You know them when you see them, places
on the Earth that are set apart, places that transform us,
sacred places.
When you're connected to the land and everything
that's out here, and you know.
You know you don't own it.
It owns you.
But now, the relentless drive to exploit
all of the Earth's riches has thrust people across the globe
into a struggle between ancient beliefs and industrial demand.
Indigenous people are faced with the largest mining
corporations of the world, have been for years.
In Papua New Guinea, villagers resist
forced relocation and destruction of sacred sites.
This is my land.
I'm standing on my land.
You have no right.
And in northern Canada, First Nations people
are divided over the oil sands industry
that provides jobs but threatens rivers, forests,
and their lives.
What am I supposed to do?
We're scared to eat the fish, and that's all I know.
Native people have a sacred relationship with the Earth.
We must keep restoring that relationship
and that power of place.
We've been here in this village settlement
for 6 and 1/2 thousand years.
The river and the environment and the biodiversity
provides for us and sustains our life.
We, in return, regard the land, the environment,
and the river as sacred.
The canal is a big significance.
Being river people, we use normal canoes
for fishing and farming.
Then we have ceremonial canoes.
Making and launching of a ceremonial canoe
is a very big communal practice.
The chanting signifies the development
of the ceremonial canoe, and we have blessings
during initial maiden voyages.
Bozeman villagers have been preparing for the canoe's
maiden voyage for two months.
Traditionally, the villagers would throw spears
to prepare the men for war.
Today, the barrage of fruit is a celebration
of the bounty of the land and a reminder to the warriors
to continue defending the river.
Just north of Australia lies the country of Papua New Guinea,
until recently one of the world's
last unexplored regions.
With more than 800 languages, PNG
is a place of stunning cultural diversity.
Its many islands were colonized and Christianized
by Germany, Britain, and Australia,
but first contact with the West didn't come to some regions
until the 1930s.
When the country gained independence in 1975,
it took a radical step.
It recognized the land rights of its indigenous people
in its new constitution and pledged
to protect the environment for future generations.
There is a lot of connection that we
Papua New Guineans as indigenous people have with our land.
That's where our culture is based.
Land is equivalent to money in Western societies.
It is our life support system.
Without land, we are non-existent.
Land is something that people talk to.
A Papua New Guinean doesn't just drop a seed in the garden.
He's uttering some words.
He's praying to the spirits.
We believe that our spirit lives on with us
where we are on the land, and really, just
in the caves, and the trees, and in the seas.
And because of debt, we protect our land and our environment,
and it is sacred to us.
Like the villagers in Bozeman, 85% of Papua New Guineans
still live off the land.
In our culture, food is the center of life.
All riches have developed from food.
We farm largely on the banks of the Ramu River.
Ramu becomes the center for us.
In our language, we say it's a modest breast.
We're able to drink from it freely.
We're able to fish, and we're able to feast.
We're able to produce new life because of Ramu.
But many people want to leave this life behind.
People are just living like our forefathers,
no change in their lives.
Government services have not reached them.
Medicine, schools, hospitals, infrastructure, nothing.
They want to develop like other people.
They want to come out of the bush.
Now the promise of infrastructure
that has been elusive in the jungles and highlands
is coming from an unexpected source.
China Metallurgical Group, or MCC,
broke ground on a nickel mine above the Ramu River
in 2008, naming it Ramu NiCo.
The mining project, with an expenditure of billions,
is going to bring in everything, all the education that we need,
all the health services.
This generation of people may have never gone
to a supermarket to buy food.
Tomorrow, I want them to go to the supermarket.
Tomorrow, I want them to have an education.
MCC's mine site lies 75 kilometers southwest
of the provincial capital of Madang,
on a highland plateau called Kurumbukari.
About 1,000 villagers' homes and gardens
were on top of one of the richest mineral
deposits in the country.
They have ordered the villagers to move
into their sacred mountain, and everyone
has left except two brothers.
All the people in the village know
it's a taboo area and a no-go zone,
and so the people didn't feel right to move to a land
that they see as sacred.
If people are being asked to move away from their land,
how do we talk about this?
Because if our government is not going to talk on our behalf,
who do we talk with?
I am very happy.
What's everybody unhappy about?
I'm very happy.
David (INAUDIBLE) signed the agreement
leasing the Kurumbukari land to the nickel mine.
He promised new houses would be built for the people on Snake
Mountain.
It's got electricity.
It's got water.
It's got septic toilet.
It's a very good house.
It's like a hotel.
For the people in this area, this project is a lifesaver.
It's a godsend.
People have been colonized, and one
of the mindset that people have is
that they expect outsiders to come and deal
with your problems, but this is not the case.
Outsiders are coming, and they're taking
advantage of those people.
OK, you.
John Chitoa and Rosa Koian are leaders of the Bismarck Ramu
Group, a grassroots organization that
works to educate communities about the issues surrounding
development.
At Bismarck Ramu, we try to make Papua New Guineans believe
in themselves.
So we have media.
We have the court.
We are also working with people on the ground.
Our philosophy is that we want development
that our indigenous people, our people in the country,
can take control.
From Kurumbukari, the mined ore travels
through a 135-kilometer pipeline to a new refinery
at Basamuk Bay.
Here, along the Rai coast, Ramu NiCo
encountered another dispute over a sacred site.
This has been our site where our cemetery has been.
They have entered our country, Papua New Guinea,
and without respect for our environment,
our cultural sites, which has been clearly marked and known
to them before they set foot to this land.
Look at what they have done to our land.
We just can't accept it.
While Mellombo was visiting the cemetery site,
Ramu NiCo security ordered him to leave,
saying he was trespassing.
I was here on the 12th of December
last year, telling not to remove the cemetery and (INAUDIBLE).
We get to this.
And the Mineral Resource Authority
wrote to him to say do not remove the cemetery.
Do you understand that?
The governor immediately wrote to the provincial administrator
and directed him to speak to the Chinese
and tell them that they couldn't dig this up.
That didn't happen.
The Chinese just went ahead and dug it up anyway.
This is my land.
I'm standing on my land.
You have no right.
Go back to Mongolia.
This is our mine site.
The permit actually says you can't disturb the sacred sites,
but there has been no consequences of this breach.
This is Papua New Guinea.
I think so.
This is your country.
But here, this (INAUDIBLE) working area.
But you have no right to remove my cemetery.
It's a protected right to government.
No!
When the Chinese or the MCC came into Papua New Guinea,
they thought that the land was owned by the government.
97% of the land in Papua New Guinea
is owned by native people.
Only 3% of it is owned by the government.
I shed tears for this cemetery.
So when they come in and establish the refinery,
they can dig out anything under it
and think that nothing would happen.
Now, that's not the case here.
So go and talk to them, not me.
But Sama Mellombo and MCC were fighting an even bigger battle,
a lawsuit threatening to halt its operations entirely.
The Chinese want to dump 5 million tons of hot mine waste
tailings into the sea at a depth of 150 meters,
and they call that deep sea tailings placement.
MCC is the fourth mine in the country
to direct its waste pipe into the sea,
saying that gravity will pull the mining waste to the ocean
floor.
With Bismarck Ramu Group's support, Mellombo, and later,
more than 1,000 landowners, hired Tiffany Twivey
to sue the mine.
It is likely that this deep sea tailing disposal
of 5 million tons of hot tailings each year
for a period of 20 years will commit
gross environmental harm.
First to be impacted by the tailings waste
will be the village of (INAUDIBLE), directly
across the bay from the refinery.
They're very concerned because the sea is basically
their life support system.
They fish from the sea.
They wash from the sea.
Their daily lives entirely depend on the sea.
We catch fish down at 400 meters,
and the tailing would be dropped at about 150 meters.
It would be disastrous for the people.
We will lose the environment.
We will lose the sea.
If ever fish die in the ocean, if ever somebody goes sick,
project stops, and a full-scale investigation
will be done as to what caused that.
Deep sea tailings disposal is used by mining companies
because it's the cheapest method, because they
can pump it into the sea and it's out of sight, out of mind.
How on Earth is it going to be contained once it's in the sea
and sloshing around?
Critics of Ramu NiCo fear it will
follow the historic precedent of Ok Tedi, a copper mine that's
been disposing its tailings directly
into a river for decades.
It is considered one of the most destructive industrial sites
in the world.
I always look at the Fly River, which is Papua New Guinea's
largest river.
The Fly River is where the Ok Tedi
mine is-- that river is dead.
In 2011, PNG's Supreme Court approved the Ramu mine's plan
to dispose its waste into the sea.
We have not reaped the full benefit of all this mineral
(INAUDIBLE) taking place in the country,
and I don't think Ramu will make us any better.
So where is all the money going?
The money is certainly not coming to Papua New Guinea.
And look at the state of the country.
Just look at the state of the country.
A majority of population is living in poverty.
Surely you can see the frustration
that Papua New Guineans feel.
We brought in the Chinese early on for this Ramu NiCo
because that's $800 million US development.
No country can reject it, particularly a developing
country like ours.
But that funding doesn't seem to go down to the ground.
It doesn't go to the ground.
It's not my job as a politician to hand them the money.
Your job as prime minister is to ensure that your people are
well looked after.
I know.
In many other places, they starve.
They die on the streets.
Papua New Guineans don't die the streets.
People will--
In 2011, Somare was found guilty of tax evasion.
Since leaving office, he has come under investigation
for misuse of public funds.
PNG's auditor has estimated that government officials
steal $356 million a year from state coffers.
Greed.
Money is the biggest driving force.
God put everything here, and there's plenty for everyone,
but one man wants it all for himself.
And none of us can stand aside or stand up
and say you've had enough.
You've got enough.
The Ramu nickel operation is no longer a development issue.
It's more a moral issue now because you're dealing
with the lives of the people.
In Bismarck Ramu, we're using modern technology
to tell the world, please don't take our land.
This is our life.
Poin Caspar, a Bismarck Ramu organizer from Bozeman,
is working with villagers to record information
about their sacred site along the river, a taboo area
no one is allowed to enter.
Scientists now see these forbidden places
as sanctuaries, where traditional knowledge protects
biodiversity and natural wealth.
We have a process which is focused on people empowerment.
When and if the people are in control
of the land and resources, they can
withstand those external threats that are coming in.
Although Ramu NiCo won't be dumping directly
to the river, when the mine-- when rain falls,
all the chemicals which are used out there
is going to be washed into the tributaries,
and from the tributaries, it ends up in the Ramu River.
About 100,000 to 200,000 people live around the Ramu River,
and they depend on it for their survival.
Ramu River-- it's our livelihood.
Once it's gone, that's it.
MCC acknowledges that erosion is a major concern.
The company says it is planting grasses to stabilize the soil
and reduce runoff.
They are actually trying to kill the Ramu.
We have been told already there are contaminants.
They already entered the river.
We are frightened.
The richness in PNG is like a curse.
The government must decide to what extent
we sacrifice our land and our environment for the purpose
of economic development.
The way we are going, we're going
to fail our responsibility to the next generation.
We're in despair.
We're sinking.
Nobody in the world was concerned about us, nobody.
Maybe this project has got its negatives.
Maybe it's got some positives.
But very, very important is something is happening.
These mines are not for Papua New Guinea.
They are not saving Papua New Guinea's interests,
and Papua New Guineans are not stupid anymore.
Papua New Guineans know enough, and we know what is coming.
MCC is interfering with the Ramu and its right
to live and breathe.
We're fierce, and if you're going
to cut off the very source of life,
we are most likely to fight, and we will fight.
I believe that people should not have
to trade their ecosystem for running water,
for electricity, and a clinic.
What do we mean, development?
For what?
For whom?
Is it going to contribute to us?
From Papua New Guinea to Northern Canada,
foreign demand drives the industrialization
of native lands.
Nickel from the Ramu NiCo mine will
become stainless steel appliances, cell phone
batteries, and jet engines.
A world away in Alberta, native people
who have lived off the bounty of boreal forests
and abundant rivers find themselves
at the center of the global oil industry,
mining the tar sands to fuel American cars.
We have run out of places to conquer, new places to mine,
new places to dam.
The remaining oil resources are still there,
but they are the places that it is
untenable or difficult to get.
They are now coming to those most remote places.
The Ramu nickel mine, tar sands of Alberta.
What we're seeing happening is the largest development ever
in the history of mankind.
Tar sands is the civil rights issue of my generation.
Right out of high school, they start recruiting
us to work in the tar sands.
And growing up, I never knew anything
about the environmental effects.
When you're 16 and 17 and you're getting 15 to 2,000 bucks
every two weeks, it's like, I know what I'm going to do.
You got the taste for the money.
When I got in there, I was amazed-- you know, mesmerized
by-- look at this plant.
Wow, it looks like a city.
I remember when I first got on a heavy hauler,
and this was the biggest truck in the world on the biggest
construction project in history.
I was just like, my holy cow.
I'm way up there, and pickup trucks were like this big.
Everything was tiny.
I was just like, wow, this is awesome.
I like driving big trucks.
I like driving trucks.
I was just like, man, I love my job.
I'll come to work, do this every day.
And then it started losing its thrill.
600 miles from the Arctic Circle in northern Canada,
ancestors of the Athabasca Chipewyan, Mikasew Cree,
and Metis have lived for more than 10,000 years.
Their boreal forest and wetlands, a diverse and fragile
ecosystem, store twice as much carbon
as a tropical rain forest.
For millennia, the First Nations people
didn't know that the land beneath their feet, where they
fished, hunted, and buried their dead,
would become a treasure coveted by people around the world.
And they didn't anticipate the cost
of unearthing that treasure for their communities,
their health, and the land they hold sacred.
The next thing you know, I started hearing the calls
from back home.
This person's sick.
And this person-- we just buried a person.
This person's dead.
Are you going to come to the funeral?
You better come see your uncle.
He's on his deathbed.
And I'm like, what the hell is going on here?
The First Nations communities of Fort Chipewyan and Fort McKay,
once frontier trading posts for beaver fur and muskrat pelts,
are now at the center of the third-largest petroleum
deposit on Earth.
Corporations from France, Norway, China, the United
States, and dozens of other countries
have applied for licenses to extract the oil.
The bitumen mixed with the soil of ancient hunting grounds
is called oil sands or tar sands.
Oil sands are basically, in very simple terms,
oil found in dirt beneath the surface.
And we use different processes to remove the oil
from the sand.
The potential is huge.
What we talk about that's recoverable
is about 170 billion barrels.
Canada is right now the largest supplier of oil and gas
to the United States.
And I'm pretty proud of the fact that our industry
provides the dignity and respect of a job to 456,000 people.
I went to work, and I looked around.
And I was just like, holy crap.
There's no trees for miles.
And I was just like this and thinking, how do they
get used to this smell?
How did I get used to this smell?
And I thought, I've got to get out of here.
It's just that overwhelming anxiety.
I had to get out of here.
And I left, and I put my badge down, and I said I quit.
The oil sands region is a territory
the native people gave up in an 1899 peace
agreement called Treaty 8.
The Canadian government promised each indigenous band
would retain access to fishing and hunting
on their traditional lands.
To me, what is sacred on Mother Earth
is whatever we take off the land, the medicines
and everything that the Mother Earth provides us.
The water is very sacred because we need that to survive.
The air is sacred to me because we breathe in the air to live.
Our elders are our traditional scientists.
They consider everything sacred, from the water, the air,
the rocks, the plants, the trees.
This is all sacred because everything there provides life.
All of this come from the land, and this
is what we're protecting.
After quitting Syncrude, Mike (INAUDIBLE)
was hired by his band, the Athabasca Chipewyan First
Nation to make maps to protect sacred sites.
If we don't do something about it now,
this map is going to be totally different in about 100 years.
That lake will be smaller.
That lake will probably disappear.
That one will be totally gone.
Coming up the Athabasca River is the toxic sludge
from the tar sands.
All this goes down.
They got (INAUDIBLE) right by Fort Chip.
And where do we get our drinking water from?
The lake.
We can't go into any areas to hunt.
We can't do anything that's going
to allow us to practice our traditional rights.
That's infringement on our treaty.
That's breaking the treaty.
You can see the smoke coming out of the smoke stacks.
You can see it with a naked eye on a clear day.
For as far as my eyes can see, there's
tar sands under all of that boreal forest.
Just by looking at it, that's about 80 kilometers,
and a lot of it is for open pit.
So that's everything.
All this-- gone.
So whatever you see at Syncrude and Suncor around the sites
there, that's how it's going to look right here.
Industry uses heated water from the Athabasca River
to separate the oil from the sand.
Creating one barrel of oil takes four barrels of fresh water,
2,000 cubic feet of natural gas, and two tons of oil sands,
and industries' need will only escalate as it goes deeper
into the earth.
The majority of the reserves are too far under the ground
to develop through mining.
And as a result, we need to look to new technologies
such as in-situ or SEGD.
In the SEGD process, steam liquefies the oil, which
is then pumped to the surface.
So it has a lot less surface disturbance,
and overall appears to be a lot less impact on the environment.
That's completely false.
They get in there with high density seismic lines,
and they cut the place to shreds,
so its function as a natural landscape
will be lost over a much greater area of land
than the surface mining will ever be able to disturb.
Howdy.
How are you doing?
In 2001, Dr. John O'Connor took an assignment at the clinic
in Fort Chipewyan.
Yeah.
This is where it hurts, right there.
As I got to know the community, I
began to find serious cancer cases, some of which
were occurring in numbers that were really alarming.
Given the fact that it was a traditional community where
80% of the people lived off the land, way off the beaten track,
and its pristine location, it made no sense to me.
We used to go anywhere around here in any of the rivers, any
of the lakes, and we could take water and make some tea,
and now we can't do it.
Even when you boil it, you can't drink it.
Once this river was characterized
by the elders as a food basket, and it was a river of plenty.
Today, the river has become barren
in the minds of the people.
We've always acknowledged that there are impacts.
What we said is that most of it is natural.
Downstream of the oil sands mines,
you cannot measure that impact from those discharges when it
gets to fully-mixed conditions in a large river like
the Athabasca River.
Hundreds of tons of these toxic compounds
are entering the system annually,
and these are not natural in origin.
Scientists have found lead, mercury,
and other petroleum-based toxins at much higher levels
than government and industry report.
There's a soup of toxic chemicals going up.
If you think of that airborne pollution coating all
the vegetation, any animals that come in there to graze
are going to be taking up more arsenic
and any other pollutants.
If you're getting a lot of your food from the moose,
from fishes, from water fowl, this is a huge concern.
There may be a (INAUDIBLE) in this area here, which is good.
This is very good stuff.
I can dry this up, crush it up.
I use this a lot in the sweat lodge too.
The most natural wild tea mint there is.
First test drill hole was the big one up--
it was southeast of here.
Who was drilling there?
That's Suncor now.
Yeah.
That smells good.
See where they drilled the test hole here?
And I trap here.
So it's a bit disturbance to animal life.
And now they're moving away because of the noise activity
and vehicles on the road.
Can we get a waypoint?
When I first started doing the sacred sites,
I was going to each area, and GPSing it, taking pictures,
writing a report.
This information was put on maps.
Later, it was kind of used for this
is our protected sites that we need, as a First Nation.
This says just how many feet away
and this is one little section.
They here-- there's two things that
provide sustanance-- cranberries for human consumption
and the lichen for the woodland caribou that are in the area.
Because now that whole area-- no caribou or nobody
will ever go back in that area to use it again.
In order to make the bitumen come out of the--
For four decades, government has been
industry's most enthusiastic advocate,
spending billions of taxpayer dollars
on research and subsidies.
Heavy, heavy government funding on the front end
to create the research to figure out how do we, economically,
harvest this resource.
It's the fuel that runs your car.
Bubble gum, toothpaste-- it all starts right here,
in the oil sands.
To address moaning public concern,
the Alberta government launched a $25 million
PR campaign, targeting their biggest customer-- the United
States.
I'm very excited to know that our good friends in Canada,
here, in Alberta, have an oil supply that
can help fuel America for years to come instead of having
to buy more oil from Mideast regimes that
don't like us very much.
Full speed ahead, when it comes to oil sands development.
In June of 2000, I was hired by Suncor
as a heavy equipment operator.
I've operated a grader, a dozer, a shovel.
For about six months now, I've been
in the drainage department.
All I know is I take water samples and the water's good.
The reason I chose to work out here--
you know, it's financial gain, to begin with.
I make excellent money.
Nobody's going to come out and hand me money
to put my son through school.
Our people need to make a living.
We wanted to see our people benefit from what's
going on in our backyard.
Combined and between our joint ventures, last year,
we did about half a billion dollars in business.
I chose to work here for my family
to have a better way of life.
And Suncor has given me that.
One of the environmental costs that
has come with that better way of life
is the growth of large lakes of toxic sludge.
Sprawling over 65 square miles, these tailings ponds
are deadly to migrating birds and other wildlife.
There are literally billions of liters
of tailings produced annually.
They're located along the Athabasca River.
It's about the worst place in the world
you could place a pond that contains a lot of toxins.
It's a recipe for disaster.
As the elders used to tell me-- everything
has life on this earth.
Water has a spirit.
And once we pollute that water so much,
we're going to kill that spirit and there will be no life.
So while it's alive, save it.
And Mother Earth is alive.
Well, I started into the commercial fishing industry
at a very young age.
Throughout the years, we had very healthy fish
in this Lake Athabasca.
Today, we have deformed fish on the northern pike,
the pickerel, even the white fish.
So people are very afraid to use those fish for a meal,
you know?
For human consumption.
And this is the one from December from.
Boy.
Look at the tumor on that thing.
And that's the sort of thing that people in Fort Chip
have been complaining about for almost 20 years.
And you can imagine how people seeing a fish like that
are going to react.
And basically, they're going to run to the store
and buy a bag of chips rather than eat fish, which, I think,
is tragic.
The jury is out on what's causing
all of these deformities, but, certainly,
one of the very well known causes of deformities
are contaminants in the water.
It's been known for quite a while that, in some cases,
the levels of mercury are 10 times
above fisher guidelines in the west end of Lake Athabasca.
You can taste the aftertaste of the oil,
and the mercury, and stuff like that.
So when they say they're not polluting the water-- how can
you say they're not when the proof is all there?
They ask pregnant women here not to eat more than a couple
of fish while you're pregnant.
In my granny's time, that was not
heard of-- no-- because that's what we lived off
and she lived off.
What am I supposed to do?
Be scared to eat the fish and that's all I know?
About $4 million a year is spent in monitoring the Athabasca
River by the industry.
In fact, the province of Alberta continues to rate
the water quality of the Athabasca River as good.
Industrial activity emits compounds-- contaminants,
if you will.
And we just have to make sure that it's done
in a managed way that's safe.
Industry has a big influence in Alberta.
If industry wants water, government gives them water.
It's just a joke.
At the end, the rubber stamp comes out and it's approved.
The Alberta government hit the environment department
and gutted the scientific personnel
that were there to police the activities of the oil sands
industry.
So if they don't have people to police,
what's going on out here?
Then the laws and the regulations are meaningless.
I did a recent study where we found over 6,000 incidents.
Some of these were 10 million leader tailing
spills or huge pipeline breaks.
No evidence of enforcement.
By knitting industry and government so closely together
and shutting out the public, it's
become a fundamentally undemocratic and dangerous
system.
They do all these tests and try to minimize it.
But we're not stupid.
We see.
We see and we feel.
You've been through quite a bit.
Yes.
In 1988, I had prostate cancer and colon cancer.
Right.
At the same time.
And the latest one I've been diagnosed risk
is hairy cell leukemia.
It's cancer in the blood.
Yeah.
But the thing that puzzles me is the cancer that my wife had.
My wife comes from a family of 14
and she's the only one who got cancer.
And she's the only one who lived in Fort Chip.
So she had lymphoma?
Yes.
And did it spread?
It spread like wildfire.
Did it?
She didn't last long.
Really?
Right.
That's a shame.
Yeah.
You must miss her.
Yeah.
We have uncovered clusters of illness--
fatal and non-fatal illness-- that cannot be explained in any
other way other than that they come from environmental changes
that are happening upstream from the community.
There's no known sicknesses in either side of my family.
The next thing you know, I see my uncle.
And the way he looked-- frail.
Whereas the year before, he was healthy.
Then all of sudden, it came up that Dr. O'Connor
said it was a rare cancer that's being found in the community.
20 kinds of cancer have been found in this isolated bush
town, including rare tumors linked to toxins in petroleum.
But even though the Alberta cancer board
found 30% more cancer than expected,
the government says there is no proven
link between the oil sands and these health problems.
I think the modern world faces an increase
in cancer in general.
And we live in a very different environment.
We're surrounded by development everywhere.
And I think it's important that folks in Fort Chip and Fort
MacKay get all the answers that they
need before they make a call on really what is happening
in their community.
I don't know.
It's just overwhelming, seeing my family members who
are sad and, year, after year, after year,
passing on from different illnesses.
The natural part of death doesn't seem natural anymore.
This is all too much.
Something's not right.
These guys are coming into our homeland, taking our resources,
and now people are dying from it.
And the government's allowing this to happen.
That's why we say it's a form of genocide.
It's smallpox happening all over again.
And they're making money by doing it.
Canada and the States are allowing
this to happen because they want every single ounce of oil,
uranium, gold, diamonds-- anything that's in that area.
They want every ounce of it at the cost of our lives.
Wherever the oil companies went, they
destroyed the way of life of people.
Then that's what they're doing to us here, too.
They want to leave us with nothing.
Many people in the First Nations communities
get discouraged and feel they've been let down.
They feel they've been taken advantage of.
And I guess I have a hard time understanding
that because, for me, as an individual,
I'm responsible for my life.
And it's important that I take control
and that I do what I need to do to make myself happy.
And I don't know that they often feel
they have that sense of ownership
to their life to do that.
The United States imports almost 2 million barrels of crude oil
from Canada every day.
Oil sands producers plan to triple output by 2025,
requiring the construction of controversial pipelines
to meet growing demand in the US and Asia.
Where do they get their gas and oil
from in the gas tanks in the gas stations in cities?
From here.
For them to drive their car, it's
going to be what killed them.
What's happening here is going to happen
to the rest of the world.
It's just a matter of time.
It should be a challenge to every person on this planet
to look towards reducing consumption.
But that said, you are going to need
hydrocarbons for quite a while.
We can't just go back to the Stone Age.
When I say stop the, you say tar sands.
Stop the--
Tar sands.
Stop the--
Tar sands.
We want them to say no to the tar sands.
They emit more emissions than entire countries.
International protesters have brought the issues
to the world stage, targeting investors, consumers,
and policymakers.
Tar sands.
Shut down--
Tar sands.
My message is for Chipewyan.
Being where I live right now-- take a look around.
We're not alone in this struggle.
I do live in two worlds.
I work at Suncor for six days and I come home for six days.
When I go to work at Suncor, that is just
a tiny part of who I am.
That's not who I am.
To me, this is home.
And I come home to rejuvenate myself, to re-balance myself,
to come back to nature.
We're raised off the land.
We always made moose meat and dry meat.
From when I was little girl, I learned
to pick medicines with my kokom, which was my grandma.
We always picked berries in the fall.
That was, basically, our staple for the winter.
When I was in the mine and looking at the earth being torn
up-- because to us, the earth is our mother-- I
found it very difficult. I would question myself,
why I was there.
I know that we're doing damage to the earth.
A lot of times I say prayers and I put tobacco down.
And I always ask for forgiveness for what I am doing.
I was originally asked to come to Fort Chip
to do a sacred sites project.
He was a good, old man, right?
One of the things I was told was that it
was for future generations, so that we
have this information archived.
And that's when I put everything on a jump drive.
And I remember holding onto the actual memory stick
and thinking, this is what the future
is going to have because there's going to be no more land left
to go back to.
And all we can have of our culture
would be on this jump drive for our children to view and see.
And that was where-- I knew, from that point,
that it had to be protected.
That land had to be more than just this little piece
of plastic.
I thought, this couldn't be what was left of our future.
I believe that power that we have
as people doesn't come from us, it comes from the creator
and from the sources of power that are there on the land.
We may not have all the guns, we don't have all the pens,
and we don't have all the courts, but we have that power.
And that's what keeps people able to battle for so
long against such hard odds.
I want my kids, my grandchildren to come here and tell
a completely different story about this map.
I want them to tell us that yeah, industry--
they worked here at one time and now they're
out there cleaning up the mess that they made so far.
I vow that my grandchildren will tell a total opposite story
than I'm telling right now.