Category: Wilderness Defence

Wilder­ness defence

Barton Moss: anti-fracking protest camp, Salford

Lat­est updates, wish list and direc­tions at http://northerngasgala.org.uk/

Lat­est updates, wish list and direc­tions at http://northerngasgala.org.uk/

Day 5: Sun 1st December

Day 6 - Huge banner

Day 5 of the North­ern Gas Gala sees the Bar­ton Moss Pro­tec­tion Camp con­tin­ue to grow.  A call out has been made by trade unions and local res­i­dents for a protest next Sun­day 8th Decem­ber (face­book event here).

Bar­ton Moss Protest Ral­ly - Sun­day 8th Decem­ber 2013. Assem­ble 12.30pm at Junc­tion Bar­ton Moss Road/Liverpool Road, Bar­ton, Eccles M30 7RL

Sup­port the Bar­ton Moss Pro­tec­tion Camp!  Sup­port the fight to stop frack­ing every­where!

Bring your own plac­ards and ban­ners.

Day 4: Sat 30th November

Day 4 - Mad Hatters Tea Party

The com­mu­ni­ty pro­tec­tion camp out­side IGas’s frack­ing site at Bar­ton Moss con­tin­ues to estab­lish itself with com­post toi­lets being built. Their was also a Mad Frack­ers Tea Par­ty and an impres­sive sun­set. The local com­mu­ni­ty is resist­ing the threat to their region with sup­port from across the coun­try.

 

Day 1: Wed 27th November

northern-gas-gala-day-1

The first day of the North­ern Gas Gala has seen a large num­ber of peo­ple answer the call out to pro­tect Bar­ton Moss (and the wider region) from the threat of posed by IGas’s plans. The brave Bar­ton Moss pro­tec­tors have been block­ing lor­ries from enter­ing the frack­ing site and four peo­ple (three of them Sal­ford res­i­dents) have been arrest­ed for pro­tect­ing their com­mu­ni­ty from frack­ing com­pa­ny IGas Ener­gy. The police pres­ence has been large and grow­ing.

The Inde­pen­dent: Bar­ton Moss: The lat­est front line in Britain’s uncon­ven­tion­al ener­gy rev­o­lu­tion against frack­ing

ITV news footage here: http://vimeo.com/80480970

BBC News footage here:

Victory for Elsipogtog on the Highway, While Battle Continues in Court

RCMP cars burn in retaliation for a violent raid on a First Nations blockade of pre-fracking testing equipment in Elsipogtog, New Brunswick, Oct 17, 2013Novem­ber 15th, Mi’kmaq demon­stra­tors declared “vic­to­ry

RCMP cars burn in retaliation for a violent raid on a First Nations blockade of pre-fracking testing equipment in Elsipogtog, New Brunswick, Oct 17, 2013Novem­ber 15th, Mi’kmaq demon­stra­tors declared “vic­to­ry” Thurs­day after stop­ping thumper trucks belong­ing to a Hous­ton-based ener­gy com­pa­ny from con­duct­ing shale gas explo­ration north of Elsi­pog­tog First Nation.

While about 100 Mi’kmaq and sup­port­ers faced a line of RCMP offi­cers as SWN Resources Canada’s thumper trucks idled in the back­ground, the Elsi­pog­tog band coun­cil was 200 kilo­me­tres away in a Fred­er­ic­ton court­room seek­ing an ex parteinjunc­tion to stop SWN from con­tin­u­ing the explo­ration work. A hear­ing on the injunc­tion is set for Fri­day.

On Hwy 11 ten­sions ran high as Mi’kmaq demon­stra­tors from Elsi­pog­tog and oth­er com­mu­ni­ties along with non-First Nations sup­port­ers tried to block SWN from oper­at­ing their thumper trucks while the RCMP tried to inter­vene. SWN even­tu­al­ly decid­ed to turn the trucks around with plans for anoth­er attempt expect­ed Fri­day.

A well-known Elsi­pog­tog frack­ing oppo­nent Lor­raine Clair was arrest­ed dur­ing the protest for mis­chief, assault a police offi­cer and resist­ing arrest, accord­ing to New Brunswick RCMP.

 

Still, spir­its were high among peo­ple from Elsi­pog­tog who watched SWN’s trucks roll away as dusk began to set.

“It is a small vic­to­ry, but a vic­to­ry nonethe­less,” said Bren­nan Sock, from Elsi­pog­tog. “We will take any­thing right now. We got the trucks to leave, we man­aged to slow them down as much as we can.”

T’uma Bernard, a Mi’kmaq War­rior from Prince Edward Island, said he saw renewed uni­ty among the demon­stra­tors.

“It was a great vic­to­ry, it was a great day,” said Bernard.

RCMP spokesper­son Con­st. Jul­lie Rogers-Marsh said there were acts of van­dal­ism through­out the day that are under inves­ti­ga­tion.

“A truck belong­ing to a pri­vate com­pa­ny work­ing in the area and sev­er­al pieces of equip­ment were dam­aged,” said Rogers-Marsh.

She said the RCMP had video of “some­body wear­ing a mask” pulling up geo­phones along Hwy 11. Rogers-Marsh there “also threats of ille­gal acts.”

Rogers-Marsh said the police offi­cers are there to main­tain pub­lic safe­ty.

“Being safe and peace­ful and law­ful is very impor­tant and we are in the area con­tin­u­ing to mon­i­tor the sit­u­a­tion,” said Rogers-Marsh. “Our role is pub­lic safe­ty and we are there to pro­tect every­one.”

Thumper trucks inter­act with geo­phones, which are strung along the ground, to cre­ate imagery of shale gas deposits under­ground.

In Fred­er­ic­ton, the Elsi­pog­tog band was seek­ing an injunc­tion to stop SWN argu­ing “out­side rad­i­cal ele­ments” were con­verg­ing “in sig­nif­i­cant num­bers” as a result of the company’s con­tin­u­ing shale gas explo­ration.

The band’s fil­ing said mil­i­tary forces are at play on the police side of the oper­a­tion and warned a repeat of the Oct. 17 raid in Rex­ton, NB., by RCMP tac­ti­cal units is loom­ing.

“The cir­cum­stances com­bine to cre­ate a very real dan­ger that, as active seis­mic explo­ration is recom­menced in the com­ing hours and days, out­side rad­i­cal ele­ments, the respon­dent SWN and the RCMP, oth­er police and even mil­i­tary forces, all inter­act so as to cause a repeat esca­la­tion of the unac­cept­able and dan­ger­ous events that took place in Rex­ton,” said the fil­ing.

The fil­ing also names provin­cial Ener­gy Min­is­ter Craig Leonard and the Assem­bly of First Nations Chiefs in New Brunswick (AFNCNB).

The fil­ing argues that the province failed in its duty to con­sult and that the AFNCNB, which Elsi­pog­tog gave author­i­ty to con­sult on its behalf, failed in its respon­si­bil­i­ty by “inac­tion and inad­e­quate engage­ment.”

AFNCNB’s lawyer Mike Scul­ly has told APTN Nation­al News that the province set the terms of the con­sul­ta­tion and the AFNCNB had to act with­in those lim­it­ed para­me­ters.

While the band lead­er­ship will con­tin­ue its legal bat­tle in the court­room Fri­day, the grass­roots are vow­ing to be back on the pave­ment with their bod­ies to stop the thumpers.

“Nobody is going nowhere, they can’t bul­ly us and use force tac­tics against the peo­ple of the land,” said Bernard.

Sock said peo­ple would be out all night keep­ing a watch­ful eye.

“We have a lot of peo­ple who are ded­i­cat­ed and will be out there all night to make sure they don’t come back,” said Sock.

Indigenous Petro-Struggles

stop fracking indigenous 12th Novem­ber

stop fracking indigenous 12th Novem­ber

Another Elsipogtog Showdown Brewing

SWN Resources Cana­da is plan­ning to resume its con­tro­ver­sial shale gas seis­mic explo­ration work on Wednes­day, accord­ing to Elsi­pog­tog War Chief John Levi. …

Levi said Con­nors told the peo­ple that SWN would with­draw a law­suit against sev­er­al com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers if the Hous­ton-based firm was allowed to fin­ish its explo­ration work unim­ped­ed.

“We said no, we are going to be there,” said Levi, in an inter­view with APTN Nation­al News. “What we told him was we are going to be there Wednes­day.”

Ponca Families Challenge TransCanada

Key­stone XL pipeline oppo­nents took to a Neligh rancher’s land Sat­ur­day, protest­ing the pro­pos­al they say cuts through the his­toric Pon­ca Trail of Tears and pos­es a steep envi­ron­men­tal risk. Pon­ca trib­al fam­i­lies, Oceti Sakowin tribes, Brave Heart Soci­ety, Bold Nebras­ka, and oth­ers — host­ed the Pon­ca Trail of Tears Spir­i­tu­al Camp, the first in a series of trib­al events aimed at show­cas­ing sol­i­dar­i­ty among ranch­ers and Native Amer­i­cans against TransCanada’s project.

Mining Resistance Stories

Anti-fracking protesters on the Seaway International Bridge at Akwesasne, Mohawk territory, Nov 9, 2013.

Anti

Anti-fracking protesters on the Seaway International Bridge at Akwesasne, Mohawk territory, Nov 9, 2013.

Anti-frack­ing pro­test­ers on the Sea­way Inter­na­tion­al Bridge at Akwe­sasne, Mohawk ter­ri­to­ry, Nov 9, 2013.

Akwesasne Anti-fracking Protest Briefly Closes Seaway International Bridge

OTTAWA — The Sea­way Inter­na­tion­al Bridge between Corn­wall and the U.S. was closed for about an hour Sat­ur­day as First Nations pro­test­ers staged an “infor­ma­tion march” in oppo­si­tion to hydraulic frack­ing gas extrac­tion process­es.

First Nations Granted Delay On Shell’s Tar Sands Project

Ear­li­er this week  the Cana­di­an Envi­ron­men­tal Assess­ment Agency (CEAA) announced that a fed­er­al deci­sion on Shell Oil’s Jack­pine Mine Expan­sion, a 100,000 bar­rel per day open pit tar sands mine expan­sion, would be delayed an addi­tion­al 35 days.  At the heart of this deci­sion is the Athabas­ca Chipewyan First Nation who has been speak­ing out against the project since day one cit­ing a vari­ety of con­cerns relat­ing to treaty and abo­rig­i­nal rights as well as  direct and cumu­la­tive envi­ron­men­tal impacts.

Colombia: Mine Opponents Assassinated

Cesar Gar­cía, a campesino leader who opposed the min­ing oper­a­tions of Angl­o­Gold Ashan­ti at La Colosa in the cen­tral Colom­bian depart­ment of Toli­ma, was assas­si­nat­ed Nov. 2 by an unknown gun­man as he worked his small farm at the vere­da (ham­let) of Cajón la Leona. Sup­port­ers said he had been tar­get­ed for his work with the Envi­ron­men­tal Campesino Com­mit­tee of Caja­mar­ca, the local munic­i­pal­i­ty. In a state­ment, the Net­work of Toli­ma Envi­ron­men­tal and Campesino Com­mit­tees said the Caja­mar­ca group had been “stig­ma­tized as ene­mies of progress in the region,” and false­ly linked to the gueril­la move­ment.

 

La Parota Opponent Charged With Terrorism

The Land is Not for Sale! A community in resistance to La Parota dam.

The Land is Not for Sale!

The Land is Not for Sale! A community in resistance to La Parota dam.

The Land is Not for Sale! A com­mu­ni­ty in resis­tance to La Paro­ta dam.

11th Novem­ber

In line with recent state­ments indi­cat­ing a resump­tion of efforts to force through the con­struc­tion of La Paro­ta Dam, the Mex­i­can gov­ern­ment has also launched a new cam­paign of repres­sion against the dam’s oppo­nents.

First, dam oppo­nents warned of increas­ing para­mil­i­tary activ­i­ty in the region. Then came word that the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to relo­cate entire vil­lages to ham­string the oppo­si­tion to the dam. Now Mar­co Anto­nio Suástegui Muñoz, spokesper­son for the Coun­cil of Eji­dos and Com­mu­ni­ties in Oppo­si­tion to La Paro­ta Dam (CECOP), said the state gov­ern­ment of Guer­rero has issued a war­rant for his arrest on false charges of ter­ror­ism, kid­nap­ping and “attacks on fed­er­al roads.” He denounced these as bla­tant acts of repres­sion relat­ed to his orga­niz­ing work against La Paro­ta.

Suástegui told a CECOP assem­bly that police set up three sep­a­rate road­blocks in an attempt to detain him, with orders to imme­di­ate­ly trans­port him to the max­i­mum secu­ri­ty prison in Tepic, Nayarit. Suástegui was forced to change vehi­cles to evade the road­blocks and reach the assem­bly.

In recent months, Suástegui said, he has been threat­ened by rank­ing state offi­cial Hum­ber­to Sal­ga­do Gómez. “Sal­ga­do Gómez told me: calm your­self, or we’ll put you in jail. Bad peo­ple are watch­ing you. Either we put you in jail, or your life ends,” he said.

Suástegui accused Guer­rero Gov­er­nor Ángel Aguirre Rivero of vio­lat­ing the 2012 Cac­ahu­ate­pec Agree­ment, which com­mit­ted him to cease crim­i­nal­iz­ing or using force against oppo­nents of La Paro­ta dam, and to seek a meet­ing with Mex­i­can Pres­i­dent Enrique Peña Nieto and inform him that La Paro­ta dam will not be approved.

Suástegui also said that in spite of the war­rant, he will remain in his home vil­lage. “If the gov­ern­ment wants to come for me, I will not leave my pueblo [village/community/people]. We will wait for them, ladies and gen­tle­men.”

 

Fierce Infrastructure Battles in Peru

 Indigenous protesters march against Minas Conga mine in defense of their water and lands8th Novem­ber Indige­nous pro­test­ers m
 Indigenous protesters march against Minas Conga mine in defense of their water and lands8th Novem­ber Indige­nous pro­test­ers march against Minas Con­ga mine in defense of their water and lands

Cajamarca: Conga occupation not moved

Campesinos from some 40 pueb­los across Celendín province, in Peru’s north­ern region of Caja­mar­ca, held a meet­ing at Huas­mín vil­lage Oct. 23 to announce a cross-coun­try march that would arrive in mid-Novem­ber at the planned site of the Con­ga gold mine, where marchers would join the encamp­ment that has been estab­lished there [for almost two years]. … (Servin­di, Oct. 25; Celendin Libre, Oct. 23)

Comuneros (com­mu­nal peas­ants) in Celendín’s Yagén pueblo, Corte­gana dis­trict, weeks ear­li­er announced their readi­ness to resist the Chadín II hydro-elec­tric project, to be built by Brazil­ian firm Ode­brecht in the head­wa­ters of the Río Marañón, a major trib­u­tary of the Amazon—with much of of the ener­gy gen­er­at­ed slat­ed for local min­ing oper­a­tions. In a state­ment, the Defense Front for the Inter­ests of Pueblo Yagén said they would reject the “canon” of funds offered to local com­mu­ni­ties for devel­op­ment of the project in their area. The state­ment also reject­ed offers of new roads for local com­mu­ni­ties, say­ing they would only facil­i­tate  the despoil­ing of their lands by Odebrecht’s heavy equip­ment. … The state­ment closed with the slo­gan: “Nei­ther Con­ga nor Chadín! Respect the peo­ple!” (Celendin Libre, Sept. 30)

Read the full sto­ry.

Cuzco: unrest over water mega-diversion

In a pop­u­lar assem­bly Nov. 6, res­i­dents of Espinar vil­lage in Peru’s Cuz­co region declared them­selves on a “war foot­ing,” pledigng to resist immi­nent con­struc­tion of the Majes Siguas II irri­ga­tion mega-project, which would divert water from indige­nous com­mu­ni­ties in the high­lands to agribusi­ness inter­ests on the coast. … Lat­er that day, Espinar’s may­or Oscar Mol­lo­huan­ca announced that some 100 police troops had attacked local vil­lagers at Urin­saya in Copo­raque dis­trict, beat­ing five. The where­abouts of one vil­lager has been unknown since the attack. … (Radio Uni­ver­sal, RPP, Nov. 6)

Read the full sto­ry.

Peru: government ultimatum to illegal miners

Peru’s gov­ern­ment has issued an “ulti­ma­tum” to small-scale arti­sanal min­ers in south­ern Puno region, say­ing that if they do not remove their dredges and oth­er equip­ment from the water­sheds of the Ramis and Such­es rivers (which both flow into Lake Tit­i­ca­ca), they will be dyna­mit­ed. …

The state­ment fol­lows weeks of protests by infor­mal min­ers in sev­er­al regions of the coun­try, demand­ing “for­mal­iza­tion” of their claims. A clash with Nation­al Police troops was report­ed Oct. 2 from a min­er road­block at Hua­machu­co, La Lib­er­tad region. The Region­al Fed­er­a­tion of Arti­sanal Min­ers and Small Pro­duc­ers of La Lib­er­atd (FREMARLIB) said two min­ers were killed in the con­fronta­tion, and sev­er­al wound­ed and detained.

Read the full sto­ry.

 

Mi’kmaq Warrior Society Members Beaten in Jail

1378041_10151948903995923_196279515_n1st Novem­ber

1378041_10151948903995923_196279515_n1st Novem­ber

Two mem­bers of the Mi’kmaq War­rior Soci­ety say they were roughed up and beat­en by RCMP offi­cers and jail guards after they were arrest­ed fol­low­ing a heav­i­ly-armed raid on a Mi’kmaq led anti-frack­ing camp in New Brunswick ear­li­er this month.

Jason Augus­tine, War­rior Soci­ety dis­trict chief, said he was kicked in the head by an RCMP offi­cer after he was cuffed and arrest­ed dur­ing the Oct. 17 raid.

Augus­tine said he was lat­er diag­nosed with a con­cus­sion at the hos­pi­tal in Monc­ton, NB.

“I was kicked in the head three times when I was tak­en down,” said Augus­tine. “I wasn’t resist­ing arrest, I had my hands behind my back, and this one RCMP start­ed bash­ing my head in.”

Augus­tine said he was nod­ding-off while he was held in one of the cells with oth­er war­riors at the Codi­ac RCMP detach­ment in Monc­ton. He claimed his head was hit against the wall as he was being tak­en to the ambu­lance.

“One of the guys called the guards up and said I need­ed an ambu­lance,” said Augus­tine. “The RCMP picked me up, they roughed me up and hit my head against the wall when they were tak­ing me to the hos­pi­tal.”

 

David Maze­rolle, anoth­er War­rior Soci­ety mem­ber, claimed in a YouTube video that Aaron Fran­cis was beat­en while hand­cuffed as he was being tak­en to a cell at the South East Region­al Cor­rec­tion Cen­tre in She­di­ac, NB.

Augus­tine and Maze­rolle, who were released from cus­tody last Fri­day, both said they were denied use of the tele­phone.

Augus­tine said all six of the war­riors kept in cus­tody fol­low­ing the raid were put into soli­tary con­fine­ment.

An offi­cial at the cor­rec­tion cen­tre referred queries on the alle­ga­tions to New Brunswick’s Pub­lic Safe­ty depart­ment. The depart­ment did not return tele­phoned and emailed requests for com­ment.

RCMP spokesper­son Con­st. Jul­lie Rogers-Marsh said she would look into the issue before pro­vid­ing a response.

A total of 40 peo­ple were arrest­ed the day of the raid which spi­ralled into chaos after mem­bers of the Elsi­pog­tog First Nation clashed with police.

The RCMP raid, which includ­ed tac­ti­cal unit mem­bers wear­ing cam­ou­flage and wield­ing assault weapons, freed sev­er­al vehi­cles owned by a Hous­ton-based com­pa­ny doing shale gas explo­ration work in the region. The anti-frack­ing camp was block­ing SWN Resources Canada’s trucks from leav­ing a com­pound in Rex­ton, NB.

Augus­tine and Maze­rolle face sev­er­al charges includ­ing forcible con­fine­ment, mis­chief, assault­ing a peace offi­cer and escap­ing law­ful cus­tody.

Augus­tine also denied RCMP alle­ga­tions that the war­riors forcibly con­fined secu­ri­ty guards employed by Indus­tri­al Secu­ri­ties Ltd in the com­pound hold­ing SWN’s vehi­cles.

Augus­tine said the secu­ri­ty guards were escort­ed by the RCMP at the begin­ning and end of their shifts.

“They were not held unlaw­ful­ly,” he said. “They stayed there until their shift changes.”

Augus­tine also denied RCMP alle­ga­tions that the war­riors uttered death threats or bran­dished weapons at the secu­ri­ty guards.

“There were no death threats, we had nobody in con­fine­ment and we had no weapons,” he said.

The RCMP held a press con­fer­ence fol­low­ing the raid where they dis­played three rifles and ammu­ni­tion seized dur­ing the raid. The RCMP said offi­cers also found crude explo­sive devices.

Augus­tine claimed the guns and explo­sives were plant­ed after the raid.

“I do believe they were plant­ed, they knew we want­ed peace,” said Augus­tine. “They had a one track mind to hurt the war­rior soci­ety.”

Augus­tine said the war­riors were pre­pared to nego­ti­ate the release of SWN’s vehi­cles.

“They kept telling me, ‘we just want the trucks out’ and I said I was going to our War Chief to tell him to get the trucks out,” said Augus­tine.

Augus­tine said he was shot four times by RCMP offi­cers using bean-bag rounds.

He said two RCMP offi­cers pre­sent­ed the war­riors with tobac­co bun­dles the night before the raid.

Augus­tine said his main defence against the charges will be to demand a hear­ing before an inter­na­tion­al court.

“Under our treaty laws we have to go to inter­na­tion­al court,” said Augus­tine. “We can’t be under the Crown because we are not under the Indi­an Act, we are treaty peo­ple.”

Since spring 2013, RCMP in New Brunswick arrest­ed 82 peo­ple in con­nec­tion with anti-frack­ing relat­ed protests

Rising Tide Protests TD Bank in Seattle

1422435_727576977270701_442586150_n31st Octo­ber Our friends with Ris­ing Tide Seat­tle and South Soun

1422435_727576977270701_442586150_n31st Octo­ber Our friends with Ris­ing Tide Seat­tle and South Sound Ris­ing Tide arrived at a TD Bank office with a 35-foot-long mock pipeline and a funer­al pro­ces­sion to demand they stop bankrolling the Key­stone XL and tar sands extrac­tion.

TD Bank is one of the largest share­hold­ers in the Alber­ta Tar Sands, and was also protest­ed by Ris­ing Tide Philly ear­li­er this year.

After the TD Bank office, they marched to the fed­er­al build­ing to put Pres­i­dent Oba­ma on notice; they have pledged to resist along with over 80,000 peo­ple orga­nized by The Oth­er 98%,CREDO Mobile and Rain­for­est Action Net­work.

Protesters Block Miners from Coromandel Harbour

6n_coromandel_301013

6n_coromandel_301013

30th Octo­ber New Zealand – A group of Coro­man­del pro­test­ers are cur­rent­ly blockad­ing the town’s har­bour in an attempt to stop Sea Hold­ings from tak­ing sam­ples.

The area is part of Sched­ule 4, where the Gov­ern­ment gave con­sent for min­er­al prospect­ing ear­li­er this year, despite promis­ing in 2010 no min­ing would be allowed.

Green MP Cather­ine Delahunty is at the “peace­ful protest”, tweet­ing: “Min­ers have head­ed back to motel try­ing to work how to get around Coro­man­del com­mu­ni­ty but it’s not work­ing!”.

The Gov­ern­ment had orig­i­nal­ly pro­posed min­er­al explo­ration in 7000ha of con­ser­va­tion land in the Coro­man­del, Great Bar­ri­er Island and Paparoa Nation­al Park.

How­ev­er, the Gov­ern­ment did a U‑turn in 2010 and said it will not remove any land from Sched­ule 4 for min­ing pur­pos­es.

But, in March this year it issued eight con­sents to prospect and explore for coal and oth­er min­er­als in Coro­man­del and Paparoa Nation­al Park.

 

Unist’ot’en Camp Site of Late Night Bombing

Banners at the Unist’ot’en camp, 2012.

29th Octo­ber

Banners at the Unist’ot’en camp, 2012.

29th Octo­ber

An attempt to destroy the main Unist’ot’en sign with a home-made explo­sive accel­er­ant occurred last night at approx­i­mate­ly 10:20 p.m.

The Unist’ot’en camp locat­ed around 70 kilo­me­tres south of Hous­ton has been in place since 2010 in response to pro­posed pipelines such as Enbridge’s North­ern Gate­way and Pacif­ic Trails’ liq­uid nat­ur­al gas line.

Last night indi­vid­u­als liv­ing at the camp heard what sound­ed like a gun­shot and they imme­di­ate­ly took steps to make sure they were pro­tect­ing them­selves.

“We were in the main cab­in and a soon as we heard the bang we shut off our lights, grabbed firearms, went out­side and fired a warn­ing shot,” Togh­estiy (Warn­er Naziel) said.

Togh­estiy inves­ti­gat­ed the scene on the north side of the bridge where he could see fire burn­ing. He found a few can­is­ters of ‘accel­er­ant’ bound togeth­er with bright green sur­vey­or tape and a long trail of ‘accel­er­ant’ lead­ing north along the road away from the bridge, which was used to reach the can­is­ters, he said.

 

“When I was approach­ing the site I could see head­lights head­ing away from the bridge,” Togh­estiy said.

The Unist’ot’en have renewed the tra­di­tion­al pro­to­col of free, pri­or and informed con­sent in regards to access­ing Unist’ot’en ter­ri­to­ry for any rea­son.

To accom­plish the pro­to­col a soft block­ade has been employed on a bridge cross­ing the Morice Riv­er, where every per­son wish­ing to enter Unist’ot’en land has to answer ques­tions. One such ques­tion is: How will your vis­it ben­e­fit the Unist’ot’en? Fail­ure to give sat­is­fac­to­ry answers gives the Unist’ot’en grounds to pre­vent access for what­ev­er pur­pose sought.

One group of young men from the Hous­ton area have report­ed­ly tak­en issue with the Unist’ot’en pro­to­col, Fre­da Huson, Unist’ot’en mem­ber and res­i­dent of the camp, said.

“A group com­plained to the RCMP about our pro­to­col,” Huson said, but she’s not sure if it’s the same group respon­si­ble for last night’s event.

RCMP have yet to inves­ti­gate the scene.

A hunter from the Tum­bler Ridge area, who answered the pro­to­col ques­tions prop­er­ly, shared that he heard a group of young men were angri­ly talk­ing about the Unist’ot’en and the group claimed they were going to ‘do some­thing about it’, Huson said.

“It may have been the peo­ple who honked at the bridge but didn’t wait for us to come ask the pro­to­col ques­tions,” Huson said. “I believe it’s the same group that destroyed our sign at the 44 kilo­me­tre mark.”

The Unist’ot’en are ask­ing any­one with infor­ma­tion about who is respon­si­ble for last nights events to please con­tact the Hous­ton RCMP at 250–845-2204.