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00:00Since 1997, when Canada's highest court first recognized the rights of Indigenous people
00:05to their own lands, it's been an up-and-down struggle for those who want to lay claim to
00:12those ancestral lands, particularly in parts that are rich in oil and gas.
00:19Well, we're going to be speaking in this edition with two activists who are the stars of a
00:26Netflix documentary, Yinta, now out on Netflix.
00:31Molly Wickham, thank you for being with us.
00:34And Freda Hudson, you're both from the, I hope I get this right, the Wet'suwet'en First Nation
00:41of Western Canada.
00:43Thank you for joining us.
00:44Thanks for having us.
00:46So there's the law and there's what happens in practice.
00:52You fought an uphill battle to stop one pipeline and you say that more are being built.
00:58There are several more gas and oil pipelines that are proposed through our territory.
01:04But under Wet'suwet'en law, all of the hereditary chiefs, our traditional governance system
01:08has opposed all pipelines through our territory.
01:13We see in the documentary how you've got brave arrests.
01:17You face off against the governments, governments from both sides of the political aisle, you
01:24might say.
01:26Is it just that the power of oil money is just too big?
01:32I believe their powers that be, even though we went through a Supreme Court decision that
01:38the land is still ours, they choose to ignore it in the name of money, profits.
01:45So they still push their projects, even though we don't want them.
01:50There's been a lot of talk around the documentary.
01:54And it's something that's sparked notice, particularly in these times when there's a
02:00kind of rolling back, a pushback against trying to stop oil and gas, both for native land
02:11rights, but also for environmental rights.
02:17What are your thoughts on the moment we're in?
02:20Is it a time where those that are in favor of protecting those ancestral lands are on
02:28the back foot?
02:31I believe that we, our generation, has realized that we can't sit idle anymore or we'll be
02:40telling used to be stories.
02:42We used to have salmon.
02:44We used to have moose, because all of these destructive industries that are destroying
02:49the water, the land, which the wildlife depend on and which we depend on, we don't want to
02:55be telling used to be stories.
02:58And that is why my generation is standing up, because we see more and more of our land
03:04being just totally destroyed and very little left for us to utilize.
03:09Sally Wickham, tell us about what it's like right now back home in terms of today versus
03:1510 or 20 years ago.
03:17Well, our territories were very pristine.
03:21We have a lot of animals that culturally our people depend on, the salmon, the moose, the
03:26berries, the medicines.
03:28And so nowadays, all of our animals have been impacted.
03:32We used to drink the water right out of the river.
03:34That water was providing to Gitimden clan and to the Unist'ot'en and all of the villages.
03:40Now we have to filter it.
03:42Often it's dark brown chocolate color with the sediment and the runoff.
03:46So there's been huge impacts on the environment in our territory already.
03:51And that's just with the construction of one pipeline that has been able to go through.
03:56And more on the way?
03:57More are proposed for the territory.
04:01And we don't know if that will actually come to fruition because of the economy and the
04:08fact that fracked gas, there's a lot of other players globally in terms of LNG.
04:17But they are proposing to double the capacity of the current coastal gas link pipeline,
04:21which would have huge implications for us and our ability to access the territory and
04:27also for the environment.
04:29Because they would be feeding these compressor stations with fracked gas, with gas, instead
04:36of electricity.
04:37So there would be lots of burn off and flaring from those projects.
04:41And your reaction when you see that your neighbors to the south, the United States, they've just
04:48named as their energy secretaries, somebody who does exactly that, fracking.
04:53Yes, exactly.
04:54And so we know that the government and industry are working very closely together along with
05:00the RCMP and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
05:03The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have their own specific unit called the CIRG, Community
05:10Industry Response Group, that's responsible specifically for protecting industry in Canada
05:17and in BC.
05:18So they have their own police, you know, private mercenaries to do their work, to push through
05:23projects when indigenous people have title over the land and have not provided free,
05:28prior and informed consent for these projects.
05:31It's not been, again, it's not been a great week with the news cycle.
05:36There was an underwhelming final communique from the annual UN climate summit that took
05:43place in Azerbaijan.
05:45Failure to reach an agreement over the weekend at a summit to limit the world's plastics,
05:50which are made with some of the oil and gas that come out of those lands we've been talking
05:55about.
05:57How do you build a coalition in these circumstances of those who can oppose this kind of move
06:04and make it about more than just beyond one piece of land, but about the whole planet?
06:10Well, this is not just an indigenous problem.
06:14It is a world problem.
06:16And if people don't start paying attention to climate change, it's going to impact the
06:21whole world.
06:22And I always tell people it's not our, just our responsibility.
06:27It's every individual.
06:29What are you going to tell your children?
06:32Your part was in destroying the planet or saving it.
06:36And if there's nothing left for your children and your grandchildren, no fresh water to
06:40drink, no food to eat and everybody's starving, what are you going to say?
06:45Our part was in preventing this or allowing it, or did you try to do something to stop
06:51it?
06:52What's been the reaction to the documentary?
06:55We have a lot of people that really liked it.
06:59And a lot of people said it is inspiring them and waking something up in them that they
07:05didn't realize was there until they watch the documentary.
07:10That everybody was connected.
07:12At some point in your life, you were connected to your land.
07:16Your ancestors were connected to the land before consumerism and capitalism took over.
07:22A lot of people have lost that connection and that it awakens that light that is already
07:28in you, but it's dimmed because of capitalism.
07:32There was this moment in time a couple of years back where, when everybody was under
07:38lockdown, there was this reflection on what Freda just described.
07:44And now that seems to be ancient history, even though it was only three, four years
07:48ago.
07:50I think that globally people are waking up and we've seen since the reoccupations of
07:56our territories in the last decade, as you see in the film, there's a lot more people
08:01that are rising up.
08:02There's a lot more indigenous people that are rising up and a lot of support for indigenous
08:07sovereignty and title to the land because our laws are based on the sustainability of
08:13the land and living with it in a sustainable way.
08:16And so lots of organizations, lots of grassroots people, lots of other nations are starting
08:23to support and get behind indigenous law because it offers a sustainable future for everybody.
08:32And beyond obviously promoting the documentary, what brings you to Europe and what are your
08:39thoughts being here?
08:41I think for ourselves, we came to meet other people that are trying to protect the land
08:48that are in the climate justice movement and also to make those connections.
08:53That's how we've been successful in our movement and successful in creating allies and relationships
09:00is by going and meeting people face to face and seeing how we can support others and how
09:04they can support our struggle as well.
09:07What's your thoughts visiting Paris, a city where we're often struggling over these issues
09:14of how environmentally friendly it should be, what's the right balance between the automobile
09:19and the citizen and what's your first reaction here?
09:26I think people, I say, have to wake up because we're sleeping.
09:30I used to be sleeping way back when I used to be working in economic development and
09:36I pretty much was sleeping until I realized how much we were losing.
09:41And when I reconnected back to the land, then something in me came back alive.
09:46What was the trigger point?
09:47I think seeing so much destruction and less land base left for me to go visit when I was
09:53going on my holidays, my two week holidays, I would go to the land and I realized every
09:58time we went back, there was more and more destruction and I said, if I just keep coming
10:03back and don't say anything, there's going to be nothing left for my children, my grandchildren,
10:08my great grandchildren.
10:10And even for the whole world, we're all connected by water and if we don't protect that water,
10:15which we are dependent to drink, we can't sustain ourselves without water and our people,
10:20we depend on the land for our food and our medicines.
10:23And if we don't sustain that, we'll be dependent on the consumeristic portion, which doesn't
10:30heal a lot of the diseases that our medicine can.
10:34Frida Husen, Molly Wickham, the documentary is called Yinta.
10:37I know your producers are pushing for it to be considered for the Academy Awards.
10:42Let's keep our fingers crossed for you.
10:44Thank you so much for joining us here.
10:45Thank you so much.