Climate Justices Means Respecting Indigenous Rights - 350.org Statement Supporting Wet'suwet'en Land Defenders

350.org stands in solidarity with the Hereditary Chiefs of the Wet'suwet'en Nation - along with allied Indigenous land defenders in Tyendinaga and beyond - in their assertion of Indigenous rights and title over their ancestral homelands. We condemn the police raids, colonial violence, and divisions being sown by the Canadian and BC government in pursuit of the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline.

The Canadian Supreme Court Delgamuukw decision tells us that rights and title to the lands through which the proposed Coastal Gaslink pipeline will cross are under the care and jurisdiction of Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs.

We denounce the actions of both Prime Minister Trudeau and Premier John Horgan. They have built their political legacies upon promises of reconciliation and climate leadership. Yet they are allowing the militarized Royal Canadian Mountain Police officers to enter unceded and unsurrendered Wet'suwet'en territory to enforce an illegal injunction. They have encouraged similar actions by the Ontario Provincial Police in Tyendinaga. These actions serve to protect the interests of the Coastal GasLink corporation over the collective rights of the Wet'suwet'en people who have been saying no to fracked gas and tar sands pipelines for over a decade, and over Indigenous rights more broadly.

The Government of Canada must honour its obligations to Indigenous Peoples enshrined in Article 35 of the Canadian Constitution and within the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Canada also has an obligation to the planet as a signatory to the Paris Climate Accord and thus we, as 350, unequivocally stand with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs who are not only protecting their lands, but all of us and our collective future. Climate justice means justice for Indigenous peoples everywhere.

Donate to the Wet'suwet'en Legal fund here, learn more about how to support and organize a solidarity action here.