Great Grandmother Arrested for Trying to Protect Wilderness

This just came to my attention from Daniel Mosquin, who works at the UBC Botanical Garden and administers the Botany Photo of the Day. When I read this article, it made me sad that even in Canada the First Nations people are being driven from their traditional, sacred lands as they are so often in the US. I know it's a long way up north, but I thought immediately of you and your Raging Grannies, Mom ... would this be something your group would be interested in doing something about? Wouldn't it be a great thing if your group went up to the Stikine River to join this band of people trying to save their sacred land? It would sure be an adventure...

Here is part of the article about this great-grandmother who was arrested while protesting. It reminded me of you, Mom. The photos are from the protest/blockade at the Sacred Headwaters website

BCMetals Corp. believes the Red Chris mine in northern B.C. contains almost a million tonnes of copper and 1.2 million ounces of gold. But Tahltan elder and great-grandmother Lillian Moyer, 67, who was arrested Saturday, says the proposed open-pit operation south of Dease Lake would violate sacred ground, threaten traditional hunting land and ruin fisheries.

“The land means so much to our people,” Moyer said yesterday. “We don’t want to see any development up there because it is sacred land. I am doing what I can, with great feelings in my heart, to stick up for our rights and for the land, for the future generations of young children.”

Members of the Tahltan set up a road blockade June 16 to keep BCMetals from driving heavy equipment through a fish-spawning creek. On Sept. 1, the company’s application in B.C. Supreme Court for an injunction to remove the protesters was granted.

Moyer said she visited the blockade Friday night and learned that anyone arrested for violating the injunction would be prohibited from entering traditional hunting grounds on the Todagin Plateau, the site of the planned mine.

“I was listening to all this and I said, ‘This doesn’t sound right. Why are we being threatened about our own traditional land that we want to protect?’”

Natives spend a month a year camped on the plateau, hunting, Moyer said.