Women Fighting Tar Sands Across North America

Last week, an all-female delegation led by 1997 Nobel Peace Prize winner and Nobel Women’s Initiative Chair Jody Williams set out to Alberta and British Columbia in an effort to learn about the impacts of tar sands oil extraction and pipeline and tanker projects on women and their communities. Williams was joined by a group of women from the United States, Canada and Kenya who are all leaders in their work on environmental, social justice, and tribal issues. The delegation met with over 200 women from 13 communities, including Fort McMurray, Burns Lake Fort McKay, Prince George, Smithers, Terrace and Kitimat. They also met with aboriginal community leaders from the Nadleh Wu’ten and the Saik’uz Nations, and government and oil industry representatives – listening, learning, and bringing attention to how tar sands are affecting the lives of women and their communities in Western Canada. They heard how these communities have faced contaminated water, increased health issues, and communities divided by issues of poverty and the fear of speaking out against the oil industry. Women and communities across the continent stand to be affected by the climate change, air pollution, water pollution, and pipeline and tanker spills that tar sands expansion would cause. Many are becoming community leaders and raising their voices against tar sands.

The tar sands underlie an area of the Boreal forest approximately the size of Florida; to date, tar sands mining has caused the creation of 65 square miles of toxic waste lakes, which are leaching 3 million gallons per day into the Athabasca River and watershed. First Nation communities have inhabited these regions for generations, with hunting, fishing and trapping playing a major component of their livelihoods. But in recent years, communities downstream from the tar sands have seen major changes in their land, water and communities alongside the growth of tar sands extraction: an abnormal number of fish with strange tumors, high rates of rare cancers. People in Alberta are worried. In a trip blog by Jody Williams, she writes:

I keep thinking about all the women we have met with who talk about all the breathing problems of the children in the communities… I keep hearing the voices of the women who said, ‘You can’t eat money and once our territory is ruined, we can’t get it back. Once our water is gone, we can’t get it back.’

Despite fear of the tar sands industry, people are fighting. Crystal Lameman of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation addressed the delegation about what her community is doing to fight for their rights and livelihood: The Beaver Lake Cree’s rights to hunt and fish for all time are enshrined in Treaty 6, but the tar sands industry has been infringing on their rights – using and polluting their land without their permission. So they are suing the Government of Canada; in March 2012, the Beaver Lake Cree were granted a trial for over 17,000 treaty violations.