Women of Coober Pedy, South Australia to oppose a government proposed radioactive waste dump.
North American Indian Groups
Eastern Navajo Dine Against Uranium Mining – Concerned Citizens of T’iistsooz-Nideeshgizh
ENDAUM-CCT, is a citizens group representing two Navajo communities. These two communities, Crownpoint and Churchrock, New Mexico, are threatened by a proposed uranium mining project that could contaminate the only source of drinking water for 15,000 people.
Honor the Earth
Honor the Earth creates awareness and support for Native environmental issues and develops needed financial and political resources for the survival of sustainable Native communities. Honor the Earth develops these resources by using music, the arts, the media, and Indigenous wisdom to ask people to recognize our joint dependency on the Earth and be a voice for those not heard.
Indigenous Environmental Network
A network of Indigenous Peoples empowering Indigenous Nations and communities towards sustainable livelihoods, demanding environmental justice and maintaining the Sacred Fire of our traditions.
Shundahai Network – USA
Shundahai Network is a nonprofit organization dedicated to breaking the nuclear chain by building alliances with indigenous communities and environmental, peace and human rights movements. The group formed at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site in 1994, by a council of long-term nuclear disarmament activists, at the request of Corbin Harney, a Western Shoshone Spiritual Leader.
Pacific Islander Groups
Pacific Concerns Resource Centre
The Pacific Concerns Resource Centre Inc. (PCRC) serves as the secretariat for the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) Movement. Based in Suva, Fiji Islands, we act for over 100 affiliated non-government and community organizations from around the Pacific.
Motarilavoa Hilda Lini
Director
Pacific Concerns Resource Centre PCRC
83 Amy Street, Toorak
Private Mail Bag
Suva, Fiji Islands
Phone: (679) 3304 649
Fax: (679) 3304 755
E-mail: hildalini2004@hotmail.com
Les Malezer
Chairperson
Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action
PO Box 8402
Woolloongabba, QLD 4102
AUSTRALIA
Phone: 61-7-3391-4677
Fax: 61-7-3391-4551
E-mail: les.malezer@faira.org.au
Pamela Meidell
Director
The Atomic Mirror/Earth Trust Foundation
Reflecting and Transforming our Nuclear World through the Arts.
P.O. Box 220
Port Hueneme, CA 93044-0220
Phone: (805) 985-3241
Fax: (805) 985-7563
E-mail: pamela@atomicmirror.org