Tar+Sands+People+of+Canada


 * Tar Sands People of Canada **

In more modern day, the Tar Sands in the area of Fort McKay, Alberta, Canada, where the Native Americans live, work, play, hunt and fish, is surrounded by today’s oil refineries. Presumably due to the toxic emissions and sludge that the refineries are pumping into the air and water ways, everyone and everything around the outlying area is getting sick and dying. Diseases such as cancer, blood-born abnormalities and autoimmune diseases are very prevalent among the Indians. Their flora and fauna are getting sick and dying. The rivers and streams where they fish are polluted; the fish and moose are sick and diseased. Everything sacred to the Native Americans is slowly slipping away from their grasp; their culture, their traditions, their lives.

According to the //Tar Sands Watch// newsletter, the land that is predominately indigenous territory is being contaminated with toxic sludge. Tribes such as the Athabasca Chipewyan and the Mikisew Cree have aggressively objecting to the pollution and poisoning of their waterways, including the health hazards to their people and region.

A quote from George Poitras, former Chief of the Mikisew Cree First Nation reads: “My people are dying, and we believe British companies are responsible. My community, Fort Chipewyan in Alberta, Canada, is situated at the heart of the vast toxic moonscape that is the tar sands development. We lived in a beautiful area, but unfortunately, we find ourselves upstream from the largest fossil fuel development on earth. (sic) UK oil companies like BP, and banks like RBS, are extracting the dirtiest form of oil from out traditional lands, and we feat it is killing us.”

//Indigenous Environmental Network// states “Indigenous peoples (also known as as First Nations), in Canada are taking the lead to stop the largest industrial project on Mother Earth; the Tar Sands Gigaproject. Northern Alberta is ground zero with over 20 corporations operating in the tar sands sacrifice zone, with expanded development being planned.” The First Nations tribes land, ecosystems, cultural heritage and human health “are being sacrificed for oil money that has been termed a slow industrial genocide.”

The //Oil Sands Truth// reports that not only are devastating and terminal diseases caused by the oil refineries, but the Native Americans who work in the refineries are exposed to dangerous working conditions, including deadly explosions and industrial accidents. While they maintain that they cannot directly link the refinery plants are causing such destruction, they say you cannot ignore the overwhelming evidence that points in their direction of the Tar Sands infrastructure.



Citations: [|http://googleimages.com] - Tar Sands Enbridge Gateway Pipeline and Before & After - Mother Nature Network [|http://tarsandswatch.org] [] [] []